what school? What degree program? how is it being funded? why do you want to go to grad school - professional reasons? Do you want to enter academia?Ā
donāt pay an institution whose investment portfolio you have serious ethical qualms with for a masterās degree - but you probably know that. Ideally you go somewhere where you get a TA or RA-ship and your tuition waived and where graduate student workers are unionized. Having done the PhD app process this past cycle, it involves a lot of cost benefit analysis, self interrogation, and vulnerability - keep stewing on the tension.
Somewhat related, breakdown of Columbiaās finances from earlier this month by Adam Tooze. Maybe a good reminder know that the academyās labor can audit the system?Ā
May 17, 2024
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iām not in grad school/havenāt applied for other reasons, but a big piece of advice my v wise mentor/professor in college about grad school was that she really stressed not going into debt for grad school, especially in todayās world and job market. so even if you arenāt sure youād 100% āuseā it, if itās with scholarships and a fellowship so you graduate debt-free, worry less. on the other hand, even if youāre very sure you would āuseā it but youād have to go into debt seriously ask yourself if itās that worth it.
if you only want a masterās (in the US), there are not always as many fellowships / assistantships for masterās students so go for a PhD program with a āterminal masterāsā so you can do two years, decide if you like it, and if you donāt you still get a masterās at the two year mark (this was also advice i received). my obvious caveat is that iām not in grad school (yet?) but iād literally trust this professor with my life so i trust that this advice is sage enough to pass on!
Oct 18, 2024
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i personally donāt think itās unethical to go to grad school ā ultimately itās exploiting the student in many ways: financially, via TA labor, and in getting to boast student achievements.
this is a US perspective but as someone who went to school in one of the states banning a bunch of topics and defunding DEI programs etc i will say the laws banning academic topics are a huge issue right now and incredibly disruptive to experience, mentally and especially academically because profs canāt teach certain topics or start to just leave the state bc of it.
iām considering grad school as well but as my academic work is centered around gender, queerness, social movements, a huge part of it for me would be working out in what states could i have a realistic chance of actually being able to do that work, given the increasing censorship of those subjects in many places?
and this is not even to mention student loans nor all of the repression of studentsā right to protest even in states without academic censorship laws!
tl;dr? i feel for us prospective grad students, itās more of an issue of what are we willing to put up with for an advanced degree rather than is it unethical to partake in higher ed again.
May 17, 2024
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I never wanted to go to grad school either but I decided to get my mba and countless career advancement opportunities have come my way as a result.
a huge component for that was the affordability of the program I enrolled in, so please dont go into crazy debt for this degree unless youre confident the career earnings will outweigh the effort it will take to pay off that debt.
Also understand you will be incredibly broke during this grad program unless youāre already making good money or have a decent savings to fall back on. thats part of the commitment.
Overall I am in support of pursuing higher ed, but only if the economics are safe and youre ready to grind.
Mar 17, 2025
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pandoraaaaaa radioooooo
May 28, 2024
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Itās good to get epically read on your appearance, cadence, and words rather than deeds. Public speaking is an opportunity for critique and ridicule from folks on the other side of the culture war. While you may totally disagree morally & aesthetically (so on the fronts of truth and vanity), an laconic assessment by an account with a Trumpian gift of gab can be inspiring, assigning fresh diction in self-description. For example, in a work video where I agreed to be a talking head buzzing about a policy hypebeast of a topic, I came off vapid and only fractionally educated. I had to mute my displeasure as it was uploaded to socials anyway. Only a couple months later did I revisit the flop of a post and like a light in the dark, found a hidden reply which I eagerly clicked to reveal: an account with a statement against government corruption as its profile pic, calling me a female ākill gatesā - wow, I thought, thatās actually so funny. Now I canāt get it out of my head, looking in the mirror like you got me! maybe youāve seen similar success with conservative/libertarian/conspiracist accounts who revel in glibness, but the real golden bullets will be friendly fire. Iām awaiting a soul-scouring drag from a Maoist letting me know exactly what type of liberal I amā¦. until then,
embrace your epithets, exploit the tilt! It keeps you light on your toes, doubly so if you fancy yourself a prose stylist. Please share any trenchant hate comments youāve received.
Jun 4, 2024
and the fern Kinney version (disco disco)
and the lusttt version (Italo disco)
and the Janet version (Janet!)
and even the fka saint pepsi version, private caller (plunder disco, slowed lusttt version)
May 28, 2024