Development strategies for Texas Tech University

Development strategies for Texas Tech University

Texas Tech University is one of the research universities in the United States.  Texas Tech University provides a good environment for the research to the students and it has a lot of facilities for the research, I do believe that the additions of some minor facilities for the students might express Texas Tech as one of the best research oriented universities of the nation. These facilities include parking facilities for the students, computational facilities for the computer based research, and better living facilities for the students and faculty.

Especially for the graduate students, parking facilities are very important, because there is no enough public transport in Lubbock.  As mentioned earlier, there is no public transport in this city, every student needs a private transport facility.  Especially for the graduate students, parking facilities are very important as they work in the lab more than twelve hours.  Sometimes, they also need to work in the lab at midnight.  Therefore, parking facilities play an impotent role for them.  However, Texas Tech provides limited parking facilities for the graduate students.  Sometimes, they make a long queue for getting parking permit, and students need to wait more than one year for getting parking permit.  If this situation continues for a long time, Texas Tech will lose its reputation as a research university.  I do believe that good parking facilities for the graduate students as well for the undergraduate students might increase the reputation of the Texas Tech as a good research oriented university in the nation and in the world.

In this modern era, everything is going to depend on the computer.  People are doing a lot of research on the computer, and for this purpose high performance computer plays an important role.  Although Texas Tech has a high performance computer center (HPCC), it does not maintain the machine properly.  For this reason, the HPCC frequently goes to shut down.  The shutdown of HPCC influences the research as it loses a lot of research data.  This process also wastes a lot of time of the researchers.  I want to provide a simple example about how researchers are affected by the shutdown of HPCC.  I am doing research related to molecular dynamics simulations, which requires a lot of computations.  I use HPCC for my computational work.  When the HPCC shuts down, I lose a lot of my research data, and my research becomes vulnerable.  Therefore, Texas Tech should ensure good computational facilities for the research to cope with the modern era’s computational research.

As the students and faculty are the main resources of the universities, it is important to ensure a better life for them.  There are no enough housing facilities for the graduate students at Texas Tech. Texas Tech might increase facilities for the student housing, and provide a good health insurance plan and other necessary facilities to the students and faculty.

In conclusion, it is clear that Texas Tech authorities should provide good parking, computational, and living facilities for the students and the faculty to develop its quality as one of the best research universities in the nation. (Rafikul Islam)

 

Pushing Campus Dining Plans-Vegetarian Friendly

Good food is the right of every life on earth. This is what we vegetarians miss at Texas Tech University Campus (TTU). TTU is highly diverse but the food served by the Hospitality Services does not cater to the diverse community dining requirements. I felt the need to bring it to the notice of Texas Tech Hospitality Services (TTHS) to cater to the necessity of vegetarians who study and work at Tech.

TTHS must improve at least in two ways suggested as below. First it should provide more food options to vegetarians, it should shed the careless attitude to the concerns of vegetarians. Many of us are from a culture where anything other than vegetarian is no option. It may be due to religion or family preferences. This is not best understood by many catering facilities available on campus as this may not be a part of their culture or routine.  First of all, TTHS should understand the specifications of a vegetarian diet. As vegetarians we do not eat meat, poultry, fish, or other sea animals. Generally, vegetarians, avoid any form of hidden animal products. The salad options have meat added to those too. When a vegetarians happen to eat meat unknowingly it affects their sentiments.

I wish to state strongly that the TTHS has no concern towards ‘vegetarians’ on campus.  The "Healthy Eating" web page on our TTU website, which claims that they have a 'smart choice brochure' for vegetarians, takes us to broken page and shows error. They have not fixed this broken link only because they have no choice for vegetarians. The link alone is not crushed, but are the eating options to vegetarians. They claim that they are concerned on the web page, when actually they are not. The efforts of some of the vegetarians on campus to bring this to the notice of person in charge were in vain. He did not care to listen, probably because he was not a vegetarian who did not eat meat, fish or poultry.

According to me the TTHS are doing this only with a business motive. TTUHS must work on serving vegetarian friendly foods on campus. My father and grandfather were running a Hotel Business, and always used to tell us that they were more concerned and responsible to serve good, fresh, healthy and tasty food to others, if they took money or do it as a service or donation. This quality which is instilled in me created an impression that TTHS is not doing a great job. One of the basic necessities for humans is good and preferred food. If TTUHS cannot provide it to the necessity of people from diverse backgrounds, how well will the education TTU provides serve their purpose? I would like to remind that better facilities are offered by other universities in Dallas, Austin and Arlington areas.

