Even if managers (some of whom are my more responsible students, who have worked their way up after 4-6 years in the business) are sympathetic to the difficulties of juggling classes and work, there's very strong pressure from corporate headquarters to hire and retain only workers who are more or less willing to be on call, and to schedule them only when and if they're absolutely sure to be fully occupied.
Add colleges' similar practice of opening up new sections only when and if there are enough students on the wait lists of other sections (not necessarily scheduled at the same time) available to fill them, and I don't blame students for feeling like they're in the middle of a tug of war.
On a related note, several friends' college-age kids have had no luck this summer finding local jobs, because employers want workers who are available year-'round (and, undoubtedly, on-call as well).
Well, at least if they go on to earn Ph.D.s, the adjunct market will feel familiar.
You know, it wasn't that long ago that people chose not to go to college because they had a job they needed in order to pay bills.
ReplyDeleteWhy is this no longer an option?
Why must students with jobs (even part-time ones) demand to do both at once?
I just remember all my previous students who claimed to be working 2 or 3 jobs who were failing the courses I was teaching. And I couldn't come right out and tell them that their strategy was so not working. I mean, how dare I kill their dream!
Maybe it's time someone comes right out and says "Hey, you can't do it all. Make a choice."
And a P.S. :
The issue with scheduling at these "flexible" jobs is just a bunch of hooey. If you have a fairly stable staff, it's pretty easy to give people a roughly stable schedule. Lots of places do it. It's possible... and should be seen as a benefit to the company. But then those of us who know about the adjunct problem in academia already know that. And it's just not in the current business model of corporate enslavement. Why are unions bad again?
Agreed on the scheduling thing. In any but the present economy, it would clearly be penny-wise and pound-foolish for all kinds of reasons, and even in this economy it risks losing good employees and alienating customers who come during an unexpected rush and find the place severely understaffed. But, like a lot of other ultimately counterproductive practices, it apparently juices up the quarterly numbers just a bit, and that's apparently the goal.
DeleteAnd unions aren't bad (though I'm not sure how much they can do about this sort of thing in a market where so many people are looking for work -- if not a first job, then a second one). And then, of course, there's the right-to-work state thing that some of us face.
No, unions aren't bad, but by making individual jobs more expensive to the employer they make fewer jobs available, and reality demands that we face this, and accept that there is a tradeoff. The same thing applies, of course, to tenure--if we want a system that has tenure we have to accept that that will mean fewer positions.
DeleteOne of the jobs I had going to school was as a shift supervisor/delivery driver at a pizza place. I had nothing to do with quarterly numbers, but we had flexible scheduling because the cost of labor in service industry is so large an expense that you can ignore almost everything else in relation to it. You cannot afford to have people standing around with nothing to do. You cannot afford to turn away customers because you don't have enough staff on. Those things happen regardless, but flexible scheduling helps reduce these costs.
It had sweet f. a. to do with "juicing quarterly numbers". A store that goes out of business doesn't employ anyone.
Part of being an adult is having more responsibilities than you can keep up with. Something always has to give, and you always have to judge what is the least important thing so that you can give your full attention to the more important things. That's what I tell my students. This is life.
ReplyDeleteBut have you noticed it only goes one way? They never tell their coaches or bosses that they have to study so they can't make practice/work. They never demand the same playing time/money even though they're not giving as much effort as the others. Putting it that way makes it very clear what they are after.
As always, they want us to lower our standards so they can get the same grade with less effort.
If getting an education was the most important thing to them, they would not be telling us this because their education would come first. QED. And if getting an education is NOT the most important thing to you, then you probably should not take on the additional responsibilities and expenses of college.
This!!!
DeleteOr!
DeleteFaculty are given the message that we are to bend over backwards -- tie oneself in knots, if necessary -- to accommodate the vagaries of student challenges. But, why then if, heavens forfend, the instructor hits a rough patch, well then that's just unprofessional and grounds for discipline/bad reviews/denial of tenure/termination (especially for an adjunct)?
Well, I wish they didn't have to work. But the days when you could work all summer, and maybe a bit of Christmas break, and make enough to concentrate on your studies at a state u the rest of the year are gone, thanks mostly to steeply declining state subsidies (and also to the disappearance of such "seasonal" jobs mentioned above). Some of them could probably cut down their work hours if they lived at home, but not everybody can do that, and students who live at home may need to keep a car to get to school. Taking out some loans may be worth it in the long run, but I understand why students are reluctant to do that.
