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It is also interesting to read the first sentence of the article: The 33-year-old single mother and third-year anthropology graduate student 30-year olds shoul

It is also interesting to read the first sentence of the article: The 33-year-old single mother and third-year anthropology graduate student 30-year olds should not be starting anthro PhDs in almost any circumstances. Many grad students and adjuncts have made and are making bad life choices: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjuncts-like-they-do-because-they-can https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjunc...

whyenot 7y ago
Sometimes women choose to postpone their academic careers until after they start a family. Some of my best friends have had success doing that. It's not necessarily a bad life choice. You know what can be a bad life choice? Trying to get through grad school, and then finding a job, and then getting through tenure, all while your biological clock is ticking, ticking, ticking, waiting for that day when you can settled down and have kids, a day that in the end may never come.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  But as a single mom or dad? I can see doing grad school on my own or maybe with a kid and the support of a partner, but not with a kid and no supporting partner.
  - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
    Life comes at you and you have to deal with it. However I can say CS grad school was really hard just with me. I don't know how I would have handled a kid. We should support each other in life whenever possible.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      A few of my female friends were in similar situations. Don't discount the drive that caring for a child you love can provide. (They're all superheroes, and I live in awe of the load they've carried, but I think their child definitely helped them get through some rough times)
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        My kid has required more effort than my PhD ever did. I enjoy it, but I can’t imagine having to do both.
  - watwut 7y ago
    If the partner was not supportive, his existence can make no or negative difference.
  - dekhn 7y ago
    My Postdoc advisor at Berkeley was a single mom raising 3 kids as a grad student at UCSC. It definitely wasn't easy, but she lived in Faculty/Student Housing (subsidized) and managed to make it work (later, she worked on the industrial version of the human genome project and eventually become a prof at Berkeley). This was in mid-90s, at a time when Santa Cruz was already getting expensive (the story in the article is nothing new!) I remember living in a house in Santa Cruz in '93 and seeing how much the owners paid for it- $250K, which seemed absurd (houses where I grew up were $100K). Now that house would sell for $1.5M.
- Zalprt2020 7y ago
  She failed to start a family though?
  - ethbro 7y ago
    Anywhere there's love and more than one person, there's a family.
- swiley 7y ago
  Meh, grad school is not a long thing. A good number of my friends are finishing/finished it by the time they’re ~24.
chrisseaton 7y ago
Heavens forbid people should try to better themselves through education later in life.
- gjs278 7y ago
  you pay for it then
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  Doing an anthropology Ph.D. is not bettering yourself through education. It is extremely costly consumption, taking six to ten years of your life that you could be earning real money and developing skills that would help you in your post academic career. Maybe it would be worthwhile if there was at least a 90%+ chance of a job with tenure at the end of it. But there isn't. Most people who start an anthropology Ph.D. drop out. Over three quarters of those who graduate with Ph.D.s never get a tenure track job[1], i.e. they never spend a single day doing what they trained to do. Doing a Ph.D. in Anthropology is for people with parents or spouses willing to support them or who have independent means. It is not for people who will be even slightly put out financially if they don't get a job afterwards. [1]https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202528&type=printable https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Over three quarters of those who graduate with Ph.D.s never get a tenure track job[1], i.e. they never spend a single day doing what they trained to do. Doing a PhD isn't training to get a tenure track job, and going into industry or teaching or whatever else you want in life is not a failure. > Doing a Ph.D. in Anthropology is for people with parents or spouses willing to support them or who have independent means. Yeah, all these millionaires are lining up to work in anthropology between trips on their yachts. Do you not value studying where we've come from at all?
    - sbierwagen 7y ago
      Is anthropology more valuable than pure math? Philosophy? Does society need 100,000 philosophers? 1 million? 10 million? How much "studying of where we came from" is required?
n4r9 7y ago
If you think in terms of "what kind of society would I like to live in" rather than "what do I estimate that this person deserves in our current society" then it becomes a lot easier to see why they're striking.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  right now my tax dollars already seem to be going towards supporting universities who then turn around and not only waive tuition for grad/phd students, but actually pay them a substantial fraction of my salary to go to school and get a higher degree than I hold. and these students want even more money. obviously I can see why they are striking (I also want more money), but why would I want even more of this?
  - n4r9 7y ago
    I totally get where you're coming from, and from the perspective of "I'm busting my gut so that these people can loaf about reading books" it makes a lot of sense. The other perspective is "I'd prefer to live in a society where people feel comfortable taking time out to educate themselves and contribute to human knowledge". We live in a social contract whereby the state funds people in higher education. It feeds into both practical research and aids the higher goal of progressing knowledge. Maybe these things aren't very important to you, but I think enough people find them important (or not enough find them distasteful) that this is the way things have evolved to be. Besides, what actual fraction of your tax is going towards PhD students specifically? would be interesting to know the average figure.
    - tssva 7y ago
      There are limits to what the state can and should fund individuals which chose this path. Those choosing to take time out to educate themselves and contribute to human knowledge should consider those limits and their own person financial situation when choosing a graduate program. Those now striking could have chosen to pursue their studies at a school where the cost of living was lower and the combination of state contributed funds and their own personal finances were a better match.
telesilla 7y ago
Seriously? I did my post-graduate in my late 30s and it was a stellar move. Some of the most brilliant people I know were just busy doing other things and having families before they knew what they wanted to focus their post-grad studies on. I am strongly in favour of returning to academic life at any stage of a person's career, especially when the study is in the field you are already working in as it elevates you to a new level of expertise.