I try to prepare my own food, but when the course and work demands more time, or during exams, we feel if there is a place to get some food, that would be helpful.  It is not preparing the food alone, going to grocery stores, cleaning, and cooking are very time consuming and not affordable when quality work is demanded by school or work.  If we are unwell, sometimes we have to starve on campus without even a hot vegetarian soup. I have no questions about how much TTHS charges or why, but I want them to include vegetarian hot meal options, that are healthy, prepared by people who are trained a bit. I do not expect a dramatic change immediately, but a slow start with minimal staff, minimum equipment and a reasonable training with a little consideration towards vegetarians on campus.

The Welfare of a Graduate (PhD) Student at Texas Tech University

Nothing is more exciting than when you get to realize that it’s real and not just a dream that you have got a scholarship opportunity to pursue your post graduate studies from a university in the United States. A university like Texas Tech is ranked amongst the top 100 universities in the world, and thus millions in the world have a wish to join such a university, but just a few hundreds get such an opportunity. In most of the cases, the largest percentage of graduate students are experienced and mature, and with independent families.  The expectations of the student, relatives, and friends are always very high, and they do anything to raise money required for air ticket, and initial rental fees while in the United States. Most people even sell some assets like land to ensure that they have the required funding for their travel, in case they didn’t have it. Most graduate students have jobs that they leave back home to pursue further education and to better their lives from a first world country. Many thus leave the jobs, families, and friends.  On arrival, imaginations and memories of what they left behind do not just phase out immediately, but rather gradually. However, the life of a PhD graduate student ought to be given more attention to help them become more refined, stronger, focused, enthusiastic, optimistic, productive, and useful to the community from which they come. My arguments if the subsequent paragraphs support the need for a more improved support toward the welfare of a PhD student at Texas Tech, a research based university. 

I have spent two months so far at Texas Tech.  I have realized that a graduate PhD student at Texas Tech University is very busy with specifically academic work yet his/her welfare is not given stringent attention. PhD students do not have time to do any other side activities lest they become ineffective in academia. Their busy nature of life is however intrinsic, and hardly unavoidable. But on the other hand, it is good for instilling into them time management abilities, dedication towards achieving set targets, and general positive attitude change towards a wide range of life aspects. The problem this nature of life poses if not highly regarded, is unprecedented poor living standards that might directly impact the students’ academic performance negatively. I therefore advocate for robust, comprehensive, and sustainable policies aiming at improving the livelihood and welfare of a graduate PhD student on a scholarship opportunity at Texas Tech. There must be a difference between a PhD student and an undergraduate student. A PhD student is more or less an instructor in the making, and a researcher. Avenues should be put in place to have these students more empowered and their esteem strengthened given their busy nature of life. 

 As earlier described, PhD students are quite old enough and in most cases above 27 years of age with lots of responsibilities which they end up neglecting due to a drop in finances during the course of a PhD study. At this age, most have families for which they have responsibilities to look after, and as well as establishing their lives both financially and materially.  Coupled with the above, it is pertinent to note that most majors for PhD students take not less than a period of 5 years of serious concentration. This rather means a fully dedicated student will spend five years without financial and material stability. Such a student hesitates to go back home, especially if he/she has been in the United States for over 5 years but yet are older and poor. Therefore, avenues should be put in place to ensure that there is a difference in the life of this student, not only in academia, but in all other life aspects. For instance, most PhD students have job opportunities from which they get some monthly stipends to sustain and support their living while studying. However, the stipend is in most cases consumed in expenses of rent, paying for extra credits at the university, paying for health insurance, etc. The university should put in place avenues for students on scholarships to ensure that their expenses with respect to the university are minimal or eradicated.

Lastly, I wish to category state that in general, there is always low productivity from a less motivated community. We need to ensure high production levels are maintained and improved at Texas Tech University. There is a need to set production targets every year and assess the dependency parameters while establishing avenues of countering unfavorable the parameters. These parameters can as well be used to guide the formulation, and regulation of policies that I talked about in the first paragraph.  The university avails scholarship opportunities to hundreds of students with the expectation of high productivity in academics, research, and innovation.  However, the largest percentage of those enrolled has not performed to the expectations of the university. Many have withdrawn from their courses, while others have finalized without any relevant work that benefits the university.  Literally, my expectation is that more students should be able to finalize with the highest percentage having relevant contribution to the university in research and innovation. I argue that this level of productivity largely depends on the student self-esteem, commitment, and enthusiasm towards whatever he/she is doing. These in turn depend on attitude which is entirely determined by the welfare.

