Demographics: Asian American Female, PhD student in Psychology

Tags: Psychology, PhD, Financials, Food Insecurity, SNAP

I don't really do too much for fun at the moment. I've gotten into League of Legends recently. My friends dragged me into it and now I can't stop. I've been doing Duolingo for four years, German. It's easy, it's fun. I'm at Peppa Pig level. Fun fact about me: I was a professional classical pianist until college. So I was traveling around the world and around the country, to perform and compete and win. So that was an interesting, mini career before I began this career. My parents didn't let me continue piano as a career. They were like, "Oh, you're gonna be poor." And I was like, "Jokes on you. I'm gonna be a psychologist now." So they maybe should've just let me stick with piano. There is a part of me that agrees that piano probably wouldn't have been a good career for me because, when you love something as a hobby, but then you start getting paid for it, it's a job. It takes away part of the enjoyment there. So I am grateful, I guess, that they pushed me away from that, and now I can focus my attention on helping other people. I was the first person in my family to go to college. That was a whole debacle, because there was very little guidance that they could provide to help me figure that out. But I did, and I was also the recipient of many need-based grants and stuff. So the financial issues have been constant throughout my life; they still continue now. I do feel like Opportunity University is perpetuating my disadvantaged-ness mostly by the fact that my program does not provide the financial support that I need–that really any person needs.

I'm a first year student at Opportunity University in the PhD program in psychology, so I started this past fall. I specialize in schizophrenia research. I have a particular interest in vulnerable populations; people who need the most help. I am very interested in giving that help. I think that that's something that extends even past my professional life. I take great interest in helping, for example, my peers at school who may also be vulnerable and need to have resources to help them cross the finish line and finish their degrees. I have taken up the mantle in helping find resources for graduate students who may be in need–creating workshops or whatever to provide some education about different welfare resources, and how to apply for things. Just generally trying to support graduate students who are in similar positions as me.

I was given a grant. It's a federal grant that the department has to apply for. If the department has granted this money, then for like two years, they are able to offer the grant to a handful of students in the incoming cohorts. So the requirements for being awarded this grant is diversity or something. It's disadvantaged, like diverse graduate students. These specifics of how my department decided on who in each cohort is awarded the grant is a mystery, though I do suspect that it is entirely race-based. Everyone who's gotten this grant in my program is a person of color, which, you know, I take issue with because there are people who are not a person of color who are as deserving, if not more deserving of the grant. Anyway, that's a sidetrack. So I was given this grant, I was awarded $25,949 for my first year at Opportunity University. I expect the amount to increase next year, because it's based on my FAFSA from the previous year, which would be this year at which I am at my poorest. So it should increase next year.

The department is aware that this is a problem. I would say that the people in charge of my program are advocates, I guess for the students. They're trying to do what they can to improve our situations, but in the end it comes down to the stipend and they don't have control over that, unfortunately. What I have learned through my digging around is that Opportunity University has a rule where graduate stipends are not allowed to be funded by undergraduate tuition and fees. I believe this is true for all departments at Opportunity University. From what I understand, this is an arbitrary rule that very few, if any other colleges or universities do because otherwise, how do you pay for stipends? I believe what my program is doing is taking master's level students tuition and fees to fund stipends. However the master's program isn't that big. Hence why we only get $9,000. So yeah, it's a weird arbitrary rule and I can't blame my department and the directors or the department head or anything. I don't think it's their fault. I believe that this is a problem that needs to be solved at a much higher level,  possibly getting the president of Opportunity University involved in this. Because if it's an institutional wide ruling, then we can't only have it fixed in the psych department, it has to be fixed in all the departments.

I've been speaking to PhD students across campus about their stipends. It seems like the psych department is suffering probably more than the other departments because the other departments, for example, engineering, they have grant funding, plentiful grant funding. There's a lot of money going into engineering. My department does not have that. My supervisor has no grants. It's not because he isn't trying, it's just competitive. There's just several labs that don't have funding, or if they do, it's very minimal. I believe I'm probably one of the best funded students in my program at the moment. Because that grant gives me more than if my supervisor even had a grant. There was another student who I was speaking to, she was like, "Yeah, I'm in the best, um, grant funded lab in the psych department. My stipend is $15,000 a year." I was like, that's the best? Like, that's the best we could do in our department, $15,000 minus $9,000, and you get $6,000 a year and that's the best we can do? It's just frustrating, I guess.

Food insecurity has been an issue ever since I started at the university. Since my income is very limited it means that I cannot afford my basic needs. Thankfully I have been able to get onto SNAP. However, it took five tries on the applications to actually successfully be awarded SNAP. It was a difficult, convoluted process. I actually had to ask my friend Alice to help me, and essentially walk me through the application process because I know that she succeeded. I think she got the highest amount of money that SNAP can give you. So I was like, "She figured it out. I’ll just ask her for help." And after the fifth try, I did actually get like the $291 a month from SNAP, which has been fantastic. It's been very, very helpful. I guess I wasn't even thinking about how much of my expenses was just food but it's substantially impacting my finances. So being on SNAP is great. I have been able to get all of the food that I need. On top of that, the reason why I even met my friend George in the first place is because I was speaking to him about the donated meal plan, which he gave me as well. So that has been great. The two days a week that I'm on campus, I'm able to get lunch from the student center using the donated meal plan. So am I food insecure? I guess I was, but I'm less food insecure now that I have these services supporting me. I think in terms of food, I'm fine. Other expenses that worry me are rent, though. It doesn't seem like there's any welfare to help me out with that. That's a huge expense for anyone, but, you know, pretty, impactful in my circumstances.

