Malu,
I can completely sympathise with you. I am a PhD student at Case Western Reserve University and I am in a very similar situation. Since I didn't feel like typing my situation out again, this is an exerpt from an email I sent Tricia a while ago explaining my situation:
Our tuition is very high – it is a lot higher than most universities – and I have no idea why. $10000 is just the price to take classes at Case Western Reserve University – not even the fees that we have to pay for insurance and everything else - so by the end of a semester, Case Western Reserve University ends up getting about $11000. A semester is about 3 months (this year first semester is from August 28-December 5 and second semester is from Jan 21-April 28).
But usually that’s okay. In my major, biomedical engineering, no student should ever have to pay their own tuition. And it usually works that way. Our department is very well-endowed and is usually able to completely fund all of its students. The funding usually happens because the lab that a student works in has enough money to completely pay their tuition throughout their PhD work – about 5 years - and pay the student a salary of about $1300/month. We have 159 graduate students in our department, and 158 of them are getting completely funded.
Okay, the reason I am not funded is a really complicated one, and, ironically it is because I am a good student – not because I am a bad student. That’s the part that I am really having a hard time dealing with. This is a story that goes back about 7 years to when I was in high school and was in an advanced program for talented young people to work in labs at Case Western Reserve University. I got placed in a lab with Dr. Miklos Gratzl – and at the time, his lab was doing incredible work. I loved the work I did and the whole atmosphere of the lab. Then when I got to college, I wanted to work for him again – but he was on sabbatical in Europe for my first year and a half in college – so I waited for him to come back. Unfortunately, in those two years, his lab had changed. He had some major personal troubles (divorce, not getting any grants, etc) and the entire mood of his lab changed. Yet I still stayed. Anyway, to make a long story short, and to not go into techno-babble about what I did there
, basically my years in his lab turned into a comedy of errors. The worst thing of all was that he was paying every other student in his lab – except me. And the reason? I was the only American student that he’d ever had in his lab. He’s always had international students. He believed that since I was American, my government would pay for me. He was so mistaken that it wasn’t funny. Here is an excerpt from an email that I sent the president of the university about my situation.
I got my BS in BME in May of 2002 (magna cum laude) from CWRU and I enrolled in the BS/MS program at the advice of my advisors (Joe Izatt and Miklos Gratzl) because they told me that it would let me get my PhD one year more quickly. That was probably the biggest mistake of my life. First of all, it took forever to even get approved for BS/MS because something happened with my application between the BME department and the CSE office. However, that was the worst misguidance ever on the part of my advisors. I had always intended to get a PhD from CWRU - but BS/MS is usually regarded as a terminal degree in the BME department as I have recently found out. I am doing BS/MS right now graduated with my BS in May, 2002 in BME - and I have a Case Prime Fellowship this year (that expires in May). My situation is sort of long and convoluted, and is sort of atypical because of bad guidance that I received as an undergrad.
Basically, I have done research under Dr. Miklos Gratzl that was supposed to be part of my MS degree. However, because of his financial problems, the project that I was doing in his lab sort of hit a skid. I was working on fluorescence confocal imaging of chemotherapy drug distribution in models of single cancer cells. The problem was that the chemotherapy drug was over 5 years old and it took us almost a year to realize that the weird results that we were getting were not due to a new, interesting phenomenon, but because the chemotherapy drug had expired and had probably split into two distinct molecules a sugar and a fluorophore leading to the strange results we saw. However, at the time, Dr. Gratzl did not have enough money to buy a new drug for me for about 6 months. Then, when we finally got the drug, I tried to use the microscope - a really old confocal microscope at UH - we were the only group that used it - the microscope was broken. After 6 more months of waiting for Dr. Gratzl and the man that owned the microscope to figure out a solution about who was going to pay for the microscope, I was fed up. I hadn’t really gotten anything done for my MS degree for more than a year. Plus, Dr. Gratzl kept promising that he would have money to pay me. It started out that for BS/MS I wouldn’t need my tuition paid or a stipend because my parents had agreed to pay for my degree and Dr. Gratzl had told me that he would have money to pay for my PhD. However, my situation changed drastically over the summer. My mom got really sick and there was a chance that she wouldn’t be able to go back to work. My dad is retired, so it was sort of important that my mom work if they were going to pay for my school. Even though $10,000 is not that expensive for them, I didn’t want to burden them with my problems when everyone else in the department is getting funded completely.