In my conclusion, therefore, if the above as described in the paragraphs are put into practice, Texas Tech University will be deemed to be the most empowering, but also a highly productive with empirical evidence in research areas that practically impact human life and technology positively. I believe that productivity is dependent upon the welfare of the stakeholders. I therefore hypothesize that the better the welfare of all, the higher the commitment and the rate of productivity.

Judas Tadeo 

Survey experiences

My Data collection Experience

It was such an interesting experience during my data collection. I was initially uncomfortable and a little bit scared imagining how I would ask our respondents to fill out my questionnaires. However, I had no choice but to go ahead and carry out the survey. On Monday 17th October, I went to SUB and found two American students (girls) talking and I requested them to fill the questionnaires. They were so much willing and they didn't hesitate. This gave me courage that advanced me to the next group of three, seated next to each other. They all accepted and appeared glad to help. There was no fear anymore knowing that everyone was glad to help. In some open place in the SUB, I found six students and all them accepted to fill it out. While I was sitting somewhere waiting for them to complete such that I go and collect my papers from them, I just saw each one bringing the papers to me. This humbled me and I felt like I needed to be too good to people, even strangers. I had an appointment with my doctor at the Student Wellness Center; while there I issued one questionnaire to a staff person who filled it out willingly. I also gave one questionnaire to my roommate who is an American, and one classmate, also American. I had a total of 14 questionnaires all filled out by Americans. I wish to say, the exercise helped me realize that I can easily associate with American students, they are so friendly. I only met one group of two that who were doing some interview. They asked me to give them some twenty minutes for them to complete the interview. However, I couldn’t wait since I had less time yet there were many more people in the SUB I could contact. I thanked them for their willingness to help and went on. (Judas)

Experience while surveying:

My topic of interest is social media and we as a group decided to collect 12 surveys on all the topics such as social media, parental leave and Black Lives Matter. I preferred the areas where I could find diverse people i.e. people of different age groups and different majors at Texas Tech University. I started collecting surveys on October 14, 2016 and first I asked my classmate and he told me he was busy. Then, I headed to the student union building (SUB). I felt a little hesitant at the initial moment as I found everyone was having lunch, but I got started going to the people that just finished lunch and later on I found it very easy to collect surveys from six males and six females as all of them were welcoming. People said they love taking surveys. I even went to the library but heard from a few people they were busy and had work to complete. One of the guys who filled the surveys was making fun at the survey topic parental leave as he told me that he is still a bachelor and why would he bother for a parental leave. But he filled out the survey. This was how I ended up in getting my surveys filled. It was fun and interesting. (Bhargavi)

Survey Experience

Regarding this survey collection, I conducted the survey with six male and six female TTU students. Three boys and one girl in my lab helped me fill out five surveys, they were very cooperating. According to their feedback, I learned that they were not so familiar with Black Lives Matter movements, but they found themselves immersed in such kind of news from social media recently. In order to conduct the rest of the surveys, I went to Student Union Building (SUB). I randomly chose the people who seemed not so busy with study, most of them were glad to do the survey except one girl refused me implicitly. All of them in the SUB just filled out the survey instead of giving any comments. In general, most of the people I talked with displayed a sign of interest in doing the survey. (Lingjuan)

Survey Experience

The experience I have obtained from the survey was unbelievable. I did not expect such kind behavior from the busy Texas Tech Students. Only two or 3 students said that we have class, can you pass this survey to others? Most of the students were excited about the social media usage. They were happy to express their opinion in our survey. I got some students who had neutral expression about the Black Lives Matter. I also got one TTU faculty who was very excited about Black Lives Matter. In overall, it was amazing for me to collect through this survey, (Rafikul)

Researcher’s Experience on Conducting a Survey

The survey was conducted as an assignment of the course work for Academic Writing — ESL 5315.The survey restricted that the participants must be Americans from Texas Tech University, six males and six females. It was not hard to find people to participate in this survey. Most of the participants in this survey were friendly. Only three girls near the English-Philosophy building were reluctant and one girl was rude to say that the girls did not want to participate in the survey. Generally the undergraduates, in particular boys were more than happy to cooperate. However girls filled out the survey too. One police officer at the student union block filled out the survey form, but did not comment or talk any further. They did not raise any questions after going through the survey questions. This shows there is good sense of moral responsibility from our Texas Tech Community towards our country and people. (A.S.)

