How to sort out assistantships for doctoral programs?

March 1, 2012 1:50 AM

Should I be worried about a teaching assistantship in my Ph.D. studies?

So, I've been accepted to a few Ph.D. programs for next year, but I'm still a little worried about which one to accept. The program that was at the top of my list offered me a teaching assistantship with a moderate stipend (not good, but enough to live on if I'm frugal), while a program that is decent offered me a research position with a substantially higher stipend.

The money isn't that important to me (as long as I can focus on school, I'm used to living poor), but I've gotten some indications that the TA job could be a real problem. I'm going into a technical field with a lot of international students, and I have heard that native English speakers tend to get offered TA's in these programs due to the difficulty of finding effective teachers. However, RA's have some substantial advantages, like numerous opportunities to publish and greater access to advisors.

Should I be worried about this? Is it common to change assistantships or funding after the first year of doctoral studies? Is the offer of a TA one of those subtle clues about the school's interest (or lack of interest) in me? Am I overthinking the whole thing?

posted by softriver to Education (19 answers total)

If you want an academic job afterwards, you'll probably find it easier with a bunch of publications and no teaching experience than with no publications and a ton of teaching experience. This is ten times more true if you need to be locationally flexible and will be reliant on getting grant funding.

On the other hand, if you think you could be happy in a teaching intensive job like a community college, the teaching experience becomes more important.
posted by lollusc at 2:21 AM on March 1, 2012

Best answer: In general, I suspect you are overthinking this, but it's a bit tricky to offer particular advice because the precise meaning of what you describe will differ somewhat between schools, departments, and fields. Where I did my PhD in physics (University of Michigan), most students who were not on outside fellowships were TAs at some point, typically early on. There, the department had set up the TA role to be as easy to accommodate into a research schedule as possible, so it wasn't that onerous. After the first year or year and a half, most people were expected to be RAs paid for by their advisor's grant, not the department itself. I have heard of other schools which have a very different approach, typically due to smaller size and extraordinarily good funding. But in all cases that I know of, TAships are a normal thing, not an indication of anything else.

The main confusion that I am having is that an RA in a technical field typically implies work within a larger group. If you can start your research right away, that is certainly helpful, possibly enough to help you choose a school if you have worked out the details with your future lab. That said, in the post-PhD job market, having a degree from a top tier school is quite a boon, everything else being equal.
posted by Schismatic at 2:23 AM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Take the research position. You can always ask to TA at some point if you want the teaching experience, but if you want an academic/research career, publications are far more important. The fact that a school would offer you a TA position rather than a straight-up research one indicates that they're hurting for funding (note that I am in the basic sciences so this may vary depending on discipline).
posted by emd3737 at 2:28 AM on March 1, 2012

A little TA'ing isn't a bad thing. I TA'd for 3 of my 5 years in grad school. I was no more productive the time I was on fellowship or RA than when I taught. But constant teaching could be a drag. Do you have an advisor picked out who you could ask about details like whether you'll ever be considered for an RA? Or even softly negotiate with ("I'm concerned that I won't have enough time for research if I TA all the time...").
posted by Ian Scuffling at 2:39 AM on March 1, 2012

Response by poster: Ian Scuffling: These programs are not very transparent. I've been hoping to call the program and say, "I really like your program, but this other program offered me X. Here are my concerns... Can you match their offer?" Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do this (although I hear it's quite common).
posted by softriver at 2:45 AM on March 1, 2012

Why don't you talk to students in the programs you are considering? You can ask all these questions, including whether there is any possibility to negotiate. PhD students are usually listed on the website, and even if not you can ask the administrator to put in touch with some.
posted by Hediot at 2:55 AM on March 1, 2012

I would have the pubs over the teaching experience too.

I would figure out for example how much the research faculty in each place publish with grad students. Check out the faculty's cvs, for example, to see how often grad students are listed.

