1. Graduate students receive no mentorship from older/more experienced faculty members. Except, sometimes, for male grad students. They get paid like apprentices, but they are not taught/guided as apprentices should be.
2. The guild system implies a gradual emancipation/progress to master status, but currently, a lot of degree holders enter the lectureship circuit and can never find a way to advance to a tenure-track position.
3. Tenure track positions have been dwindling over the years and are currently under attack as a whole.
4. In my generation there were tuition/fee waivers for grad students after you finished class work. Then they were phased out. This was at UCB.
j
----- Original Message -----
>> One American research university offers its PhD students
>> a salary of $1000 per semester for the "opportunity" to
>> design and teach a course for undergraduates, who are
>> each paying about $50,000 in tuition.
Doesn't this "deal" usually include tuition and fee waivers? I'm not sure the math is exactly right here.
And also: I don't think universities are the first to follow the guild system.
PhD student: roughly an apprentice, no?
/jordan
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