[fruffy]

As a current CS PhD in the US I find this sentiment aggravating. I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee. I do not take classes and I am not interested in taking classes. I would either like to teach or work on my research in a collaborative environment with other like-minded peers.

Many PhDs are in their late 20s/early 30s, coming from all swaths of life. They are not children. However, in the American education system they are treated as if they were. While this sentiment can have its perks, as shown in the OP, it also means PhDs do not get proper contracts, pay, benefits, or any voice.

Thankfully, I managed to maneuver myself into a position that is livable but I frequently talk to other CS PhDs from other American institutions. It is depressing to hear what people have to put up with in their degree. Sure, the PhD requires initial training, but the ramp-up is not so slow that it is necessary to be stuck in the same serf status for 5+ years.

Unfortunately, I think this is a systemic issue that is not easy to solve.

[chrisseaton]

> I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee.

Isn't 'student' the preferable option here? I was proud to be a student when I was doing my PhD. (I said 'doctoral student' when I wanted to be more clear.) Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes, instead of working on your own research?

I can't understand why you'd want to be an employee?!

[fruffy]

>Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes

Well, you are still forced to do all that. After all, you often depend on your advisor's funding or expectations. They can make or break you. You get "freedom", but with that freedom

1) you do not have an actual contract listing your hours or any sort of vacation policy.

2) vacations in general are not a thing (it is really important to submit that paper over Christmas).

3) health benefits and family support depend on the whims of the department, any sort of pension plan is unheard of.

4) you sometimes get paid, sometimes not (depending on whether some administrative clerk "forgets" to put you on payroll this term).

5) you are expected to find other work over three months in the summer (but at the same time must continue your research, there is that deadline we REALLY need to hit, do NOT waste your time trying to earn money).

6) as F1 student you are not permitted to find other means of income unless approved by your advisor or department. If they approve, they have to approve every single term (good luck with that).

7) you can try to pursue your own research but then you should also expect to be isolated, receiving no support or feedback from either your lab, peers, or advisor. This is one of the most common stories. Usually, these students just wither away or drop out.

These are not isolated issues, mind you. This is pretty common across the board from what I have seen. And all of these issues are tolerable, if you were at least paid a living wage. But commonly the pay you get barely covers the rent in the city you live in.

Thankfully, I am in a better position and I have an accommodating advisor, but I still think this is a depressing state of affairs.

[ModernMech]

I don’t disbelieve your post, I’m sure you’re speaking from experience, but this is a YMMV kind of deal.

1) I did have a contract listing hours, and the vacation policy was the academic calendar: a week in the fall, 5 weeks in the winter, a week in the spring, 3 months in the summer.

2) I didn’t experience any work whatsoever during Christmas

3) Didn’t have a pension plan, but the University did offer reasonable health benefits, and the ACA covered the rest of my family at a low premium.

4) I definitely got paid regularly through the University payroll system.

5) I was given summer contracts to continue doing paid research over the summer. This was a choice, I could have taken internships or a vacation.

6) This is more of an issue with US visas, not really something academics can control

7) I was definitely well supported by my lab, peers, and advisors when I pursued my own research goals. They were very eager to see my results.

I wouldn’t say that your bullet points really represent my institution, so “across the board” usually has a boundary at a specific department or school. I wouldn’t generalize your or my experience to all schools, as they can vary substantially.

[gh02t]

Yeah, I fully believe OPs experience as I have heard horror stories but similarly my experience with an engineering PhD was that we were treated well. We had contracts, semi-reasonable pay, vacation, healthcare etc.

[psi75]

5) you are expected to find other work over three months in the summer (but at the same time must continue your research, there is that deadline we REALLY need to hit, do NOT waste your time trying to earn money).

Yeah, this is very true, and it's degenerate, because research is a 12-month job and deserves a 12-month salary.

It seems to me that academia takes advantage of extremely smart people (and delusional middling-smart people) because it knows they have nowhere else to go. If you're a legit 140+, you're at the level where corporate America becomes to become a non-option because you're just too different, if not necessarily from the other people, from what you are expected to be as a subordinate.

[empyrrhicist]

Do you not have a graduate student union?

[chrisseaton]

Ours just did nonsense like run a cafe.

[empyrrhicist]

Are you thinking of "union" in the sense of a building or common area? That's different. I mean an actual union chapter.

[chrisseaton]

The National Union of Students is a pretty big and active union in the UK. I don't know what qualifies something as an 'actual union chapter' or not.

[fruffy]

Graduate student unions are not that common in STEM subjects. MIT just got one this year for example.

[taylodl]

My son is currently working on his Ph.D. in CS. I've been working in industry for nearly 40 years. Let me address some of your points.

1. Many, many jobs don't have an actual contract listing your hours or any sort of vacation policy. Even for the jobs that do, there's no guarantee you'll actually be able to take your vacation, or take it when you'd like.

2. See (1). Vacations are almost always worked around projects. I grew up in an engineering environment and I can tell you that's just life in an engineering environment.

3. Many universities offer student health plans. And check your calendar - the year is 2022. Pensions don't exist anywhere - at least not for new employees.