One potential problem with the going to a U that has a lot of teaching is that a school that emphasizes teaching can have a different research culture than a research school So it's not just that you spend a lot of time teaching foreign students that the school brings in for their tuition, but you may be at a place that values making money of tuition as much as it does research.
posted by carter at 4:30 AM on March 1, 2012

Best answer: The TA line isn't necessarily a bad omen for the program that offered it to you, so don't feel like you need to make a decision based on that. All other things equal, the research position is, yes, likely a better offer - both because you get a higher stipend and because you get to spend more time working on research (which could mean more publications). But if all other things aren't equal (you had that program at the top of your list for a reason, right?), don't let the funding offers sway your opinion too much.

I don't think an offer of a TA line means the school doesn't really want you. Funding offers are really program-specific. The TA offer is the standard offer in my program - every accepted student is given the same TA offer. Whether or not they USE all the funding in that offer depends on whether their advisor has other research funding for them; many students do not actually end up constantly supported on that TA line throughout their graduate career.*

So the TA line may not be a sign that the school has no other funding. It might just be standard that each student is offered a TA line by the program, and then individual advisors work out research funding later. Or, they could actually be hurting for grant money at the moment - you'll want to contact some current students and see what the deal is. You can also talk to your potential advisor (if you have one) at the school that offered you the TA line, and see if they anticipate also having research funding for you at some point down the line. It could be the case that, as you say, people only actually use that TA offer in their first year, and then switch over to grant/research funding.

At the end of the day, you should look into the output from each program (e.g. how often do people publish?) directly and not assume that the funding offers accurately reflect that output, because they might or might not.

*Here's my own experience. I was offered four years of TA support, and I'm now in my third year of a graduate program. I only used that TA support my first year, and I've been paid for research the past two years. I'm teaching next year because I want to, but I have two more years of research funding waiting for me as well.
posted by pemberkins at 4:41 AM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

Funding offers are really program-specific.

Good point. TA offers are standard in some places, and new students start by teaching, before being placed as RAs on grant research as/when the money becomes available, and according to their skills.
posted by carter at 4:45 AM on March 1, 2012

I don't see the point of trying to read anything in to the respective offers. Maybe the better program doesn't offer RA-ships to first year grad students. The RA-ship at the decent place may consist of nothing more than a sinecure, where you don't do any actual work (which is a good deal, but is not going to give you meaningful research experience). At any rate, there is a large return to going to a higher-ranked grad program in terms of your initial placement, so I'd be hesitant to turn down a higher-quality school because of a perceived slight.
posted by deadweightloss at 5:04 AM on March 1, 2012

Best answer: Funding offers are really program-specific.

I cannot emphasize this enough. You really need to talk to the Ph.D. students currently at the programs you are considering. I remember one program where the official line was that all first years got TA offers, but when talking to the current students, it became clear that RA > TA, and that it was very difficult to switch to being to an RA once you were on the TA track. In another program, no first-years were made TAs as it was felt new graduate students with no previous teaching experience would find it difficult to transition to being a graduate student and teach all at the same time. But after the first year it was up to the student to secure an RAship and if they couldn't find one the department made them TAs. Then there are departments as mentioned by others where all first years are TAs.

So again, you need to talk to current Ph.D. students at the programs you are considering, and not make conjectures based on what strangers on the internet are telling you.
posted by needled at 5:09 AM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]

I've been hoping to call the program and say, "I really like your program, but this other program offered me X. Here are my concerns... Can you match their offer?" Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do this (although I hear it's quite common).

The letters of acceptance should come signed by a person, usually the director of graduate studies, but sometimes the chair or the person in charge of admissions. Call that person. If there is no name on the letter, call the department secretary and ask them who you should call.
posted by Forktine at 5:20 AM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Can you contact other students who are in the program outside the official university channels? In my department at my school everyone is a TA at some point, but TA positions are also used as weapons, so grad students who complained about TA workload or are in the group of a professor who's pissed of the head of the department get assigned to many TA classes while others get very few. I would STRONGLY suggest getting the feedback of current grad students over the official university lines.
posted by Anonymous at 5:43 AM on March 1, 2012

Can you talk to your undergraduate advisor or other professors? They will almost certainly know the norms within your field.

