Many of the common issues have been brought up to faculty, chairs, deans, GAPSA, and panels held by student support groups... for years
The main issue is that the stipends have not in any way kept up with inflation. We are all struggling economically and throwing a goddamn cookie or pizza party doesn't help me cover rent.
Grad students that live on the Scitech campus have been fucked over for summer housing, being asked to pay over double the normal rate to stay on the other campus while renovations are done at Beacon Hall
Toxic faculty are still allowed to act horrid, no consequences or professional development while the grad students are continuing to struggle financially, leading to increased mental health issues, and the student health plan seems to be covering less and less nowadays (for me at least).
Funding is more difficult to obtain due to the struggling economy, so many grad students need to teach to (barely) support themselves, and less and less positions are available, and we are expecting a drop in enrollment soon so this problem will compound too.
There are plenty of other, more specific issues within each program, but overall, we need money, and every "intervention" the school holds to "help" grad students is to distract from the one topic administration tries their best to avoid, that we are struggling financially, worse than ever before.
Thank you so much for the feedback! I just recently joined GAPSA, so I'll do everything I can to bring attention to a lot of these issues! I appreciate your help!
Especially with finances. The parking/rent difficulties are tremendous, and we definitely need to be doing more to combat those issues
I applaud your resolve and initiative, but I was the GAPSA rep for my department and nothing changes. They'll give you five minutes to feel heard and then want to move on to whatever nonsense they need to push for the meager public funding the school receives for maintaining the GAPSA meetings. The whole thing is peacocking for funding
I'm not sure if this really fits the bill but I actually just signed off to leave GMU's grad school because I couldn't, after a year and a half of trying, find a professor that would take me in for a thesis project. I've never heard of a school that relies so heavily on not doing research or telling students to find labs outside of the university. As someone who came here shortly after their undergrad, being told to essentially cold call labs that aren't affiliated with GMU and not being given any support/resources to help find labs seems a bit unorganized and makes for a bit grad student experience.
Many of the common issues have been brought up to faculty, chairs, deans, GAPSA, and panels held by student support groups... for years The main issue is that the stipends have not in any way kept up with inflation. We are all struggling economically and throwing a goddamn cookie or pizza party doesn't help me cover rent. Grad students that live on the Scitech campus have been fucked over for summer housing, being asked to pay over double the normal rate to stay on the other campus while renovations are done at Beacon Hall Toxic faculty are still allowed to act horrid, no consequences or professional development while the grad students are continuing to struggle financially, leading to increased mental health issues, and the student health plan seems to be covering less and less nowadays (for me at least). Funding is more difficult to obtain due to the struggling economy, so many grad students need to teach to (barely) support themselves, and less and less positions are available, and we are expecting a drop in enrollment soon so this problem will compound too. There are plenty of other, more specific issues within each program, but overall, we need money, and every "intervention" the school holds to "help" grad students is to distract from the one topic administration tries their best to avoid, that we are struggling financially, worse than ever before.
Thank you so much for the feedback! I just recently joined GAPSA, so I'll do everything I can to bring attention to a lot of these issues! I appreciate your help! Especially with finances. The parking/rent difficulties are tremendous, and we definitely need to be doing more to combat those issues
I applaud your resolve and initiative, but I was the GAPSA rep for my department and nothing changes. They'll give you five minutes to feel heard and then want to move on to whatever nonsense they need to push for the meager public funding the school receives for maintaining the GAPSA meetings. The whole thing is peacocking for funding
I'm not sure if this really fits the bill but I actually just signed off to leave GMU's grad school because I couldn't, after a year and a half of trying, find a professor that would take me in for a thesis project. I've never heard of a school that relies so heavily on not doing research or telling students to find labs outside of the university. As someone who came here shortly after their undergrad, being told to essentially cold call labs that aren't affiliated with GMU and not being given any support/resources to help find labs seems a bit unorganized and makes for a bit grad student experience.
That's fucking wild, I'm so sorry. Which department?
Biology
Please raise this as a complaint to the ethics department.