Also, in my 3 years of graduate school, I have had to maintain LOTS of legacy code left over from previous grad students. This is a good example of what I mean. You are assuming that “software jobs” has a negative factor of managing legacy code, and for some reason you don’t think this applies to graduate school. If you study in any applied science field at all, you will have to maintain poorly-written legacy code.
You should view applied science graduate school as a low-paying, low-benefits version of a software development job for places like Yelp or Google or Facebook. You will do Bayesian inference and machine learning on large data sets, no matter what you think you will do or what an adviser says you will do. You will spend less than 10% of your time actually investigating new, original ideas in science, and the other 90% of the time you will do the day-to-day grind of a typical software engineer.
You will have access to good facilities, lots of interesting seminars and colloquia, and the opportunity (/ huge time cost) to take interesting advanced courses. You will also have the freedom to sleep in, arrange your working hours haphazardly, and it will be socially plausible to continue “acting like a college kid” for a few more years. These are definitely good benefits.
But my experience has been that (a) future employers won’t care very much about grad school unless you are an amazing programmer; (b) you only earn ~3% more than a person with only a master’s degree in your same field, and since they have a ~3 year lead time on you, their lifetime earnings are higher; and (c) the charm of “intellectual student life” wears off pretty fast when you need a good dentist but don’t have insurance or when you need to fly home for a family emergency but literally cannot afford the $500 plane ticket, or when you can’t travel home around the holidays because there is a journal deadline.
There’s just so much to consider that you won’t learn if you only talk to faculty members for whom the grad student experience has worked out smoothly.
(c) the charm of “intellectual student life” wears off pretty fast when you need a good dentist but don’t have insurance
From personal experience, I know that the University of Maryland offers state-subsidized health insurance to graduate students. I would advise considering the availability of insurance as part of one’s criteria for selecting graduate programs, rather than taking uninsured status as an inevitable result.
Almost all science programs offer a very basic health insurance package. Almost none offer dental insurance. Even with the health insurance, you often have to pay a ~$500/semester fee plus completely pay for the summer expense. Using Maryland as an example, I know an applied math graduate student there and she has to pay $1000 towards her own insurance plus cover it in the summer and gets no dental benefits. I go to a very wealthy Ivy League school and I also have to pay a little less than $1000 per academic year for student health insurance. I can purchase optional dental insurance for $500, and all it gets me is a 5% to 15% discount on the out-of-book price for dental service, plus two annual cleanings. Further, no one in the area takes it. My university’s own dental services do not accept their own university grad student dental policy.
Having to cover the insurance during the summer suggests to me that she does not have an assistantship, or at least not one which will continue over the summer. That is something else which must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and will not necessarily be a factor for every student.
$1000/year is close to an upper bound for health coverage, given the range of subsidized rates provided by Maryland. Dental insurance is available for an additional amount of around $100/year. They offer both a DHMO and a DPPO, the latter of which can be used at any provider.
She is a 4th year PhD student in applied mathematics working with an established adviser who has plenty of grant money. She’s just doing the standard thing… I see the same situation all over my own university’s science departments.
PPO can be used at any provider and typically only get you a slight discount for any service beyond a basic cleaning. As a grad student, I’ve had to get a crown and 3 fillings (arising as complications from wisdom teeth, which I had removed while a full-time engineer prior to grad school). I realize my expense is at the far end of the distribution, but that’s why we have insurance. Grad students (like me) aren’t in a position to handle these expenses and our insurance is not remotely adequate. I had to go into significant debt to finance my own dental work.
It doesn’t make sense to me that she would have to cover her own insurance over the summer if she continues funded research as a graduate assistant during that time. University employees get the subsidized rates.
UMD’s DPPO covers 70% of costs for fillings and 50% for crowns, after a $50 annual deductible, and up to a $1500 annual maximum. Costs could still add up, but that seems like more than just a slight discount. Obviously what insurance covers will vary from school to school, but that information is generally available online.
I’m not saying you didn’t get screwed. Wisdom teeth complications suck; I’ve dealt with some myself. I’m just saying that’s not a given for all graduate programs, and it’s not necessary to assume that it is.
