Three Vignettes On The Life Of A Graduate Student

My life as a graduate student provides me with numerous opportunities for dry humor and (sometimes) dispassionate reflection on the quirks of higher education and my own place within it. Knowing that graduate education is still somewhat rare in the United States, and particularly rare in my family (I am the first person in my family to go to graduate school since my great-great uncle Willis David Matthias got his Th.D from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1927, but that is another story), hopefully my musings are not too esoteric or obscure.

On Americans In Graduate School

As an American in a graduate engineering program, I am a rather unusual fellow (regardless of whether I would be unusual on account of my own inherent quirkiness). The vast majority of my fellow graduate students in the School of Engineering, even at the University of South Florida, are not American citizens. Those that are Americans are often older students (many of whom have children only a little younger than myself), and many of the other students come from such diverse lands as China, India, South Korea, Turkey, France, Columbia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. I happen to enjoy studying with such people, as they provide me the opportunity to learn about other lands and backgrounds beyond my own (and I tend to seek out such knowledge anyway). So, for me it is not the presence of people from other lands that is noteworthy. What is noteworthy is the absence of other Americans, particularly young Americans, from my classes. I know I am an odd fellow, but being interested in graduate school in engineering should not make me that unusual, I would think. What makes this rather amusing is that immigration law, which for me personally is a rather non-issue, becomes a very important matter for many of my classmates. One classmate, an undergraduate in a combination graduate/undergraduate program at USF, is from Columbia, and she was unable to go to a recent academic conference she helped organize because it was in Cancun and she did not have travel visa privileges. Other friends of mine face difficulties in finding employment because of a shortage of H1-B visas, with the liklihood that they will have to return to their home nations.

This becomes a problem in that many professions (such as civil engineering, my own) are moving towards making professional credentials more difficult to obtain, often to the point of requiring graduate school. With the above-inflation rise in college costs and the increasing length of time of non-productive (in economic terms) years spent acquiring an education rather than earning a living, coupled with the shortage in young people willing or able to study advanced degrees in science and engineering (and the difficulties in legally hiring educated foreigners to these positions) we face some serious problems. There appear to be no shortage of ambitious young adults in MBA programs, but when it comes to more technical studies the shortage is most glaring (and I have seen it with my own eyes). It appears as if my generation of students has understood that we value the acquisition of money above all else--above integrity, above truth/knowledge--and they have chosen their academic careers accordingly. What are we to do to ensure our nation has enough intellectuals to fill those emptying ivory towers, or even the ranks of middle-class professions like scientists and engineers?

A Nexus Of Cash And Corruption

It is a common thread of mine to comment on corruption in this world wherever it can be found, and recently I have found another occasion to comment on this. A scandal is breaking in the world of academic financing, as numerous university officials have been found to have had overly cozy financial relationships with a clique of financial organizations engaged in predatory lending to university students. While the universities implicated so far in the scandal are on the east coast (Penn, St. John's, and so forth), there are plenty of schools in other parts of the United States that engage in the same practices (and I know of some schools on the west coast that they could look into as well).

The university officials implicated in this scandal (and some government officials as well) received lucrative benefits from a few preferred lenders who apparently gave the universities (and those officials) bonuses based on how many students chose particular loan packages that contained terms advantageous to the lending companies and not as advantageous to the students themselves. Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general for the state of New York (a position that in recent years has inspired rather fiercely anti-corruption officials), apparently began the investigation at the behest of a lender who was apparently shut out of elite college lending on account of being unable to schmooze with the university officials and being unwilling/financially unable to engage in the graft/corruption that such college lending apparently entails. Perhaps the AG of New York should go after the credit card companies that camp out on university sidewalks continually with free t-shirts to give out. Maybe they are paying off university officials as well. That would not be surprising.

A Parking Rant

Actually, one of the benefits of being a commuter student (as I am now) is avoiding such people. When I lived on campus as an undergraduate on the left coast, I could only avoid such people at food speed, and those who know me should realize my foot speed is not terribly fast. Unfortunately, one of the annoyances of being a commuter student is the problem of finding adequate parking.

A few days ago, I received a survey from the University of South Florida about parking, which gave me the opportunity to rant to the people responsible for the travesty that is engineering school parking. (It is a rare treat in my life to be able to rant directly, and anonymously, to people who make my life more difficult than I would prefer). I was bemused by the attempts of the survey to advocate the use of Tampa's rather unacceptable public transportation service (known as HARTLine), as well as advocate future light rail projects to connect USF to the airport and a few other major places. (The question of how someone is supposed to get from where they live to the light rail and back, much less go to work as well, is left unstated).

I took the opportunity of the survey to make a few choice (but non-profane) comments about the incompetence of those responsible for parking at USF. Of course, these are the same geniuses who removed an entire parking lot from student use (for who knows what reason) some weeks ago while the Spring Semester is still in session. Parking was crowded enough before, now the situation is even more untenable. I do not appreciate having to walk half a mile from my car to class, especially not when I have to pass half-empty lots I cannot use because they are reserved for staff. I take such things rather personally, and as a sign of the lack of genuine interest people in charge have about doing what is best for those they purportedly serve. It is distressing that it is so hard to find leaders who are not corrupt and incompetent. If leaders were as competent in serving as they were in advocating their own pet agendas and in avoiding due regulation and accountability, I would have much less to rant about. I think that would be a good thing all the way around. For now, I study what is around me, and occasionally report on it.