Background | Teaching Assistantship Advantages | Research Assistantship Advantages

Some graduate programs offer great financial support in exchange for your help with teaching and / or research. These types of support are often referred to as assistantships. Two common types of support are teaching assistantships and research assistantships. In exchange for your help, graduate programs often compensate you with a monthly stipend and tuition reimbursement. Here's a bit about each type of assistantship.

• Teaching Assistantships: These are frequently offered to first year graduate students, especially in public universities. To earn your monthly stipend and tuition, you are typically asked to teach a lab, teach a class, or assist a faculty member with grading. In my doctoral program, I had a teaching assistantship. I began by teaching one, two hour lab per week. At first I was a little intimidated about speaking in front of students but I got used to it in no time. I was working for a professor who had prepared all of the Power Point lectures in advance so I did not have to prepare much for my weekly labs. After teaching a few labs over a span of three semesters, I was offered the chance to teach my own course. Teaching my own course was a bit more work because I had to create my own lectures. But it really wasn't that bad. After a few semesters of teaching my own course, I had all the materials prepared.
  
• Research Assistantships: Some graduate programs offer research assistantships. To earn your monthly stipend and tuition, you are typically asked to help a faculty member with their research for 10-20 hours a week. Your research assistantship includes tasks like collecting, analyzing and reporting data. When I was in graduate school, I knew several students who were offered research assistantships. They participated in activities like calling participants, conducting experiments and writing up abstracts and articles for scientific publications.

So which type of assistantship is better?

It turns out that there is really no right answer to this question. Each type of assistantship has different advantages. The best one for you really depends on your personal goals. Here are some advantages for each type of support.

Teaching Assistantship Advantages

Research Assistantship Advantages