Survey Experience

I prepared seventeen surveys, 12 from American students at TTU and 5 from international students at TTU. I walked through SUB after lunch time to find students. I mostly asked the ones that did not seem busy with studying or having food. Thus, most of the students I talked to were friendly and open to take their time and fill out the forms. However, there were 3 students who told me they cannot fill the survey, because they are busy or they must leave. I found it very easy to find six male and six female students, though was hard to make sure if they were American or not, and I had to ask some of them if they were American. This was slightly challenging because some students seemed not to like it. Almost all the students did not say anything or give comments and they just filled the survey. (Niloofar Gholamrezael)

Survey Experience

I did the surveys yesterday at night because I tried to do it before that time and most of the students were busy. So yesterday at 8:00 pm I stopped by between the library and student union and I started asking randomly to students if they had time to do a survey. Most of the students that stopped by to do the surveys were undergraduate students, and a few were graduate students, so this means that undergraduate students were less busy that graduate students. I got six females and six males. Also, I got the chances to talk with all of them and know how they feel about social media, parental leave, and Black Lives Matter. During the surveys and conversation about the topics, I found that most of the TTU students are very kind and polite because most of them were interested in my writing class and they showed respect and took the surveys very seriously. About the surveys I got the chances to hear from an undergraduate male that when he was filling the survey, he found that question number eight in the Black Lives Matter section needs to have the order of the options fixed because "strongly agree" should go first then "agree". (Armando)

Survey Experience

The survey was conducted mostly in the Student Union Building of Texas Tech by choosing the responders randomly. Nothing out of ordinary was observed, with most of the respondents readily willing to take the survey. However, a few declined saying they were busy with their assignments. Mostly of the respondents unanimously felt that the survey had lot of questions and some visibly lost interest after filling the first page of the survey. The respondents were not bothered by any of the questions despite the fact that the survey had some sensitive topics. (Ashwin)

Survey Experience

I went to the Animal Science building to complete my twelve surveys. I went to the building restaurant and get four volunteers and the rest of them were in the graduate student office. In general, it was a good experience and everyone cooperated with me. I only had three men that when they get to the parental leave part start complaining about it. For me it was a good experience and the majority of the people were really happy to help me. (Edgar)

002 Survey Experiences

Citibus Service at Texas Tech University-Bhargavi

Essay – Citibus Service at Texas Tech University

Both students and teachers spend hours travelling back and forth between their residence and school. Bus service provide a huge transportation facility for the students. Bus service reduces the problem of nation’s increasing demand for energy. It is also economical and could reduce the environmental issues to some extent. A large number of students use public transportation at the schools. Taking the case of Texas Tech University (TTU), a majority of students travel in buses within campus. TTU provides citibus service for the students who get enrolled for courses. Student’s transportation fees are included within their tuition fee. One can find buses almost crowded at peak times like lunch hours. TTU provides bus service for its students even off campus such as Walmart, mall and to some of the off campus housings. Though TTU provides on campus housing, some students prefer to stay off campus. Bus service is a huge benefit for both students living on campus and off campus. Though bus service is a preferred transportation at TTU, students come across some issues while using bus service for the transportation.

Firstly, since student parking of personal vehicles is a major issue at TTU, they have to travel in buses though they own a personal vehicle. This results in overcrowding in buses at some peak times such as early morning at around 8 AM, lunch hours and after 5 PM when students start getting back home. It becomes really difficult for the driver to accommodate all the students in seats. Some students have to stand throughout and when overcrowded, they have to stand at the opening of the bus which is not safe. However, sometimes during the day, buses are all empty and still driver has to run the bus. TTU has to take some action regarding this issue. TTU should insist that citibus service increase frequency of buses at peak times and reduce the frequency when not needed.