Also, in my 3 years of graduate school, I have had to maintain LOTS of legacy code left over from previous grad students. This is a good example of what I mean. You are assuming that “software jobs” has a negative factor of managing legacy code, and for some reason you don’t think this applies to graduate school. If you study in any applied science field at all, you will have to maintain poorly-written legacy code.
You should view applied science graduate school as a low-paying, low-benefits version of a software development job for places like Yelp or Google or Facebook. You will do Bayesian inference and machine learning on large data sets, no matter what you think you will do or what an adviser says you will do. You will spend less than 10% of your time actually investigating new, original ideas in science, and the other 90% of the time you will do the day-to-day grind of a typical software engineer.
You will have access to good facilities, lots of interesting seminars and colloquia, and the opportunity (/ huge time cost) to take interesting advanced courses. You will also have the freedom to sleep in, arrange your working hours haphazardly, and it will be socially plausible to continue “acting like a college kid” for a few more years. These are definitely good benefits.
But my experience has been that (a) future employers won’t care very much about grad school unless you are an amazing programmer; (b) you only earn ~3% more than a person with only a master’s degree in your same field, and since they have a ~3 year lead time on you, their lifetime earnings are higher; and (c) the charm of “intellectual student life” wears off pretty fast when you need a good dentist but don’t have insurance or when you need to fly home for a family emergency but literally cannot afford the $500 plane ticket, or when you can’t travel home around the holidays because there is a journal deadline.
There’s just so much to consider that you won’t learn if you only talk to faculty members for whom the grad student experience has worked out smoothly.
From personal experience, I know that the University of Maryland offers state-subsidized health insurance to graduate students. I would advise considering the availability of insurance as part of one’s criteria for selecting graduate programs, rather than taking uninsured status as an inevitable result.
Almost all science programs offer a very basic health insurance package. Almost none offer dental insurance. Even with the health insurance, you often have to pay a ~$500/semester fee plus completely pay for the summer expense. Using Maryland as an example, I know an applied math graduate student there and she has to pay $1000 towards her own insurance plus cover it in the summer and gets no dental benefits. I go to a very wealthy Ivy League school and I also have to pay a little less than $1000 per academic year for student health insurance. I can purchase optional dental insurance for $500, and all it gets me is a 5% to 15% discount on the out-of-book price for dental service, plus two annual cleanings. Further, no one in the area takes it. My university’s own dental services do not accept their own university grad student dental policy.
Having to cover the insurance during the summer suggests to me that she does not have an assistantship, or at least not one which will continue over the summer. That is something else which must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and will not necessarily be a factor for every student.
$1000/year is close to an upper bound for health coverage, given the range of subsidized rates provided by Maryland. Dental insurance is available for an additional amount of around $100/year. They offer both a DHMO and a DPPO, the latter of which can be used at any provider.
She is a 4th year PhD student in applied mathematics working with an established adviser who has plenty of grant money. She’s just doing the standard thing… I see the same situation all over my own university’s science departments.
PPO can be used at any provider and typically only get you a slight discount for any service beyond a basic cleaning. As a grad student, I’ve had to get a crown and 3 fillings (arising as complications from wisdom teeth, which I had removed while a full-time engineer prior to grad school). I realize my expense is at the far end of the distribution, but that’s why we have insurance. Grad students (like me) aren’t in a position to handle these expenses and our insurance is not remotely adequate. I had to go into significant debt to finance my own dental work.
It doesn’t make sense to me that she would have to cover her own insurance over the summer if she continues funded research as a graduate assistant during that time. University employees get the subsidized rates.
UMD’s DPPO covers 70% of costs for fillings and 50% for crowns, after a $50 annual deductible, and up to a $1500 annual maximum. Costs could still add up, but that seems like more than just a slight discount. Obviously what insurance covers will vary from school to school, but that information is generally available online.
I’m not saying you didn’t get screwed. Wisdom teeth complications suck; I’ve dealt with some myself. I’m just saying that’s not a given for all graduate programs, and it’s not necessary to assume that it is.