In physics, the TA offer is not a danger sign, but standard. The RA offer would be considered superior (though I agree with some of the posters upthread that you should do some TAing to get a little teaching experience, as well).
posted by BrashTech at 5:51 AM on March 1, 2012

TAing is FINE, but RAing is going to get you experience, contact with faculty, and possibly publications.

I'd make a pro/con spreadsheet of all the programs with this sort of stuff:

- prestige of potential advisor
- prestige of program overall
- placement rate in jobs for graduates

- gut reaction to place/people/environment

- stipend versus cost-of-living
- location
- 'perks' - conference travel, etc.

- potential experience you'll get

And then color code or do a weighted average or whatever you need to do to sort this out.
posted by k8t at 6:23 AM on March 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think you're overthinking it. (I mean, there's also the possibility that the RA offer means they want you 'too much'. Or that they make RA offers to people they think are likely to come, either because of exceptional fit or because they assume the won't get a better offer.)

Unless you hear something very bad about being a TA in that particular program, it's probably the last consideration on your list when deciding where to go.

Is it common to change assistantships or funding after the first year of doctoral studies?

It's typical in my department to bounce back and forth between being a TA and RA, depending on whether your advisor has grant money to pay for an RA. (It's also worth noting that our RA positions tend to entail doing your own work, but I know people in other fields where an RA means doing grunt work on someone else's research.)

This is definitely something to ask people in the program.

I have heard that native English speakers tend to get offered TA's in these programs due to the difficulty of finding effective teachers.

I'd be disinclined to believe this rumour. There's rampant bias against people who aren't native English speakers, particularly those from certain countries. Unless you've heard this from someone on an admissions committee (or even multiple people on admissions committees), I'd assume it's false.
posted by hoyland at 6:52 AM on March 1, 2012

Best answer: I'm director of graduate admissions for a science department in a big state school, which, like most public universities, supports most of our graduate students with TAships. At our place, the offer of a TAship would in no way denote lack of interest. (And we give TAships to both US and foreign students alike.)

It is completely routine for a lower-ranked but richer school to offer someone a higher-stipend, lower-teaching package than we do. In general, of course, I advise students to accept our offer instead! I sincerely believe that teaching is an important part of your professional development, and that the benefits of going to a better program with stronger fellow students, more potential advisors, a richer research culture, etc. outweigh the higher teaching load.

But everything depends on the individual schools. What people are saying is right: you need to contact current students at the schools in question. Ask students at the TA school whether they feel it's hard to balance teaching and research. And ask them whether it's common for students to get RAships on their advisor's grant once they're underway on their dissertation. (That's pretty normal, though far from universal, at our place.)

Feel free to memail or e-mail me if you have more specific questions.
posted by escabeche at 7:34 AM on March 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

Just one piece of advice: make sure you have a clear sense of where the money to fund students usually comes from -- do this by asking current students in your program. This sort of stuff varies wildly from university to university and from program to program within a university. At the place I go to the sources of funding are as varied as TAships, RAships, training grants, fellowships, research grants etc. Make sure you understand what you're signing up for before you sign.
posted by peacheater at 8:48 AM on March 1, 2012

This is going to vary so hugely by school and by field especially, as well as by individual program and advisor even. In the organismal biology programs with which I am familiar, everybody TAs at least a year--it's considered part of your training. TAing is done while you are doing your research and doesn't really inhibit your progress in any way, except that it takes some amount of time. RAs are usually funding to work on your research which is a subset (or a "subset") of a grant an advisor has, and thus help you get out more speedily but don't really have much to do with how many publications you end up with. In molecular biology programs, grad students don't even really have their own research, so that story is completely different even between two labs in the same department.

Everybody admitted to most biology PhD programs is guaranteed 5 years of funding, but what that funding is will be hugely variable depending on the students' advisors' grant situations. There are also fellowships (hurray!) which make you beholden to no one (except a federal agency).
posted by hydropsyche at 12:59 PM on March 1, 2012