So, basically, I hit my wits end with Dr. Gratzl and his empty promises and I decided to look for a new lab that would be able to support me. I had always debated between cancer and neuro-engineering as the areas that I had always wanted to work in. I chose cancer initially because when I was in high school, I was in the Case Young Scholars Program where I got to work in a lab in the BME department as a high school student - Dr. Gratzl s lab. So I chose to go into something I know. However, when I left Dr. Gratzl, I realized that I would rather work in a field that had to do with the nervous system. I looked for a new lab for a while when I left Dr. Gratzl, but the only professor that wanted to take me in when I was looking was Dr. Kourennyi. I went to Dr. Crago for help because of my funding situation and he graciously found me a Case Prime Fellowship for this year. However, I do deserve it because I got >90th percentile on my GREs and I graduated magna cum laude from CWRU, but I had trouble getting the funding because I was BS/MS.
Then I started working for Dr. Kourennyi. I have worked on two projects in his lab: the first was fluorescence imaging of NO in the retina which we both agreed would not be able to be completed for my MS degree. Now I am working on developing a model of phototransduction in the retina. However, both Dr. Kourennyi and I agreed that I am only going to do my MS research in his lab. He has no money and is not able to support another student at this time. He has one student that is close to the PhD, and two students that are working on their MS (another girl and me). He told both of us that he can not support us for our PhDs and he is not sure how he will come up with the money for his third student. However, I am planning to finish my MS project in his lab which I should be able to finish sometime this summer and defend sometime either this summer or next semester.
I am basically the victim of bad advising on the part of my undergraduate advisors (Dr. Izatt and Dr. Gratzl) about doing BS/MS. As a BS/MS student, I was guided into agreeing to do my MS research in the same lab that I had worked in as an undergrad and did not really think that I could look for a new lab. Plus, I am not sure if any of us really realized that the MS from BS/MS was traditionally a terminal degree. Then, after I had committed, I was sort of stuck in the disaster of the BS/MS program. My class is probably the first class that really had a lot of students doing BS/MS from our department and those of us that did BS/MS and wanted to eventually get our PhDs and had always planned on it - sort of got lost in the shuffle.
However, now I am completely stuck. My CPF runs out in May or more accurately 10 days - and there is no one that seems willing to take me into their labs. Either they do not have funding for another student or they have promised money to other new students. I have also applied for Whitaker and DOD and I was rejected by both – not because I am not qualified for the award in terms of my academic records, but because I am a BS/MS student. I also tried to apply for IGERT, but they are not taking any more BME students and are only looking for biology students to balance out the number of fellowships per department. The thing that makes me the sickest is that all of my potential advisors tell me that everyone that they have talked to that has had me as a student in class has given me glowing recommendations yet no one seems willing to take me. I’d almost feel better about my situation if I were regarded as a bad student rather than an exceptional student.
There are several things that really bother me about my situation:
- First, why is the BME department accepting new students when it is having trouble with funding its current students? I believe that they should make sure that students that are already committed to CWRU are completely funded before they look for new students. New students are not guaranteed to come to CWRU however, people in situations like mine are going to stay at CWRU. It doesn’t seem logical what they are doing.
- Also, why is a student that is very qualified to be a PhD student at CWRU (600 in verbal, 790 in analytical, and 780 in Math on GRE, 3.59 GPA undergrad, 3.71 GPA grad) being denied funding and sort of shoved into the background while far less qualified students are being fully supported? This really troubles me.
- Finally, the other thing that I realized is that people regard me as a very good TA. Ask Niels Otani or any of the students in the EBME 359 lab. Many of my students have told me that I am the best TA they’ve ever had that I spend most of my time trying to help them. People in the BME office even have stopped me to compliment me on the job that I am did. So why would the BME department want to lose an asset like me?
I just dont think it is fair that I am struggling to find a lab and funding and giving myself an ulcer thinking about it when other students are completely set for the next 3-5 years. It is absolutely unfair. I have invested too much of my time and my energy into CWRU to leave. It would set me back several years if I left CWRU right now. However, if that is what I have to do, I am more than willing to do it. I just don’t want it to come to that. It doesn’t seem like there is anything that anyone can do to prevent losing a well-qualified, dedicated PhD student especially one that got her BS degree from CWRU and will get her MS degree from CWRU as well. And that makes me sick and it does not make me want to donate any money to CWRU, my alma mater, in the future when I actually have money to contribute. I am not sure if the presidents office or the provosts office could do anything to help me, but I wanted to make you both aware of the unfair treatment of students in the BME department to possibly help prevent a similar thing from happening to future students. Honestly, I have undergone so much unnecessary stress that I almost feel like I should leave CWRU as much as I would really prefer not to I feel almost no loyalty to CWRU because it has shown no loyalty to me.
