Speed Bumps
After yesterday's post, it should come as no surprise that the funding cuts proposed by J.D. Alexander extend to all of the University of South Florida system. He wants to cut the entire USF Polytechnic budget, and a total of $136 million from USF, over 58% of the annual operating revenue.
Meanwhile, there are other schools in the state that are seeing less than a 5% cut in their allocations. Vendetta, anyone?
Yesterday, I submitted the main part of my doctoral application before this news broke. My original plans were to apply to three schools, then I ultimately decided to apply to just USF. My rationale was that because USF doesn't historically hire their own Ph.D's into tenure track professor roles, I should stick around, then move away once I'm done.
The advantage to this strategy is that I know this program, the professors know me and are supportive of my ideas-and I have a research population when I get to that point of my studies. It definitely is more appealing than moving away, then trying to garner support and find an acceptable research population, a school for Game Teen and all the fun of moving.
Now, I'm holding my breath, wondering if there will be a doctoral program to enter this fall.
Thankfully, the original plan when I returned to school was to get this M.Ed, then enter the workforce. What this means is that if the funding gets cut and I cannot be a funded doctoral student, I'll just enter the workforce now and wait until such time that it is possible to have financial backing to study and research my area of interest.
It won't be my first choice, but I'm looking at the positives. The job market for my degree is actually pretty good. There are several colleges locally that can use my skills, and each week, my boss points out jobs she's seen in my field (usually accompanied by 'damn, that job pays well!'), so I do have others who are looking out for me, too.
I said to a friend today that I don't want to bite my nails, especially now that I have pretty ones.
Hopefully, it won't come to that, and this is just a speed bump on the way to further studies...
Meanwhile, there are other schools in the state that are seeing less than a 5% cut in their allocations. Vendetta, anyone?
Yesterday, I submitted the main part of my doctoral application before this news broke. My original plans were to apply to three schools, then I ultimately decided to apply to just USF. My rationale was that because USF doesn't historically hire their own Ph.D's into tenure track professor roles, I should stick around, then move away once I'm done.
The advantage to this strategy is that I know this program, the professors know me and are supportive of my ideas-and I have a research population when I get to that point of my studies. It definitely is more appealing than moving away, then trying to garner support and find an acceptable research population, a school for Game Teen and all the fun of moving.
Now, I'm holding my breath, wondering if there will be a doctoral program to enter this fall.
Thankfully, the original plan when I returned to school was to get this M.Ed, then enter the workforce. What this means is that if the funding gets cut and I cannot be a funded doctoral student, I'll just enter the workforce now and wait until such time that it is possible to have financial backing to study and research my area of interest.
It won't be my first choice, but I'm looking at the positives. The job market for my degree is actually pretty good. There are several colleges locally that can use my skills, and each week, my boss points out jobs she's seen in my field (usually accompanied by 'damn, that job pays well!'), so I do have others who are looking out for me, too.
I said to a friend today that I don't want to bite my nails, especially now that I have pretty ones.
Hopefully, it won't come to that, and this is just a speed bump on the way to further studies...
Comments