Another issue is non availability of bus service during summer and winter breaks and even during weekends. TTU offers courses during summer, and students who enrol in summer courses have to walk to the university. As the temperature during the months of July and August is unbearable, students find it very difficult to walk to the university. TTU has half of the population of graduate students in all majors who work during summer and winter breaks. Some students use their bikes to travel during summer, whereas in winter, the bridges and roads may ice and it is not even possible for students to use their bikes. This really is a problem for students who work in summer and winter breaks. Students who work during these breaks are even willing to pay an additional fare for the transportation. Taking this into consideration, TTU has to make sure that some sort of transportation system is available for students during these breaks.

Of all, the major problem is during working days, when it comes to scheduled transportation hours of the bus. Bus service starts early at 7AM and ends at 7PM. After these scheduled hours, TTU provides safe night and safe ride. These are available for students who need transportation other than the scheduled hours of citibus. But, students have to wait for long after they make a call to request for these special services, because not much frequency of these transportation facility is available. Hence, some students prefer walking late nights. We hear many campus crime alerts at TTU and students who walk alone are prone to these situations. Many other schools provide bus facility even late at night for their students. This helps reducing the crime on campus to some extent and also saves time for students. TTU needs to focus on this problem and should try to solve this issue as early as possible.

In conclusion, Texas Tech University should take into account, the problems encountered by students while choosing citibus for transportation. As we hear most of the crime alerts that we get notice of were faced by students who walk alone late night. TTU has to take immediate action for the convenience and safety of students. Early action is appreciated.

                                                                                                                                       Bhargavi Gude

Graduate School Application Process at Texas Tech University (Armando Maldonado)

The Graduate School application process to Texas Tech University (TTU) as any other college in the United States consists of the submission of letters of recommendation, official transcripts from previous higher degree institutions, and a personal statement. Since the 21^st century began, everything like cars, computers and internet access has been improved, making humans capable of doing more in a shorter period. Therefore, to reduce delays in the application process, TTU needs to improve their old fashioned way (sending all by mail) into a system in which all documents can be directed to each department by using a personalized web page.

Last year, when I applied to Graduate School, I got the chances to apply for six colleges in the United States. From those, the best options for me were TTU and North Carolina State University (NCSU). At NCSU all the process to apply was done through the Civil Engineering Department web page, and all my application documents were in less than three days under review by the Graduate Faculty. On the other hand, at TTU, my experience with the Graduate School admission office was not even close to the NCSU application experience. However, it is my aim to push the faculty members of the Graduate Admission office to improve their system into one similar to NCSU or any other college in the U.S. that uses the technology to reduce delays and to loss of documents during the process. So, this improvement not only will make everyone’s life easier; it also will provide that more students get the chance to keep track of where their admission documents are, and they will know if their respective departments received their entry papers on time without delay.

Therefore, after being awarded this year as one of the top ten research institutions in the United States, Texas Tech University needs at least be able to figure out how to have a clearer, more user-friendly computerized process, making TTU able to compete with those top universities like NCSU. So, this recognition will bring more students around the world that want to be part of the Texas Tech community, even though improving the application process will lessen the larger number of students who leave the application process due to the inefficiency of the system. All the effort of this essay is to tell the TTU Graduate School Admission Office about this issue. When I applied to Tech to get my entry papers on time, I sent an email to my advisor with all my admission papers, because most of the entry papers got lost before I got into the Civil Engineering Department. For this reason, I want to make the admission office aware of this issue, helping them to know about this, and then if they make the changes they will be mindful of the fact that most students will keep choosing Texas Tech. They will do this because the college they want to study offers them the tools they need to successfully and quickly apply to Graduate School.

Advocating ME department set up the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award

As a teaching assistant in Mechanical Engineering department, I advocate that our department set up the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award to recognize the excellent TAs for their distinguished contribution to students. As everybody knows, a good teaching assistant is not only the glue that can hold the class together, but also is the one who can provide valuable support to professors; meanwhile, I noticed that the Chemical Engineering department rewards their TAs every year, and also numerically highly ranked reputable universities, such as Stanford University, Harvard University, etc. implement similar awards as well. So in my opinion, I suggest that our department establish an award to acknowledge outstanding graduate teaching assistants for their contributions to the teaching tasks in the ME department. There are several reasons why we need to award outstanding teaching assistants.