Okay… I know it is a long, complicated story. Basically, I got punished because I am one of the best students they have. As an undergraduate, I was guided into doing the accelerated BS/MS program (which is only for gifted students), that prevented me from getting the Case Prime Fellowship that I deserved and was more than qualified for until I personally went to Dr. Crago and begged him for any source of money last summer. When he reviewed my credentials, he immediately gave me a CPF without questioning. I have that best undergraduate credentials of any graduate student in our department. Then I am further screwed because I have the CPF and my advisor wasn’t forced to find money for me this year. Then I am even further screwed because the department promised money to entering graduate students before anyone realized that I wasn’t funded for this year – even though I have talked to every single professor in our department, the department chairman, the dean, the provost of the university, and the president of the university – basically, everyone at the university are more than aware of my situation
They just had my graduate student review last week and that is where everything came to a head. They all finally realized that I am such a good student and I am being shafted, basically. The department chair, the former department chair, and my current advisor all somehow convinced my old advisor to pay me this summer – so I am working for Dr. Kourennyi, but getting paid by Dr. Gratzl – but that is only for the summer. For next semester they’ve already promised all of their money to other people – even though I keep telling them that they are under grounds for a lawsuit – and that they should take some money away from a first year student.
Just to prove that I am better than other students in the department that are completely funded, if you would look at my credentials vs. my two best friends’ credentials I am higher in every single category – and they know it. My hard work is also what has helped the two of them pass two classes we’ve taken together (Systems and Signals – where I did the project all by myself – if I hadn’t, none of us would have passed, and Statistics – where I did the entire project all by myself). That’s why they are not at all sympathetic to my plight. They know that if life were fair, they would be in my situation. Both Rachel and Ashu had special exceptions made for them to even allow them into the program in the fist place. Rachel’s GRE scores were way below the admission standard and her GPA was right on the border. Ashu’s GPA was way below the admission standard and his GRE scores were right on the border. Both my GPA and GRE scores were well above admissions standards (I even did well on the Verbal section of the GRE (gasp!)). So they know that they are leading charmed lives and they might be the people that would be affected if the department took a poor student’s money and gave it to me.
These two “friends” of mine are more selfish than anything else. As long as they are set, they don’t care if I am.
The other thing that is making me absolutely sick is that they strung me along for almost a year that I would have money. If I would have known about my money situation by November, I could have applied to other universities to get in for this fall. However, they didn’t tell me until after the admissions deadlines for other universities. Basically, they don’t want to lose me and they don’t want to pay me. So what I am going to do is leave my options at Case open, but apply to different universities. But I won’t be able to enroll anywhere new until fall of 2004 – so I am stuck for a year. And, yes, it is discrimination – but not because of anything I did wrong. It is discrimination because of their own mistakes. And they want to keep me at Case Western Reserve University because I am such a good student that they don’t want to lose me (that’s why I didn’t know about my situation until after I could apply to other universities for Fall 2003) – but right now they’ve made irreversible mistakes so they can’t pay me next year. It’s absolutely disgusting.
I am also the only student that has to finish my MS by July – because they are making a special exception for me because of my funding situation – it keeps me from having to pay the $10000 in the fall semester because I will be already done with my MS. But I had planned to get my MS in December, not August, so it was sort of a shock to me. I think I might be able to finish my thesis by July if everything goes well in the research and I don’t hit anything that holds me up at all – the main chunk of the research is done and I just have to add little details to my model then I can start writing (crossing fingers). I really hope I’ll be able to. But I don’t know. Right now, I sort of have an outline, all the references, and a large chunk of the research done – but I still have a lot of work to do. It is going to be steady work from today until the day I defend. It is not going to be easy, but hopefully, I will have a master’s degree when I am finished. The good news is that I’ll be just 22 years old and have a Master’s degree – there aren’t many people that can say that - most 22 year olds are still undergraduates – I started school early and I am doing an accelerated program so I am at least a year and maybe two years younger than people in my situation (I am a year younger than Rachel and she is not getting her MS until next year, and I am almost 3 years younger than Ashu and he is bypassing his MS and going straight to PhD).
I know this was more information than you wanted to know, but I sort of wanted to explain it more completely – and show that I am not being shafted because I am a bad student and that I really have gone through every possible option that I could – quite the opposite, actually. I am being shafted because I am such a good student
~~~~~~ That was last week -- as of last Wednesday, I have recently gotten an exceptional opportunity for possibly working with the pioneer of neural prostesis in the world -- the man that was the lead designer in the diaphragmatic prosthesis that they just implanted in Christopher Reeve. He has a project that he needs a student for -- and he wants me as his student (he likes me a lot -- I was his student in 2 classes). The only problem is that he is retired, and a professor emeritus rather than a professor and currently has no grants and no lab. He is tring to work something out with two chemical engineering professors, and I will find out on Thursday if this will happen or not.
(Please cross your fingers for me because I would absolutely love to work with Dr. Mortimer!!!!!!!!!)
So, Malu, you are definately NOT alone.
- Alicia