I am on welfare and all of that, but also I am really grateful for my father who's able to help me pay for some of my expenses. I think that's an important thing to note as well. He's paying for like half of my rent. He's paying for all of my car stuff. Like my E-ZPass, and any repairs that I need to get done on it. He gave me the car, it was his car and now it's mine. Without the support of a loved one and welfare, I wouldn't be able to do this. I think that's true for everyone in the program. As far as I know, everyone has someone in their life who's paying for some of their expenses and/or they're on welfare. No, AND they're on welfare. There's no one who's just living off of welfare and doesn't have financial support from a loved one as far as I know. It's like an extra burden on not just yourself, but also your family, your friends, your partner, somebody. Opportunity University is able to pass the buck onto them 'cause no one said anything about it, or no one has made them find a solution for this problem yet.

Unfortunately, the only time that I've been to the university pantry was right after the meeting with my friend George on campus. He just let me look through the university pantry real quick after our meeting. But the problem with the university pantry and other food pantries is that they're during times when I'm not available. It's also just hard to put in the effort to think about when I'm available and email them to try to schedule a mutually beneficial time for us. It's like all of these little steps that add up to a lot when I have all of the other things to worry about. Like, just my program responsibilities by itself is a lot to think about, and to add on top of that, scrounging around for my basic needs, it's just… it's too much. So I haven't been able to make it to those.

It takes a lot of time. I know that I am privileged to be able to do that because a lot of the things that I've found my peers have been like, "How do you even find that? I've never heard of that before." I'm sinking a substantial amount of time into finding these niche things that people might not have known about. It's probably because it helps that I've been poor for a while. I've been on welfare for years, ever since I graduated college. So for example, when I was looking for subsidized housing, right after I got out of college, I knew how to look for that. I know there are places that you can look into where subsidized housing is not publicized, but it exists. For example, random apartments will have income restricted housing and they won't post it anywhere. They won't tell anyone that they have these. The only way that you can find it is just by randomly calling apartments and asking, "Do you have income-restricted housing?" Just hidden little secrets. I found out that if you have any sort of welfare resources or welfare services that you take advantage of, I think typically you also then qualify for the Affordable Connectivity Plan, which is a federal program to give you discounted internet. So the government pays $30 towards my internet plan every month, and my internet plan only costs $30. So I get free internet right now. So all of these little things that I've picked up over the years, I've been sharing with the graduate students at Opportunity University who may be new to poverty.

I think that, unfortunately, part of the downside of being in psych is that salaries are just terrible. So I was in research assistant positions for four years between my bachelor's being completed at another university and then starting my PhD at Opportunity University. So my salary started out in my very first research assistant job, it was $35,000. Thankfully I lived in a low cost of living place. It was upstate New York, so… it was doable, I guess. By my last schizophrenia lab, I think I was making $45,000-ish, a year. I was under the poverty line in every place that I lived in, which meant that I needed to take advantage of as many of these welfare services as possible. It takes tons of time out of my schoolwork. I think it's worth it, even if I don't get to see the solutions to this during my five years. At the very least, I hope that it solves the problem for future students. I know that Opportunity University just became an R-2 institution fairly recently and they're also attempting to get to R-1 at some point. I know that that's not possible if your PhD students can't support themselves. Do they know that it's not possible? Does the administration know how much we are suffering and how they have lost students due to the fact that we can't afford the program? 

Even on top of that it’s like, how do you even solve this? I think that's a problem that I've been trying to fix, but I really am just one person. I've been trying to make as many connections across campus as I can with people who may be able to address the problem with me. I've spoken to my friend George about this. I had a meeting with the school newspaper two weeks ago. I think they're trying to make a newspaper story or something about financial problems with graduate students and their stipends. I've spoken to one of the school coordinators. I've been bringing this up at the graduate student association meetings, when the associate dean is there. Of course I've also been communicating with my own program and the people in charge of that. But it really is just like bringing awareness to problems. I think that's the first step to getting solutions.

That takes time. I've also had to meet with union organizers.  I have met with a union whom we will probably affiliate with. They've given me some pointers about this. I've met with other unions at other schools who have given me some information on how to do these beginning steps. I'm running this group chat which requires moderation and driving the conversation and eventually soon I hope to maybe have events with the people who are interested in the union just to create some sense of community, start the dialogue about what the problems there are and how they can be fixed. How can we work together to advocate for each other? I don't want the existence of the union or the little baby union that I have getting out there. Even if it's not tied to me, I don't want the administration to know that this is a thing that is building. Because of course if they find out about it, then they have every incentive to try to crush it before it becomes anything.

It's empowering, but also kind of sad to talk about this. This shouldn't be a problem. I shouldn't have to deal with this and I shouldn't have to find solutions. It's making me into a bit of a firebrand, like a little rebel. It would be nice if I could just be a student, you know, like if I could just put my head down and do what needs to be done to get through with the PhD. Um, but unfortunately, I think I have to reach this higher standard of being a student and also an advocate for students. I enjoy doing this. I like helping people. It's also tiring and hard.

I'm able to do this because I have the privilege of time and energy at the moment, but I can't, I won't have as much time and energy in the future; especially as my second year begins. I have to start doing practicum, which is like me giving therapy two days a week; I have to do that for free. Unfortunately this is not a problem that I can fix at Opportunity University. This is a standard in my field where for like three years or something of our programs, we are just expected to give free therapy. We don't get paid for the therapy. The clinic itself might get paid. But anyway, once I add that onto my two days a week course load and then all of my other free time–free time is supposed to be used for research–it's a lot to have on my plate and also I have to worry about, like, how am I going to make rent? Or how do I help my peers who are suffering? How do I fix this institutional problem? It shouldn't be my responsibility. But unfortunately, if it's not my responsibility and I'm not someone who's trying to be a part of the change, it's not going to fix itself.