Two days after his company's downfall, Austen Allred wrote:
I wish people could see how ugly it is to be envious, and how obvious it is to those around you when that's what's happening.
There's not much uglier than trying to tear someone down because they achieved what you wish
So it seems like you’re my former neighbour, then. Depending on how you count, UW might look like it’s both overstaffed and underfunded. This is because i’m mildly certain that most of these TAs aren’t hired as TAs, because nobody really pays them. All PhD students, definitely all at Kampus Ochota, have a requirement to take a certain number of teaching internship hours, which is about 40-60 per year depending on field. (this is, btw, anomaly on national scale and from next year or so new admissions will be paid for these TA hours).
At my faculty (Chemistry; about 220 admitted for BSc, about 80 for MSc annually) that’s enough to man almost all the more entry-level labs (that require more supervision), along with a proper salaried PhD or sometimes two. (We mostly make sure that students don’t do any stupid/dangerous shit, most labs are 12-15 students, first year labs are 30-40 and are limited by size of labs. We’re talking about 1 staff, incl TAs, per 4 to 6 students) I’m not sure how MIM makes use of that human resource, but wouldn’t surprise me if some classes are just led by some PhD students. This is definitely not a resource that Lambda has, so actual costs if anything should be even higher
ERC grants, haven’t seen many of them. European Regional Development Fund, a few grants sourced from Norway and Switzerland, NCBiR, NCN, FNP, some funding straight from ministry, there’s more of this. MIM is a notch or two higher than most of faculties so i don’t doubt it, but these grants are supposed to go for research, not for teaching. There are other sources of funding for that, and especially after new minister of science was installed, that money became available (it’s a special hell to navigate all of this)
That said, our faculty hasn’t been saved from bullshit hype. There’s nanostructure engineering course now, launched some three years ago or so, which is not engineering degree and mostly deals with bulk nanoparticles and such, and this is something that simply does not have much use (some sensors, limited use in catalysis but it has problems with reproducibility and dies quickly). Nano- hype happened mostly in early 00s and started dying around 2015 or so, so it’s not even right on timing. This deters few however and you can find loads of bs papers with shit like catalyst based on chitin nanoparticles made from recycled sustainably sourced beetles or whatever with non-reproductible results published in MDPI or Frontiers. There is, or was, “blockchain and AI lab”, tucked somewhere at CeNT (i take that yall’s have thrown them away from MIM and they inhabited first hospitable room since)
his is because i’m mildly certain that most of these TAs aren’t hired as TAs, because nobody really pays them. All PhD students, definitely all at Kampus Ochota, have a requirement to take a certain number of teaching internship hours, which is about 40-60 per year depending on field.
Depends on the course, but most TAs are PhD students, however some of the labs are also done by M.Sc. students hired on a contract (I was one!). PhD students don’t get paid explicitly for teaching hours, it’s part of their duties, but
but these grants are supposed to go for research, not for teaching
one of the main uses of grants is to hire PhD students! So having funds from research directly impacts the quantity and, perhaps more importantly, quality of PhDs, since ERC grants are very prestigious.
The tragic state of PhD students being on starvation salaries is a fact, but it’s a wide systemic problem with the entire country’s education. That being said, even with this “cheap labour source” you still can’t run courses for thousands of people!
So it seems like you’re my former neighbour, then. Depending on how you count, UW might look like it’s both overstaffed and underfunded. This is because i’m mildly certain that most of these TAs aren’t hired as TAs, because nobody really pays them. All PhD students, definitely all at Kampus Ochota, have a requirement to take a certain number of teaching internship hours, which is about 40-60 per year depending on field. (this is, btw, anomaly on national scale and from next year or so new admissions will be paid for these TA hours).
At my faculty (Chemistry; about 220 admitted for BSc, about 80 for MSc annually) that’s enough to man almost all the more entry-level labs (that require more supervision), along with a proper salaried PhD or sometimes two. (We mostly make sure that students don’t do any stupid/dangerous shit, most labs are 12-15 students, first year labs are 30-40 and are limited by size of labs. We’re talking about 1 staff, incl TAs, per 4 to 6 students) I’m not sure how MIM makes use of that human resource, but wouldn’t surprise me if some classes are just led by some PhD students. This is definitely not a resource that Lambda has, so actual costs if anything should be even higher
ERC grants, haven’t seen many of them. European Regional Development Fund, a few grants sourced from Norway and Switzerland, NCBiR, NCN, FNP, some funding straight from ministry, there’s more of this. MIM is a notch or two higher than most of faculties so i don’t doubt it, but these grants are supposed to go for research, not for teaching. There are other sources of funding for that, and especially after new minister of science was installed, that money became available (it’s a special hell to navigate all of this)
That said, our faculty hasn’t been saved from bullshit hype. There’s nanostructure engineering course now, launched some three years ago or so, which is not engineering degree and mostly deals with bulk nanoparticles and such, and this is something that simply does not have much use (some sensors, limited use in catalysis but it has problems with reproducibility and dies quickly). Nano- hype happened mostly in early 00s and started dying around 2015 or so, so it’s not even right on timing. This deters few however and you can find loads of bs papers with shit like catalyst based on chitin nanoparticles made from recycled sustainably sourced beetles or whatever with non-reproductible results published in MDPI or Frontiers. There is, or was, “blockchain and AI lab”, tucked somewhere at CeNT (i take that yall’s have thrown them away from MIM and they inhabited first hospitable room since)
Depends on the course, but most TAs are PhD students, however some of the labs are also done by M.Sc. students hired on a contract (I was one!). PhD students don’t get paid explicitly for teaching hours, it’s part of their duties, but
one of the main uses of grants is to hire PhD students! So having funds from research directly impacts the quantity and, perhaps more importantly, quality of PhDs, since ERC grants are very prestigious.
The tragic state of PhD students being on starvation salaries is a fact, but it’s a wide systemic problem with the entire country’s education. That being said, even with this “cheap labour source” you still can’t run courses for thousands of people!