classicrockchick

classicrockchick t1_j6pfp3u wrote

Reply to comment by Party_Plenty_820 in Temple University Graduate Students Go on Strike after Year of Unsuccessful Negotiations by BigxMac

Oh I didn't mean to imply that it's especially awesome or anything of Temple (or any university) to do that. Like another commenter in this post said, it's the bare minimum. I just put it in there so someone wouldn't go "well ACK-SHOO-A-LEE you were making your stipend plus whatever you would have paid in tuition".

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classicrockchick t1_j6ok6on wrote

Reply to Temple University Graduate Students Go on Strike after Year of Unsuccessful Negotiations by BigxMac

Good for them. I was a PhD student at Temple from 2010 to 2015 and it sucked back then. I got health insurance, tuition remission and a $1500/month stipend. And I get it from the standpoint of the university, tuition remission is a lot of money but it's also not paying anyone's rent. For me, it was a stretch for one person to live in a not-completely-dangerous neighborhood and afford food and heat off of that. Now? Good luck studying for your comprehensive examinations with undergrads partying all around you because off-campus undergraduate housing is all you're going to be able to afford on that.

And specifically the program I was in (though I assume others are like this too), the faculty really do not like it if you get a job to try and supplement that stipend. They won't stop you, but you will get the hell judged out of you. Have your commitment to your studies questioned. Be asked if you realize this is not just another job but a vocation, a calling. And if these are being questioned, then no one is going to want to give you a nice grant-funded RA position that will get you off "academic welfare" as I've heard stipends so rudely referred to as.

Temple is free to leave things as they are, but they're not going to attract the talent they want to their graduate education. Like sure, a $1600/month (just looked on their website) is going to be fine for the really young wunderkinds that are fine living hand-to-mouth while they complete their studies because they don't know any better because this is just a leveling up of undergrad for them. And the downside to only pumping those kind of people out is that they are not going to be academics who can't function in the real world. They're going to be the embodiment of the stereotypical academic that every practitioner hates; arrogant, ignorant and socially inept. And there's only so many tenure track positions to hide those kinds of people in.

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classicrockchick t1_j5yrgqu wrote

Reply to comment by Low-Athlete-1697 in Did the train at the Franklin Institute use to move? by Zyoy

They would have to literally disassemble it piece by piece to get it out of there. And even then, some of the pieces are just giant pieces of steel so you'd still need like a crane or something to get it out.

The easiest way to get it out would be to demolish the building around it. And that's not happening any time soon. (Hopefully.)

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classicrockchick t1_itpwbee wrote

Reply to Comic book stores? by k111d111

Atomic City is probably the best in the city now (7th and South).

Brave New Worlds has an outpost on 2nd Street just below Arch. Kind of small, but was featured in M. Night Shyamalan's Glass!

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