This might seem like a minor inconvenience, but you may be in graduate school much longer than you anticipate (see Reason 4), and a dispiriting workspace can wear on you over many years. The subject is lampooned in a promotional video for Adam Ruben’s recent book, Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School. (That such a book exists should give you pause.) When you are sitting in a basement breathing stale air and listening to the unrelenting sound of toilets flushing through the wall, your place in the university is made quite clear to you. Moreover, your lowly status is not lost on the undergraduates who come to see you during the “office” hours that you are required to keep as a teaching assistant (see Reason 41). At the end of every day, when you return home to the humble quarters that you probably share with others (because there is no other way to afford the rent), your status is made all the clearer.
Have you been stalking me, because you just perfectly described my office, situation, habits, and demeanor.
ReplyDeleteAhhh...so familiar....don't forget the colleagues who freak out if the windows are open in the summer for fresh air (since you may not have a/c) in your shared office...with the blinds on the windows pulled down...and uses your shared office as a dumping ground for his/her assorted sports kit which should have seen a washing machine at least a decade ago.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I'm trying to think of a way that this applies to grad school any more than it applies to any other career/lifestyle choice. Is there a way?
ReplyDeleteBenny, it doesn't. But the point is that the particular description of a grad students' workplace -- a dump -- should illuminate to a potential student the value their university places in them.
ReplyDelete@Benny: I'm pretty sure that most entry level positions don't involve getting "space" (not necessarily a desk or computer) in a dingy, darkly-lit basement of an office building with old furniture and facilities that have not been updated in years or decades. Some graduate student office spaces I've seen look more like an afterthought of building planning than places for actual productive work.
ReplyDeleteI lucked out in grad school getting my own new computer at a desk in a well-lit 3rd floor office. Other people are not so lucky.
Probably not. Most entry level positions come with a cubicle with no windows. To my understanding, these cubicles also suck the soul out of you.
DeleteI agree that people should really think and research before going to grad school, but I would not agree that this should be a deal breaker.
Benny, I'm currently sitting in a Starbucks working on my dissertation. As I do every day. I'm pretty sure most employers give even their lowliest workers some kind of space on the premises where they can do their work.
ReplyDeleteAs an unemployed electrical engineer (PhD) told me, "My consulting firm has tens of thousands of branch offices, all over the country."
DeleteAnonymous from above again...just to add how extra alienating it is when you get past the coursework stage and you can't come in to the department even if you wanted to (which, honestly, you probably won't) because you literally have no place to go.
ReplyDeleteI was a part-time RA at a large state university. I accepted the position contingent on my being able to work during daylight hours, as I commuted from thirty minutes away and had a daily evening responsibility. I discussed this with the faculty member for whom I was to work. Initially I shared a room with a table, with a number of other students; the equipment requirements of the job were such that I wound up working at "home" instead.
DeleteA few months after taking the position, a burst pipe flooded the department offices, which were moved into a room in the adjacent building. I was told that I would now have to use the new office after work hours (nights), and that this would be temporary. It was necessary for me to have access to the equipment in the office at this point.
I was issued a key card, which I found did not work. I asked the buildings and grounds staff about this and was told repeatedly that I must not be swiping the card correctly. Discussions with others revealed that the key cards were frequently non-functional. After repeated discussions, Buildings and Grounds issued me another key card, which I found did not work either. Neither did a third card. The faculty member I was working with came up with a solution. I could wait at night for his other RA working in the same room to arrive and let me in. After several nights of hours waiting outside by the office in the faint hope that the other RA would show up, I approached the faculty member again, who was now unhappy with the situation, and asked if we couldn't find some alternative. We could not. I was told I could choose to quit, which I didn't want to do.
At this juncture, I was spending most of my waking hours driving to or on campus, attending classes full-time, doing the related work, and trying to find some way to deal with the RA office situation. My spending went up because I now ate all meals on campus. Meanwhile I wasn't drawing my paycheck until I could get the situation resolved (my decision).
In the end I wound up dropping the RA position. The administrative offices remained in the "temporary" location for another semester.
Our grad students here share two to an office the same kind of offices that junior faculty get one to an office. They all get desktop computers etc. Faculty and grad student offices are interspersed. At my previous place in the US (R1 Economics) similar story but don't think there were computers in grad student offices. There was a computer lab when I first moved there and then later everyone had laptops. I was lucky as a grad student to be in a shared office (at least 10 of us) where I had a view of downtown Boston. That's now the seminar room, but grad students there still have shared offices interspersed with faculty offices (geography dept). I've also seen a small cubicle farm (no windows) with computers (Older models) at that university on the same floor as faculty offices. So there is quite a lot of variation. Maybe you should check this out if you can before accepting an offer.
ReplyDeleteThe basement, no windows and toilet sounds through the walls is SPOT ON because this describes my 'office' (it isn't one) perfectly except my 'office' comes complete with renovation sounds and asbestos dust as well. I win.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds all too familiar. When I was a TA working on a Master's, I was assigned an office (shared with five other TAs, of course) filled with musty furniture and located a ten minute walk away from the department. In the winter, the windows would ice over, and when it got sunny, the ice would melt into puddles, putting our computers and lives into danger since the outlets were located in the floor. There was also mysterious black ooze dripping from the ceiling onto the orange 1970s couch. Then, while working on my PhD at another school, I shared a poorly ventilated, closet-like windowless room in the basement with two other TAs. I could not help but spend a lot of time there, since I taught five days a week and the shared course materials were located in the office. That place drained the energy from me.
ReplyDeleteNow that I am fortunate (and extremely grateful) enough to be a guest researcher at another university, I actually have a beautiful (again, shared) office with two large windows, plenty of desk space, and new computers. I feel like royalty. However, I have been told that the office is temporary and I may be bumped from it at any time.
You might like this: "The Worst Building on the Campus":
ReplyDeletehttp://chronicle.com/article/The-Worst-Building-on-the/44886/
And how is this different from being stuck in a cubicle for 10 years at your crappy office job, only to get promoted to a bigger cubicle with no windows?
ReplyDeleteTo anon 2:30,
ReplyDeleteNot much difference between the two in that respect. But no one is advocating for a cubicle job on this blog, either. Not sure what your point is.
In lengthy, very interesting study into why people leave grad school, Barbara Lovitts found that shared office space makes a big difference in retention rates-- students who have shared office space are significantly more likely to complete their PhD than those who don't. Integration into the department raises completion rates. So even if you have a shitty office, at least you have an office. Many, many grad students aren't that lucky.
ReplyDelete