Aaaand anyone you know at York is screwed for their entire year, so yay Mac!

On the subject of York U, I feel totally bad for all the students there :(. Really unfortunate, but what can you do? Union and Institution can't come to terms.

Back to our topic, I'd say each Faculty should have at least one, but at a University such as McMaster, I don't think numbers alone would suffice as indicators of good funding. You could have 10 antique machines which are from the 60s, or you could have a single state-of-the-art beast of machine that could scan a thousand a minute.

Either way, all my marks were up tonight .

Okay, I fill in some blanks here.

Undergrad tuition (for me this year) is 5200. Some of the MA programs I'm looking into are up to 8000. I assume that it is more for Sciences and Eng as their undergrad tuition is more.

Language TAs don't do any marking because the prof needs to make sure everything is being marked the same. Many language TAs are natural speakers, so they don't know a lot of the grammar rules. As a result, they mark things correct/incorrect when they shouldn't be.

Hum/Soc Sci TA's seem to have it much harder than other faculties for the most part. Marking essays is incredibly subjective, so it takes a lot more time. Furthermore, they often have meetings with TA's to go over lesson content, teaching strategies, and marking of essays.

If you're basing things on a rubric and as either right or wrong its a lot easier (and much faster) to mark.

Thesis work is...very time consuming. I wrote an undergrad thesis of only 40 pages. MA thesis are about 100. I can't imagine how much time it takes to edit something of that length. Also, you need to start prepping yourself for your Oral Exam...where you need to know everything in that essay, as well as some outside research in order to not fail.

Living expenses are...expensive. I paid 4500 in rent alone last year, and that's cheap compared to a lot of other students. Hydro, cable/internet, water, phone, gas works out to about $150 a month, or 1800 a year. Food is about $100 a month or 1200 a year. So basic expenses ran me up to 7500.

If you add on living expenses (7500), books (500), and tuition (5200) you're at 13 200 as an undergrad. Then there are student fees and other neccesities (clothing, transportation, spending money, gift purchases etc etc) you're looking at well over 14 000 a year.

just remember that a TA is working a part time job... which can never be assumed to support someone. IF they had full-time jobs, then 14000 a year would be way too low. but since they don't, there is no reasonable expectation for someone to be able to support themselves on a part-time job's salary.

although I do support them in the search for better benefits, job protection, etc., sometimes the can seriously just be asking for too much.

Originally Posted by stevennevets

just remember that a TA is working a part time job... which can never be assumed to support someone. IF they had full-time jobs, then 14000 a year would be way too low. but since they don't, there is no reasonable expectation for someone to be able to support themselves on a part-time job's salary.

although I do support them in the search for better benefits, job protection, etc., sometimes the can seriously just be asking for too much.

But students can't work full-time jobs (well, I don't think it's possible for a full-time student to be working 40 hours a week...but there are a few exceptions), so the money they make during part-time jobs is often what supports them.

There has been some discussion in another thread about the situation at York University. Let's discuss it here so that other threads aren't hijacked.

Ya York sucks. It sucked even before the strike. Everyone I know that went there was depressed about it as hell, as if they had failed at life.