This past summer, grief seemed to swallow me up whole. Between the stress of planning for a new year at school and trying to figure out my future plans, the unspeakable happened: my uncle David passed away after a six-month battle with brain cancer.
News sources reporting on the likely budget cuts to enrollment and certain departments on each campus have maintained the current uncertainty of the effects. But these cuts have already taken a toll on UC Irvine’s quality education in unseen ways.
The implications of the UC-wide budget cut affect all of us. The effects are seen in the consistently rising tuition rates and the notorious underfunding of various departments throughout different schools. What we don’t always see, though, is what goes on behind the scenes: for teaching assistants on campus, the uncertainties they face are less positions open, less resources available for research, and less opportunities to finish out their Ph.D.s.