4. I've experienced that working for a start-up too. It happens.

5. My son hasn't had a problem finding work over the summer - that's the bulk of his income. Yes, he also has to continue his research. But, working 60-80 hours per week for 3 months per year is pretty much normal at many places. Whether that should be the case or not is another issue, but I don't see the Ph.D. student getting hit particularly harder than anyone else.

6. The trick is to align your jobs with your research. My son hasn't had problems in that regard. Also, CS departments like to forge and maintain contacts in private industry. So there's research alignment and department alignment to think about.

7. Pursuing your own research that's not aligned with your department isn't smart. After all, you chose that department - weren't you into what they were researching? Hadn't you talked about what kinds of things you were interested in before they brought you on? This is a two-way street - there's things they're looking to get from you and there's things you're looking to get from them. Also, no person is an island - you're going to need help. No one is likely to help you if you're viewed as a maverick who isn't aligned with the department goals.

You are correct that the wages are barely livable. I can tell you from the experience my daughter had in pursuing a Ph.D. that the stipends for CS students are considerably higher than the stipends available for other fields in science. Plus the CS students have the opportunity to work over the Summer and make the "big bucks." Altogether you should be making $60K-$70K per year, which isn't a lot as far as CS grads go, but it's considerably better than subsistence living. That's the equivalent of making $30-$45 per hour which is a wage most Americans would find damn good, and can only dream about earning that kind of money.

All told, there's a lot you have to go through to get a Ph.D. and lots of it is politicking. That's why smart people hire Ph.D. grads - they know they're people who can work against the long odds and still come out successful. That's a desirable trait to have in the people you hire.

So yes, you can easily make double the money you're currently making, but you're never going to have the opportunity to research as you do now. Hopefully you chose your department wisely and are aligned with the kind of research they're into.

[adamsmith143]

>You are correct that the wages are barely livable. I can tell you from the experience my daughter had in pursuing a Ph.D. that the stipends for CS students are considerably higher than the stipends available for other fields in science. Plus the CS students have the opportunity to work over the Summer and make the "big bucks." Altogether you should be making $60K-$70K per year, which isn't a lot as far as CS grads go, but it's considerably better than subsistence living. That's the equivalent of making $30-$45 per hour which is a wage most Americans would find damn good, and can only dream about earning that kind of money.

This is almost totally unique to CS students and frankly many advisors may not allow their students to skip the opportunity to do more research over the summer.

I'm not sure why you spent so much time defending the PhD system in the US which is frankly broken and borderline abusive.

[taylodl]

I'm not sure why you spent so much time defending the PhD system in the US which is frankly broken and borderline abusive.

C'mon - the entire U.S. employment system is broken. What I'm saying is let's not pretend it's only the Ph.D. students getting screwed over. The implication was your life would be so much better if you just went to private industry. No it won't, at least not in the U.S. I guess all that is to say employment in general in the U.S. is broken and borderline abusive (though I'd argue there's no borderline - it's abusive). But hey - I can either emigrate to another country where I have few friends and no family (the bulk of my friends an all of my family is here in the U.S.) or you suffer through their game so you can put a roof over your head and food on the table. I think it's time we acknowledge the quality of life in the U.S. isn't all it's cracked up to be. Oh sure, it could be worse - and boy, don't they always remind you about that! - but it could also be a lot better, which is something they rarely talk about. I guess I'm supposed to be happy I can carry my gun anywhere without needing a concealed carry permit. Apparently none of our other problems matter.

[fruffy]

Let me clarify that I do not have all these issues. I am doing well for myself. This is partially because of my own cynicism, partially because of good mentors, and partially because of plain luck.

However, not everyone has that luxury. The list I gave is a list of problems I personally witnessed friends/colleagues go through. I also have worked a fair bit of industry, so I know that these patterns are not normal or in any way acceptable.

And yes, with clever strategizing you can find your way around being exploited. However, my point is that this should not be normal. Contractual working conditions would at least give you baseline protection.

And of course, there are always worse conditions to be in in the US (except maybe the students whose immigration status depends on the whim of their advisor) but we should hold universities to higher standards than that.

>Plus the CS students have the opportunity to work over the Summer and make the "big bucks." Altogether you should be making $60K-$70K per year, which isn't a lot as far as CS grads go, but it's considerably better than subsistence living. That's the equivalent of making $30-$45 per hour which is a wage most Americans would find damn good, and can only dream about earning that kind of money.

Just want to point out that this depends. For example, if you are an F1 student you will have to get your internship approved. This can be a lengthy, uncertain process. Some departments/advisors also expect you to not do internships at all as they prefer you to do research instead. Now 60k is also not guaranteed. In NYC universities for example, a full year of funding will net you a ~40k salary before taxes, iff you manage to acquire funding over the summer. Students are thrifty and typically find a way to finance themselves (e.g., move home, find other sources of income), but again, this should not be normal.