ReplyDeleteAnd I also wish they would push back a bit more when their managers ask them to work when they've got a class scheduled. But with all the considerations above, and the difficulty of finding a job these days, I understand why they sometimes don't. A lot of college graduates these days have difficulty finding jobs; at least students who are already working full-time, or nearly so, have their present jobs to fall back on until they can get one that actually requires a college degree.
In many cases, the answer may be to go to school only part time, but that, too, has consequences (a lot of financial aid, inadequate though it may be, requires a full-time schedule).
Basically, the situation sucks (or, to put it more formally, there are structural problems), and I'm not sure that telling individual students "make your education a priority" is a complete or realistic solution (any more than telling adjuncts to "just quit" makes sense in every individual situation).
Mind you, I still hold my students responsible for what goes on in class, whether or not they're there, but I also recognize the pressures they're facing are not entirely a matter of a poor sense of priorities, or snowflake dramatics.
thanks mostly to steeply declining state subsidies
DeleteYou've got the causation backward--it's largely due to state and Federal subsidies that tuition went up. Econ 101. The tuition went up long before the decline in the state subsidies, and of course at private colleges it went up too.
What I did to get through college, and what many of my friends did, was take a year off to work when we needed more money. Then when we had money, we took a year off work to go to college. We also took loans. It took a lot longer, and we had to go to universities that were not nearly as good as some that we got accepted to. But since education was a priority for us, we DID put it first, and we did get through college eventually by making the appropriate choices for our situations. Was it harder than for a trust-fund baby? Yes. Were we able, at any point, to make a decision that did not involve some kind of trade-off? No. Were we smarter than a lot of people and so able to make up for the disadvantages? Yes. Such is life--we're not all handed the same abilities and advantages.
While it's hard to actually go to college but it is very, very easy to figure out what you need to do to get there and what you need to be doing while you are there. Let's not lose sight of that.
Let's also not forget that there exist trade schools and apprenticeships for without the academic aptitude. College is not, and never was intended to be, free knowledge worker training for corporations.
You are talking about an era that simply does not exist anymore. You can't work for a year, pay rent, food, and other bills at any minimal level, AND save enough for a year's tuition plus room and board at even a regional state school.
DeleteOld-timers: stop telling anyone born after the Baby Boom how virtuous you are. The economy that brought you your successes en masse does not exist anymore. God, I remember explaining to my 1940s-born father that rent on my apartment once I got my first tenure-track job in 1996, was SIXTY PERCENT of my take-home salary. Health insurance was another 15%. With the other 25% I had to pay gas, tolls, car insurance (no, I could not afford to live where I worked), food, clothes, my contribution to TIAA/CREF (mandatory if I was to get a match from the college), and incidentals like haircuts, toiletries, laundromat, etc. I was living on a $35/week food budget, for godsake. And I didn't even have student loans to pay back. I did the math for my dad and he about fell on the floor, and stopped hassling me about the profligate lifestyle he assumed must be making me unable to do things like fly out to visit him at my own expense.
I'm Gen X, and I graduated college in the long ago days of 2002. And of course you don't depend solely on savings, you get student loans. And maybe you wait until you are 26, at that point when you fill out FAFSA and you're still making minimum wage, you get grants and loans to match your full year's expenses.
DeleteDid you not know that?
@Flamen: I'm not sure what your specialty, academic or otherwise (other than pizza delivery/supervision), is, but, if you were able to get a job good enough to support yourself independently at 19 or 20 *and* save even a bit for college while doing it, then you had much more to draw on, in the way of salable skills, than the average college student (that, or you lucked into a situation with low cost of living and high demand/pay for your skills, or you're leaving out something crucial, such as that someone was providing you with free room and board during those off years). At least in my (fairly expensive) area, someone making even several dollars per hour above minimum wage would need to share living quarters at the rate of 2 or 3 people per bedroom just to survive, never mind save, especially if they were also trying to support the reasonably reliable car one typically needs to deliver pizzas. Given that reality, even my students who live at home are often expected to contribute to household living expenses, or at least to provide child/elder care while others work.
DeleteAnd yes, grants and loans can be helpful, but they only go so far. To take one example, the value of the Pell grant in relation to tuition has declined precipitously since I was in school (in the late '80s). Even loans look understandably scary to students who aren't sure they'll be able to find a job after graduation.
It sounds like you managed to make things work, which is great, but is also almost certainly also a matter of good luck/fortunate timing and/or support from others as well as hard work. Don't assume students today can do the same, at least not until/unless you've sat down and figured out all the elements that contributed to your success, and verified that they're still available to today's students (and that they're still worth as much). My guess is that there's something in the combination of opportunities and circumstances that were open to you that would be harder, if not impossible, to duplicate today.
