A Dollar When I'm Hard Up VII

Holy shit, the APA was expensive. Three nights in the hotel, even at the reduced grad student rate and splitting a room with one of my office mates, came to a $180 plus taxes. Transportation was $288. Add in internet service in my room at $10 a night, a couple of burritos at Chipotle and a sandwich from Potbelly, and I'm looking at a Visa total of about $544.60 for the conference.

So I've spent $995.39 on the job market this year. That's more than 5% of my gross annual income. I don't understand how schools, or the profession more generally, can think that's a reasonable burden for grad students to bear.

Update: . . . sorry, I just realized my last sentence there was a little more cryptic than I'd meant it to be. I guess the point of my bitching here is, the cost of the APA for candidates is just one more reason to think the move to by-pass conference interviews and go straight to fly-backs would be a very good thing.