whyenot 7y ago

Sometimes women choose to postpone their academic careers until after they start a family. Some of my best friends have had success doing that. It's not necessarily a bad life choice. You know what can be a bad life choice? Trying to get through grad school, and then finding a job, and then getting through tenure, all while your biological clock is ticking, ticking, ticking, waiting for that day when you can settled down and have kids, a day that in the end may never come.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
But as a single mom or dad? I can see doing grad school on my own or maybe with a kid and the support of a partner, but not with a kid and no supporting partner.
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  Life comes at you and you have to deal with it. However I can say CS grad school was really hard just with me. I don't know how I would have handled a kid. We should support each other in life whenever possible.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    A few of my female friends were in similar situations. Don't discount the drive that caring for a child you love can provide. (They're all superheroes, and I live in awe of the load they've carried, but I think their child definitely helped them get through some rough times)
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      My kid has required more effort than my PhD ever did. I enjoy it, but I can’t imagine having to do both.
- watwut 7y ago
  If the partner was not supportive, his existence can make no or negative difference.
- dekhn 7y ago
  My Postdoc advisor at Berkeley was a single mom raising 3 kids as a grad student at UCSC. It definitely wasn't easy, but she lived in Faculty/Student Housing (subsidized) and managed to make it work (later, she worked on the industrial version of the human genome project and eventually become a prof at Berkeley). This was in mid-90s, at a time when Santa Cruz was already getting expensive (the story in the article is nothing new!) I remember living in a house in Santa Cruz in '93 and seeing how much the owners paid for it- $250K, which seemed absurd (houses where I grew up were $100K). Now that house would sell for $1.5M.
Zalprt2020 7y ago
She failed to start a family though?
- ethbro 7y ago
  Anywhere there's love and more than one person, there's a family.
swiley 7y ago
Meh, grad school is not a long thing. A good number of my friends are finishing/finished it by the time they’re ~24.

chrisseaton 7y ago

Heavens forbid people should try to better themselves through education later in life.

gjs278 7y ago
you pay for it then
barry-cotter 7y ago
Doing an anthropology Ph.D. is not bettering yourself through education. It is extremely costly consumption, taking six to ten years of your life that you could be earning real money and developing skills that would help you in your post academic career. Maybe it would be worthwhile if there was at least a 90%+ chance of a job with tenure at the end of it. But there isn't. Most people who start an anthropology Ph.D. drop out. Over three quarters of those who graduate with Ph.D.s never get a tenure track job[1], i.e. they never spend a single day doing what they trained to do. Doing a Ph.D. in Anthropology is for people with parents or spouses willing to support them or who have independent means. It is not for people who will be even slightly put out financially if they don't get a job afterwards. [1]https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202528&type=printable https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Over three quarters of those who graduate with Ph.D.s never get a tenure track job[1], i.e. they never spend a single day doing what they trained to do. Doing a PhD isn't training to get a tenure track job, and going into industry or teaching or whatever else you want in life is not a failure. > Doing a Ph.D. in Anthropology is for people with parents or spouses willing to support them or who have independent means. Yeah, all these millionaires are lining up to work in anthropology between trips on their yachts. Do you not value studying where we've come from at all?
  - sbierwagen 7y ago
    Is anthropology more valuable than pure math? Philosophy? Does society need 100,000 philosophers? 1 million? 10 million? How much "studying of where we came from" is required?

n4r9 7y ago

If you think in terms of "what kind of society would I like to live in" rather than "what do I estimate that this person deserves in our current society" then it becomes a lot easier to see why they're striking.

leetcrew 7y ago
right now my tax dollars already seem to be going towards supporting universities who then turn around and not only waive tuition for grad/phd students, but actually pay them a substantial fraction of my salary to go to school and get a higher degree than I hold. and these students want even more money. obviously I can see why they are striking (I also want more money), but why would I want even more of this?
- n4r9 7y ago
  I totally get where you're coming from, and from the perspective of "I'm busting my gut so that these people can loaf about reading books" it makes a lot of sense. The other perspective is "I'd prefer to live in a society where people feel comfortable taking time out to educate themselves and contribute to human knowledge". We live in a social contract whereby the state funds people in higher education. It feeds into both practical research and aids the higher goal of progressing knowledge. Maybe these things aren't very important to you, but I think enough people find them important (or not enough find them distasteful) that this is the way things have evolved to be. Besides, what actual fraction of your tax is going towards PhD students specifically? would be interesting to know the average figure.
  - tssva 7y ago
    There are limits to what the state can and should fund individuals which chose this path. Those choosing to take time out to educate themselves and contribute to human knowledge should consider those limits and their own person financial situation when choosing a graduate program. Those now striking could have chosen to pursue their studies at a school where the cost of living was lower and the combination of state contributed funds and their own personal finances were a better match.

telesilla 7y ago

Seriously? I did my post-graduate in my late 30s and it was a stellar move. Some of the most brilliant people I know were just busy doing other things and having families before they knew what they wanted to focus their post-grad studies on. I am strongly in favour of returning to academic life at any stage of a person's career, especially when the study is in the field you are already working in as it elevates you to a new level of expertise.