Because you’re worth it December 16, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, grad school, research, writing.Tags: advising, advisor, budget, funding, proposals
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I’ve gotten behind on blog reading, but I found a post by FSP from a couple weeks ago asking if grad students know what they’re worth.
I have a reasonably good idea of how much I cost as a grad student. I knew, at a minimum, I could throw my paycheck and tuition together. Also, after writing several proposals of my own, this has come to my attention once or twice. On one of my most recent proposals, I had a collaborator from a completely different field, and he needed a grad student to complete his research. I was rather stunned that this non-STEM grad student would make nearly half what a grad student in my field (well, either of them) typically makes. I’m glad I didn’t go into that particular field.
I am also aware that most STEM grad students are also cheap if you look at how much they could make going into industry rather than grad school. Let’s face it: tuition and a paycheck typically still doesn’t add up to a full-time paycheck + benefits + taxes…at least in one of my fields. (I’ll add that I’m not counting expenses for equipment use because, unless the student wrote the grant and is running the project, that’s the cost of running a project and not with having a student. The PI would still have that expense if s/he were performing the research him- or herself.) If money is the only thing you’re concerned about, how much you cost in grad school can be a bit disheartening when compared to your worth. On the other hand, knowing how much a PI typically gets for grants, the student is likely one of the more expensive items on the budget.
It surprises me, however, that this isn’t something most PIs discuss up front with their grad students. I understand that most people don’t get the opportunity to put together a proposal in grad school. It took me a while to get that because my husband, upon getting approval for his PhD project from his grad committee, sat down with his advisor and wrote it up for NSF. That was something he did even before he got deeply into his research. I had the erroneous impression that this was something pretty much everyone did on their way to getting a PhD. I have found out since then that this scenario may have been a somewhat unique case.
In reading the blogosphere over the past few years, I have frequently seen comments by professors about their students not understanding how expensive they are. It makes me wonder if some of that irritation is due to a lack of communication and would be alleviated by sitting down with the student and walking them through the process of writing a proposal and budget. Perhaps it’s naive, but I’m inclined to think it would help the student better understand the constraints, particularly financial, that their advisor may have.
I also blog at Engineer Blogs, home away from home to some of the best engineering blogs.
My advisor is very open and would tell us this if we asked but I think mostly forgets that we don’t know these things and don’t always remember to ask when we see each other in person. I had an assignment for their class that required us to make a budget and we talked about the expense of grad students at that time, perhaps just hard to remember if you’ve had that conversation with every member of your lab.