The Finances of the Grad Student...
20 minutes until an appointment...
Graduate students don't get paid in the summer. That's just how it is...yeah, the contract that I sign forbidding me to work allows me to work in the summer. But YOU find a 3 month long job that allows you to NOT WORK most of the time...meaning, those pesky weeks when I have class from 9-5 and Clinical work until 8pm. Yeah.
By the end of the summer, it is DEPRESSING.
Yesterday, one of my classmates called down to HR to inquire about our first paychecks:
"Hi...I'm a graduate student in psychology and some of my colleagues and I are discussing things like, oh, paying rent and buying food..."
I put healthcare on my credit card yesterday...it HURT, but ragweed is out and I'm getting sick. I didn't know what else to do...Our loan will be in soon, and we both start getting paid pretty soon...
A little background. Together, we're over $130,000 in debt. That's student loans, not credit cards (although, towards the end of the summer, that gets to be hard as hell, too!). We don't eat out any more. Our cupboard is full of beans and ramen, although we still buy produce sometimes... We entertain ourselves (when we have time to think about doing something entertaining!) by playing chess and Scrabble. Sometimes we splurge and rent a movie. On occasion, we'll go all-out and get Frosties (sp?) at Wendys.
My program pays me, but doesn't provide healthcare. The crappy healthcare that I buy doesn't cover most of what I need, but I have asthma and need some sort of emergency insurance. It won't pay for my allergy meds (which would keep me from having asthma attacks) but it helps out when I have them...
My husband (who is working on his dissertation) has a 2 hour commute to another STATE to teach. He doesn't get healthcare either. After taking out gas, his take-home pay is less than minimum wage.
Sometimes the faculty asks us if we're "taking care of ourselves...."
Yup. We're taking care of ourselves as best we can on $250 a week and 85 hour work weeks...
Graduate students don't get paid in the summer. That's just how it is...yeah, the contract that I sign forbidding me to work allows me to work in the summer. But YOU find a 3 month long job that allows you to NOT WORK most of the time...meaning, those pesky weeks when I have class from 9-5 and Clinical work until 8pm. Yeah.
By the end of the summer, it is DEPRESSING.
Yesterday, one of my classmates called down to HR to inquire about our first paychecks:
"Hi...I'm a graduate student in psychology and some of my colleagues and I are discussing things like, oh, paying rent and buying food..."
I put healthcare on my credit card yesterday...it HURT, but ragweed is out and I'm getting sick. I didn't know what else to do...Our loan will be in soon, and we both start getting paid pretty soon...
A little background. Together, we're over $130,000 in debt. That's student loans, not credit cards (although, towards the end of the summer, that gets to be hard as hell, too!). We don't eat out any more. Our cupboard is full of beans and ramen, although we still buy produce sometimes... We entertain ourselves (when we have time to think about doing something entertaining!) by playing chess and Scrabble. Sometimes we splurge and rent a movie. On occasion, we'll go all-out and get Frosties (sp?) at Wendys.
My program pays me, but doesn't provide healthcare. The crappy healthcare that I buy doesn't cover most of what I need, but I have asthma and need some sort of emergency insurance. It won't pay for my allergy meds (which would keep me from having asthma attacks) but it helps out when I have them...
My husband (who is working on his dissertation) has a 2 hour commute to another STATE to teach. He doesn't get healthcare either. After taking out gas, his take-home pay is less than minimum wage.
Sometimes the faculty asks us if we're "taking care of ourselves...."
Yup. We're taking care of ourselves as best we can on $250 a week and 85 hour work weeks...
posted by Wild West Intern @ 2:42 PM
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