If you’ve been reading Priceless Play for a while, you know that I’m a PhD student. Here in the United States, a significant part of being a PhD student is being employed as a Teaching Assistant, or TA. TAs do a lot of important work to keep a university running smoothly: we grade assignments and papers, facilitate classes, give lectures, and act as a liaison between students and faculty. We hold office hours, plan lessons, attend lectures, and try to always stay a chapter ahead of our students’ readings. We do all of this on top of our own research, our dissertation work, and (nearly obligatory) travel for academic conferences. It is rewarding work, but gosh is it tiring.
The TAs at University of California, Santa Cruz (or UCSC) have been on strike for the past week, demanding an adjustment to their wages to keep up with the high cost of living in the San Francisco area. In solidarity with striking student workers, I’ve put together a collection of games about community, labour, self-care, and surviving in the university system.