Can someone explain to me how some grad students I know are able to take half a dozen vacations per year?

Your asking the wrong people. Why don't you worry about what's in your wallet.

You answered your own question. "Daddy" is bank rolling them.

Why? You realize these people's families are likely very wealthy, right? 10,000 is probably chump change to them. It'd be like you giving your kids a couple hundred to spend on beer when you see them.

don't understand wrote:

Do parents really just fund this kind of stuff?

Yes. And, they will pay for their wedding, buy them a car, and probably help them buy their first house.

They don't really go on these trips. They invent these trips to make other people jealous. It's pretty easy to fake, especially to FB friends. They're actually at home catching up on work.

They sound rich. Most people I know who did a masters or PhD didn't travel like that.

Why not? People wrongly assume grad students spend years stirring a petri dish for 18h/day. The reality is many have lots of free time. In my case, experiments required highly specialized facilities that were in high demand. I had considerable idle time between experiments. In addition, you are usually working for little compensation and many mentors are happy to have competent students who are able to get things done.. Why rock the boat ifbthe kid is producing the goods? Sure some advisors are giant DBs that expect 6 days week effort but not all of them.

Freelove wrote:

Why? You realize these people's families are likely very wealthy, right? 10,000 is probably chump change to them. It'd be like you giving your kids a couple hundred to spend on beer when you see them.

Bingo. Some families have a lot of money.

Those Pesky Trust Funders wrote:

All questions regarding trust funded lifestyles and vacationing instead of studying should be addressed to rojo and wejo.

them brojos reely needed to pay tension in kindegarden

This is the answer.

The med student's already forking out a couple hundred grand for school, what's a few thousand more? Loans are pretty easy to come by.

The biggest perks of a Ph.D are (1) that you have a flexible schedule, and (2) you get to travel to potentially interesting places for conferences or other work functions. With (1), you can take a week off and make it up later by working extra hard. In practice almost nobody works extra -- even if they're sitting at a desk for 80hrs/week, they're futzing around on facebook and Letsrun most of that time. Perk 2 means you can get a free flight to various places, and that's often the biggest cost of a trip.

I know a lot of Ph.Ds, and they're all solidly middle class (some upper-middle), no trust fund. Rich kids are smart enough to know that there's no money in a Ph.D, and for most people it's a dead-end job. If I had a trust fund, why would I bother working on a Ph.D?

Their so dum wrote:

Those Pesky Trust Funders wrote:

All questions regarding trust funded lifestyles and vacationing instead of studying should be addressed to rojo and wejo.

them brojos reely needed to pay tension in kindegarden

rojo: i resemble them remarks

wejo: yeh, there wrong

if those trips are in some way related to their research the university will reimburse them as well. As a sophomore I worked in the Department of Psychology front offices and a number of these reimbursement forms came through to my desk. I had to double check the math and pass it along to the department chair to sign them.

we ain't that stoopid wrote:

Their so dum wrote:

them brojos reely needed to pay tension in kindegarden

rojo: i resemble them remarks

wejo: yeh, there wrong

The sad thing is, they really are that stupid.

That's my memory from grad school as well, albeit, I was not a PhD student, I was an MS student at a prestigious university. Grad school was my first recognition of what it was like to come from a rich or upper middle class family. It was strange to me seeing a 24 yo man who had never worked a job, still getting an allowance, no scholarship/aid, school loans, never even purchased a text book and spent an entire winter break in SBS skiing. I met other similar grad students as well. There are a lots of PhD students who are not chasing the buck because they have the luxury in form of the financial where with all to pursue their true aspirations. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that...wished I had it like that.

Btw, if your parents earn 500K a year versus 50K, if the 500K parents gives their a kid 5K vacation, its is the same as 50K parent giving their kid a $500 dollar vacation...it's all relative.

Maybe it's just a function of what I study, but the PhDs I know are almost all fairly wealthy foreigners (mostly Asian). They'll also make good money when they graduate.

Half of my graduate school class is Fulbrights. The European and Latin American Fulbrights are always on vacation too, and they're snobs constantly bitching about not liking where they're at or Americans. The Fulbright program is an intercultural and scholarly exchange program, so very nice, non? I suspect the parents are funding these trips and the Fulbright people the academics. By comparison, the Middle Eastern and Asian Fulbright's (excluding China--come to think of it, I don't think I've ever met a Chinese Fulbright), stay put.

Undergrad was far worse since I was at a princely school full of real life princes. There the amount of wealth was astounding. One hundred thousand dollar monthly allowances, bodyguards for my classmates, etcetera. Quite the eye-opener.

I am a grad students right in engineering, and I do notice that quite a few of my grad peers go on frequent trips. They don't really dress or talk in a way that reflect wealth or privilege; but I think it might be hard to tell in engineering because they are all "nerds", every thing is just numbers here.

The parents have money.

Don't go to anything but a state school unless your parents have money or some form of scholarship is paying for it...