BRZ Owner At York University

[7thgear]

Originally Posted by gramicci101

Of course. You can't afford an iPhone 6S and a top of the line laptop on 15K/year.

ohh, so all of a sudden all TAs are technohipsters?

[gramicci101]

Originally Posted by 7thgear

ohh, so all of a sudden all TAs are technohipsters?

I'd say more of a college student thing. Tcoat wouldn't understand what we're talking about; he still thinks his abacus and slide rule are the new hotness.

[Canehda]

The TA job works like any other in the job market. You are paying TAs because they are the best for the job, you are paying them because they are essentially experts in the field of study and you can't simply pick anyone off the street to do what they do. If you want the best quality teaching, marking, etc you shouldn't be concerned with paying the people who are directly responsible for the quality of education at...ugh...you know, a university.

[Canehda]

Everyone is looking at this as "That's way too much for a student to make" but instead people should be looking at "how much is the work that they do worth"

[Heero]

Originally Posted by 7thgear

the TA's ive met during my 10-year stay at York don't have what I would consider "a standard of living,"


bottom line is that graduate work is not appreciated, which is why they're striking,


people working in fields of higher education shouldn't EVER feel like they've made the wrong choice due to financial reasons

That's an awfully entitled outlook on life.

[wparsons]

Forgetting the annual salary, what is the hourly wage for a typical TA?

Annual salary shouldn't even come up in the discussions since it's not a full time job.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by gramicci101

I'd say more of a college student thing. Tcoat wouldn't understand what we're talking about; he still thinks his abacus and slide rule are the new hotness.

My collage class:


My class room:




You know it is a sad commentary for Canada that there are virtually zero pictures of our military between the 1950s and 1990s on the whole internet! This were the "What military we don't have one" years.

[Canehda]

There is no real hourly wage as it differs between week, TA and school year

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by 7thgear

the TA's ive met during my 10-year stay at York don't have what I would consider "a standard of living,"


bottom line is that graduate work is not appreciated, which is why they're striking,


people working in fields of higher education shouldn't EVER feel like they've made the wrong choice due to financial reasons

And pure research has been known historically to be a great way to get rich????

[gramicci101]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

This were the "What military we don't have one" years.

You mean when the mall in Edmonton had more submarines than the Canadian Navy did?

[7thgear]

Originally Posted by Heero

That's an awfully entitled outlook on life.

it's only entitled if you're the type of person that disregards the economically irrelevant but socially necessary elements of our life.


First of all, I believe education should be free, and that our nation's education system from kindergarten to end of highschool is severely under funded.


Second, smart people who choose to dedicate their lives to researching technologies and social development should be fairly rewarded for their work.


As it stands, true intellect and brilliance is seldom rewarded in our society. Most self-starters I know aren't brilliant people. They have average educations but they know how to run their mouths and are simply full of confidence. Their business plans meet a certain social demand and the money just rolls in... but if you really think about it's just another form of purgatory.



And lets not forget about the poor scientist that have to sell their souls for their grants, forfeiting autonomy in order to "sell" a product to the likes of the FDA and what not.


Then you have "dead" subjects like History, Linguistics, and Literature...


The system is skewed. You think I'm entitled? Well, I think you're brainwashed.

[7thgear]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

And pure research has been known historically to be a great way to get rich????

how do we go from wanting a living wage to "getting rich"?


Rich to me is 120K+ annual in the current economy. No one's demanding 6 figures here.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by 7thgear

people working in fields of higher education shouldn't EVER feel like they've made the wrong choice due to financial reasons

Originally Posted by 7thgear

how do we go from wanting a living wage to "getting rich"?


Rich to me is 120K+ annual in the current economy. No one's demanding 6 figures here.

Pretty sure this is an unwinnable debate!
I am sure that everybody would like to make more money for what they do! Maybe "rich" was a poor choice of words but if we are going to dissect the meaning of each this will just keep sinking lower.
My point was that pure research at an educational institution level is not a great way to try to make a living and it never has been, ever!

[Canehda]

But how come we have people who worked their ass off for four years getting a life science degree, getting paid minimum wage to work in a nursing home. What kind of motivation is that for people to get into that field? Life sciences (Biology, Physics and Chemistry) are arguably one of the hardest undergraduate programs in terms of course load, I would only compare it to engineering in terms of difficulty. And yet people who fail to become a doctor with a biology degree are left pretty much exclusively with jobs that pay less than 50k a year which in a city like toronto is not much... Personally I decided that being a doctor and the clinic environment in general was not for me and what I was left with for job prospects was pretty depressing.