[bunbunbun]

I can say from experience that employees get some protections that students don’t. Particularly when it comes to:

- working hours (often paid for 20 but working close to 40)

- paid time off (I have worked through a lot of ‘vacations’ and ‘holidays’)

- health insurance (for my whole family, not just me)

- behavioral requirements for managers (I have stories)

- retirement funding

- credit for work products (imagine being told your name isn’t on a pub because you were in training)

[chrisseaton]

But you're opting into them having more control over you. If you're an employee they can set your hours. They can't as a student. You're opting into a HR-managed vacation system instead of managing your own time.

Health insurance, behaviours, retirement, etc I guess so.

[watwut]

> If you're an employee they can set your hours. They can't as a student. You're opting into a HR-managed vacation system instead of managing your own time.

The PhD students I knew did not managed own time. They worked when mandated by supervisor, they worked long hours and vacation meant still working. And they could not go to vacations whenever either.

[UncleMeat]

Being an employee makes it easier to demand fair treatment. As a "student" people can say "of course your pay and benefits are low and hours are terrible, you are a student and are paid in coaching." If you are instead understood to be an employee then suddenly the comparison between working at Target and working as a graduate student becomes harder to ignore and the abusive practices become more clear.

There are downsides, like it being important to be able to fire low performers in employee/employer relationships. But thinking of graduate students as skilled knowledge workers makes it easier to agitate for better conditions.

[adamsmith143]

>Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes, instead of working on your own research?

Did you actually do a PhD? You ought to know that you are completely beholden to your advisor, what they want you to work on, what papers they want you to write, the classes they want you to take etc.

As an employee you actually have rights, benefits and fairer pay and are under basically identical working circumstances.

[chrisseaton]

> what they want you to work on, what papers they want you to write, the classes they want you to take etc

This isn't my experience.

A PhD is supposed to be your own research, not your advisor's.

[adamsmith143]

Anecdotes aren't very useful but in my department it was pretty clear that most of your work was going to be derivative of your advisors at least tangentially if not directly.

Also I think the article and most of the discussion so far has been around experiences in the US' PhD system so I'm not sure experience in the UK is equivalent.

[bunbunbun]

Yeah, it is supposed to be that in theory. But in practice, I had to be trained through multiple research positions doing work for other people, none of whom had managerial experience or training. It was very chaotic and I rarely had time to work on my own research until dissertation.

[Fomite]

A PhD should be, at least in theory. Whether it is or not is a question - and "until dissertation" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Importantly, a staff scientist position will never be. If you cannot tie your project to one of my grants, you are losing me money. For a student, that might be acceptable. For a staff scientist, it's not.

[bunbunbun]

That’s the way it works and will probably always work. Profit, prestige, and power are the driving factors, even for the most equity-minded individuals.

[psi75]

The problem, I think, stems from the fact that a doctoral advisor, because he influences your reputation in all of academia rather than just one company, is even more of a career SPOF than a corporate manager.

The good news is that your advisor is safe (tenured, or at least likely to make tenure) in most circumstances, so he's not going to fuck you over unless he's a truly terrible person, and 90 percent of people aren't, as opposed to the corporate world where the pressure of constantly watching your back turns that middle 80% into bad people as well. The bad news is that he does have this extortive power over you, if he wants to use it.

There's also a conflict of interest when it comes to delayed graduations. If the advisor's getting cheap or free grunt work, and delaying your graduation for another year can get him more of said work, then he has an incentive to do so. Of course, this can't be continued forever, because eventually he'll get a reputation for his students taking too long and not doing well... but in the short term, it is an option for him, and it is sometimes exercised.

[ModernMech]

> If the advisor's getting cheap or free grunt work

This is a huge misconception. Yes, as a grad student you aren’t paid well. That doesn’t mean you are cheap for a PI. They have to pay your tuition, as well as university overhead related to your stipend. You don’t see a lot of that money in your bank account, but it is leaving the PI’s research grant nonetheless.

The most productive students are those who are about 3 years in when they are done with classes. The least productive ones are those about to graduate; they typically have a serious case of “senioritis”, and are often busy making contacts in industry and planning a career. Keeping them around makes them less productive, not more.

Professors want to graduate them to free up resources and to bolster their promotion portfolio.

[nautilius]

You want to be a PhD employee so that you don't have to pay college out of your own pocket.

Sure, most would prefer to be rich, or have their parents be rich, or having gotten a full ride or some other stipend. But that's not the norm for most PhD students. For most, the alternative to not being a PhD student employee is to leave college and become an employee employee.

[linuxftw]

> Unfortunately, I think this is a systemic issue that is not easy to solve.

It's incredibly easy to solve. Quit your PhD and encourage others to do so as well. You're being used.

[dls2016]

Or, you know, unionize like regular workers. (Former UAW-represented PhD student, here.)

I then spent some time in the Swiss system as a postdoc... night and day! I went from the "American Riviera" (UCSB) to the "Swiss Riviera" (EPFL), and so living costs were about the same. But PhD students were paid more than twice what I was paid in the US.

Also much less teaching at EPFL, but that was probably due to differences in the "type" of institution.

(And what is a riviera?!)

[selimthegrim]

At UCSB there was a 403b plan set up by the UAW under UC auspices