Teaching Assistantships

For a detailed comparison of RAs, TAs, and fellowships, refer to the table on the Funding Options page.

Graduate teaching assistantships (TAs) are available in most graduate departments and programs. In many departments, particularly in the humanities, they are the main source of funding for graduate school. But TAs are also a common funding mode in Mathematics, for example. A good guide is that programs that teach many undergraduate students (e.g. English, Psychology, Mathematics, Spanish, sometimes Biology) have many TAs who assist with that teaching.

Some institutions actually include a teaching requirement of one or more terms for all graduate students in a particular program. If this is the case, usually that department is obliged to provide TA positions for every incoming graduate student in the first term. This can guarantee the availability of stipend support at least initially, although the duties associated with teaching lab or recitation sections (or occasionally assisting with lecture sections) tend to max out the graduate student's schedule, which already includes coursework and lab research. For this reason, most graduate students in the sciences do not rely on teaching assistantships as their source of support beyond the first year or two. After that, students usually seek help from their faculty advisors in finding research assistantships that will support them for their contributions to the faculty members' original research.

A TA usually pays about the same stipend as an RA and typically requires about 20 hours of time commitment each week to teaching. Only some of these hours will be contact hours with students. The rest will be spent in preparation and grading. Teaching assistantships serve an important role in developing your communication, presentation and teaching skills that will be important in any career you pursue. Therefore, if your field of graduate study is in the arts or humanities or is in an area that teaches many undergraduate students, you should make sure to inform the department of your interest in a Teaching Assistantship when you apply for admission. You may like to use the second part of each GradPortal tutorial example, which will show you how to identify the scholarly interests of the faculty and will help you to introduce yourself to faculty members in the programs to which you apply.

Resources & Articles Home