[Aardwolf]

The comments here are giving me more questions than answers...

I genuinely don't know what it's about. At my university, the work to do (5 years in my case) existed out of studying for exams, sometimes group projects to build something (not something usable outside of a presentation for points), and in the last year a thesis (not at all as publish-worthy as a phd paper). This spanned "bachelor" and "master" but those names were actually retrofitted to an older system.

The article and comments talk about labor by students in university.

My university was in Europe. Please enlighten me, do students do actual labor in US universities? I'd love to understand what this is about. Thanks!

[mason55]

In the US graduate students typically do "grunt work" as part of their program. For example, you might be a research assistant, where you help out with your professor's research. Or a teaching assistant, where you help a professor teach a low-level/intro class (things like grading or preparation of class materials). For this you receive a small stipend.

The original idea was that a professor takes you under his or her wing to teach you and help you with your research and in exchange you help out the professor with what they are doing. Nowadays graduate students feel like they're just being treated as cheap labor without the professor/university holding up their end of the bargain.

[Aardwolf]

As far as I understand the terminology, "bachelor" matches "undergrad student" and "master" matches "grad student". Is that right?

So this bachelor and master was just combined in one single 5-year program in my case.

Research, being teaching assistant, and writing papers was done by those who went for a PhD at my university, that is, after those 5 years, those who chose to do a PhD after receiving your master diploma.

Do you think it says something about the quality of the university, when master students were not teaching/writing papers/doing research, but simply doing exams as usual...? (Ok there was the thesis in the last year, but that was really more like a larger final project)

Most top universities in the world are indeed not in Europe, but in my country at least is was considered a good one.

[alistairSH]

See my sibling comment. But, yes, undergraduate = bachleors, graduate = masters or professional, post-graduate = PhD.

Typically, these labor issues revolve around post-graduate students who expect to be at school for many years. And not students who are just pursuing a Masters program, which only lasts a year or two.

[newen]

No...undergrad = bachelors. But graduate means both master's and phd. No one says graduate to mean solely master's. And post-graduate might be a vague term (no one uses it) but generally it means the same as just graduate.

[Aardwolf]

Alright, then it's quite similar after all, thanks!

[bzbarsky]

> In the US graduate students typically do "grunt work" as part of their program.

PhD students do that.

Most graduate students are not PhD students. Your typical Master's degree program does not include any gruntwork.

[alistairSH]

Yes, in the US, graduate students usually do some amount of work, either as teachers or researchers. Particularly if they are on track for a PhD and expect to take more than 2 years to finish their studies.

In the US, higher education usually progresses: * 4 years for a Bachelors (BA/BS) * 2-3+ years for a Masters (MA/MS) or professional degree (medicine, law, etc) * 3+ years for a PhD.