I recently graduated with a Ph.D. in microbial ecology from the University of Oregon. I came from nothing. My parents were / are drug addicts. I grew up in the carcass of their lives. I dropped out of high school because I just didn’t have adequate support. I wallowed in that for a few years before getting my GED, then my associates degree, then my bachelors degree, and finally my PhD. I “pulled myself up by my bootstraps”. It cost me blood, sweat, tears, and a decade of my life. But I fucking did it.
And for what? I was hired into the program that I was teaching for during my 5 years of grad school. I was tugged along without seeing a contract until today. I was working for the program happily until I opened that PDF. And now I am shaking with anger and disgust. $32,000 a year? What the actual fuck? I made more to TA for this program than to TEACH for it. We train folks to work with sequencing data, and a lot of them go on to work for medical institutions. This is important work. And they’re going to pay me 32,000 to teach them?! I’m just so tired. I’m so tired of being abused by the USA and by academic institutions. I just feel so sad and powerless.