I'm not sure what your specialty, academic or otherwise (other than pizza delivery/supervision), is
DeleteCondensed matter physics, but I'm teaching physics now.
if you were able to get a job good enough to support yourself independently at 19 or 20 *and* save even a bit for college while doing it, then you had much more to draw on, in the way of salable skills
I was a cashier at a grocery store, I delivered pizza, I cooked at Denny's, worked hot case in a deli, and made Chinese food. The salable skills I had were a) I could read and follow directions, b) I could count money without stealing any, and c) I could drive a car and find an address without getting lost.
r you lucked into a situation with low cost of living
Yes, the school that I chose was a low cost of living area, one of the reasons that I chose it.
someone making even several dollars per hour above minimum wage would need to share living quarters at the rate of 2 or 3 people per bedroom just to survive
We made out at 2 - 3 per apartment, we didn't have to share bedrooms. $300 - $400 per person per month was pretty typical in that area then, and it's only about 20% more than that now.
And yes, grants and loans can be helpful, but they only go so far. To take one example, the value of the Pell grant in relation to tuition has declined precipitously since I was in school (in the late '80s). Even loans look understandably scary to students who aren't sure they'll be able to find a job after graduation.
Besides grants and loans there's scholarships and GI Bill. But if you're not sure your degree will get you a job that can pay back the loans, then why in God's Holy Name are you borrowing the money? Scale back your desires, pick a different major, or become a plumber or something that doesn't require college!
It sounds like you managed to make things work, which is great, but is also almost certainly also a matter of good luck/fortunate timing and/or support from others as well as hard work.
Never claimed anything else. Of course it was hard, and I had to get more mature than I was as a high school senior.
My guess is that there's something in the combination of opportunities and circumstances that were open to you that would be harder, if not impossible, to duplicate today.
It was 2002!!!
College is not an entitlement. If you want it, you may have to work very hard and sacrifice a lot. But it's not undoable.
Tuition at my university in 2002 was $6K plus room and board. It is now $14K plus room and board. A room in an apartment in the college town is now more like $600, not 300-400, unless you share. Health insurance costs and the cost of gasoline have skyrocketed since 2002. Pell grants have been cut, and there are no non-athletic scholarships unless your family is really poor, not just lower-middle or middle class. The economy is in much worse shape than it was in 2002. I rest my case.
DeleteAnd frankly? College SHOULD be an entitlement. It is in many European countries, if you make the cut academically.
My memories of 1996-2002 (you said you took a couple years off to work, so I'm guessing that's more or less the time period) include wondering whether I should quit working on my dissertation and join the dot-com revolution, since non-college grads no smarter than me seemed to be earning vast sums helping to build the web, and noticing that close-to-full employment (at least in my relatively prosperous area) often equated to pretty poor customer service at the lower end of the wage scale. In fact, the local grocery store started hiring mentally disabled people for a variety of jobs, including some that seemed to be a bit above some of their skill levels (at least with the other employees too busy to help them figure out the routine). I'm sure some of that really was community-spiritedness (and I'm all for such mainstreaming, when done realistically), but I suspect it also reflected a real labor shortage, or at least a problem with turnover in such low-skill, low-paid jobs. I haven't seen a teenage bagger, car-loader, or cart-retriever, let alone a mentally disabled person in those positions, for some years now. It really was a different economy.
DeleteIt sounds like you were a good, reliable worker, Portunalis, and, in that economy, that meant that you had at least a bit of negotiating room with bosses, since both they and you knew that you could go find another job if the one you had didn't work well with school, and that whoever they found to replace you might well not be as competent. When everybody from high school students to involuntary retirees is looking for work, any work, it's a much different picture.
A neighbor of mine (recent high school graduate) is set to start at a local CC. Her boss is pissed that she needs to change her schedule to accommodate school! The boss told her, "I would never had hired you if I knew you were going to school this Fall." Eye opening! In my jobs I always had bosses that valued the importance of my education, lucky I guess.