First of all, by establishing this award, the TAs’ initiative will be greatly elevated; once the TAs are full of passion in their teaching mission, the students can benefit greatly. People are inclined to contribute more to gain achievement; this award can provoke them to be more helpful to students. As student evaluations of TAs are consulted, in order to perform better, there is no doubt the TAs will be more responsible to students. They will prepare class discussions sufficiently, and grade the homework more carefully. Therefore, the students will have more responsible teaching assistants in class, and also they will obtain more effective learning recourse from their teaching assistants. High level TAs get undergraduate students to understand the subjects on a different level, which makes them have better judgment in the real world problems and pay more acute attention to details once they are out of academia.

Moreover, I think this awarding is a process that recognizes TAs with a record of outstanding contributions over time; this will definitely be highlighted on graduate students’ resumes. Once the graduated students are looking for a job which is related to academia, the one who has an Outstanding TA Award can obtain a greater advantage over others; moreover, this award can verify their aptitude in the professional world even when they are looking for a job in other areas.

Last but not least, having better, more qualified TAs can also raise the bar of the department. TAs carry a pivotal role in our department in terms of giving discussions and lecturing designated courses. More qualified TAs ensure a better conduction of those courses and a more efficient way in conveying knowledge to students. Personally speaking, for the sake of rewards, the TAs will not only contribute more to the department, but also can build up themselves better, from their teaching experience, since all of the courses will reinforce the foundation of their knowledge.

To sum up, based on the reasons aforementioned, I can only foresee the advantages of having the awards, but not a single drawback from this. Therefore I suggest that our department establish the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.  (Lingjuan)

What Texas Tech University can do for Graduates Students

Texas Tech University is one of the best Universities in the United States. Their variety of programs this university offers, their good athletic teams, and a peaceful campus environment are some of the things that makes this University so popular among students. From all the universities that I have attended or visited, Texas Tech is the best one. However, that does not mean that this university is perfect. This is my first semester as a TTU graduate student, and I have noticed that the administration can make some changes to facilitate graduate students’ life and working conditions. Hence, in the next paragraph I will explain the things that could improve and make more easy the life and research work of graduate students here in Texas Tech University.

            First of all, I believe that the administration should allow graduate students to drive and park freely all over the campus. I think this is crucial to every graduate student, because sometimes we need to go to other building to do research or for a conference. The fact that we need to take the bus to move through the campus complicates things and prolongs the time required to make a task. I will give my example to support my argument. Currently I am a graduate student in the Animal Science Department. As part of my research, I use the GC/MS machine in the Chemistry department. Because I can’t get to the department in my car, I need to take the bus. The problem is that the bus does not start until 7:30 am. For that reason, I need to start my work at 8:00 am and finish late, because I am not able to start earlier in the morning. This situation makes me get late at home, and makes me unable to be with my children.  

            Besides what I mention above, I urge the university administration to increase the salary of graduate students. Actually, a graduate student assistantship is only 18,000 dollars annually. This barely allows the student to pay for their rent and basic articles. If we consider the amount of work that a graduate students are required to do and to the risk they are exposed to in laboratories and farms, we will realize that a graduates students are under-paid. I believe that the university needs to consider the rent, and other utility cost that graduate students need to afford, to establish a reasonable salary. In my experience, I know a friend who only earns 1,000 dollars monthly, and she has a rent of 600 dollars. That leaves her with only 400 dollars for food, cellphone, gas, and other expenses. With this I am not telling that they should pay us like professors, but at least a little more would allow graduate students to be out of the concern of running out of money and being un able to eat.

            The third but not the least important aspect, is that I think that the university administration should give graduate students and their dependents health insurance. As mentioned before, the salary of a graduate student is so low that they can’t afford health insurance for them or for their families. To make things worse, the governments’ Medicaid program would deny the benefit, because according to their charts graduate students are overpaid and can afford private health insurance. The reality is that is impossible for a graduate student to afford rent, and health insurance with the actual monthly payment. I believe this is very bad because with all the anxiety and stress that a graduate student has, he could get sick very easily and he would not be able to pay his medical bill.

            In my experience those are some of the aspects that, if the university administration changes them, would improve graduate students’ life and working conditions. I guarantee you that if a graduate student can drive and park all aver the campus, and receive a better salary and health insurance for himself and his dependents he would be a happy student and it would produce more for the university. I just hope with this essay that a university member, after reading it, could reflect on it contently and make some good chance for the benefit of all graduate students.