ReplyDeleteThat, I think, is what has changed, and it really does make the whole "working your way through school" proposition a lot harder. The only students who still seem to be getting a degree of respect and accommodation from their workplaces are the ones who have made their way into professional jobs without finishing a Bachelors degree, and need to do so to keep jobs and/or advance in workplaces where they are already known and valued (think IT professionals, RNs who need a B.S. to qualify for their current supervisory jobs in a new regulatory/accreditation regime, people with various specialties coming out of the armed forces). Nannies also often do pretty well (though things can get dicey when illness, weather, or school holidays cause changes in what are generally fairly regular schedules). But the sort of retail and service jobs that used to see kids through college (and where supervisors used to pride themselves on making it possible for their employees to work their ways through college) just don't seem to work as well anymore, and this constant shifting of schedules is at least part of the picture.
Deletejust don't seem to work as well anymore, and this constant shifting of schedules is at least part of the picture.
DeleteI graduated 10 years ago. I had to work flexible schedules then, and so did everyone I was friends with in school. It was no different. It was the same in 1992 when I had my first job. That's how service jobs are.
And "I have to work" has always been one of the top excuses from students.
One thing that was true then, and is probably true now, is that some people DID get stable schedules. College students, at least everywhere I worked, were always at the bottom of the list for them. Everywhere I worked older people who weren't going to college and could come in in the daytime had the stable schedule. In addition, they wanted weekends off and college students are available then.
DeleteFor example, at a pizza place, a great deal of work goes on in the early morning, because you have to make dough, but it's more or less the same amount of work and always requires the same number of people. An adult gets up and goes to work early in the morning. A college student might do that but would have class and couldn't stay till 2 pm to finish the shift. So the students get hired for the busy evening and lunch times, and then that's when the scheduling is flexible.
In the years I took off school to work I had no trouble getting a stable schedule anywhere, although sometimes it might be 11 pm - 7 am.
There's also maturity and reliability issue that college students have. They are well documented here. Why does anyone think the flakes are less flaky at work?
I think that sometimes, too, students don't know how to explain or negotiate with their bosses, in the same way that they struggle to explain to us their concerns. Their lack of communication skills extends beyond the classroom. I've watched seemingly good students try to "negotiate" an extension because of what I would deem a legitimate reason (one student had to fly to Germany to meet his injured military sister at a hospital there; another broke her ankle) by simply asking, "Can I get an extension?" And when the professor says, "No," they shrug and call him or her an asshole.
ReplyDeleteWhen I told them what they should have said by laying out a persuasive case, they seemed surprised that they should have done that.
Then there are just those who are liars and bosses pick up just as quickly as we do on those...
When I started grad school I worked as a shift supervisor at a retail establishment. The manager at the time was really good about adjusting for my classes. But when he left, we got a control freak manager who declared that shift supervisors MUST be available 24/7 and MUST return phone calls within an hour of being called. There was no reason for it; the store had been working just fine with two shift supervisors in school and the rest with families/kids. It was just a control mechanism; she (and the people at corporate) didn't like grunts whose lives weren't all about the store. I suspect something similar is going on with these students, too. (I was lucky in that I got an assistantship and started working in the writing center soon after starting grad school, so I didn't have to put up with that for long. Also, about three months after I quit, the former manager called me to tell me that the newer manager had been caught embezzling and was fired. So.)
ReplyDeleteGenerally, I think the value of a college education has declined to the point that companies don't value it, especially in their lower-echelon workers, and the low availability of jobs means that people have to do whatever they can to hold onto them. And the bosses know it. And abuse it.
Ugh.
Delete"It was just a control mechanism; she (and the people at corporate) didn't like grunts whose lives weren't all about the store."
I suspect that some of these supervisors (and I had a couple as a grad student) also resent grunts who are seeking an education the supervisors did not.
Blech. I once had a temp job for a music festival. In the days leading up to the 'fest, long hours were common in many departments (stage-building, e.g.), but my division dealt with personnel, and the normal working day included more than enough time to get our work done. Our boss, however, suffered from a sort of face-time inferiority complex; that is, she felt insecure that we weren't putting in the same bad-ass hours as the rest of the staff. Her "solution" was to hold work back, giving us a boring, slow-paced work day and then springing some major job on us at 5pm that required us to stay many hours late. I was applying for teaching jobs and often had evening phone interviews scheduled, so the second time she pulled that shit, I handed her my ID badge and walked out.
DeleteIf students KNOW that they may "have to work" on short notice, shouldn't they plan ahead and do their schoolwork early?
ReplyDeleteMy mature students actually do that! By "mature", I don't necessarily mean "older." Bless their hard-working hearts, and may they reproduce freely.
DeleteMine, too, but it doesn't solve the situation when class meeting time and work hours actually overlap.
DeleteAnd missed class time becomes even more serious when I'm assigning group work so that they can learn to work collaboratively to prepare them for the work world.
Delete