spullum

Hi hopeful grad, My situation is more of the "seek-and-find" sort, so I'll try to help. I was accepted to Virginia Tech's Master of Accounting and Information Systems program in fall 2006. I received an 8 hour (40%) assistantship that was just under the limit for covering medical insurance. I decided to look elsewhere, and began looking for administrative departments that matched my interests and previous jobs (I had worked in PC repair, retail and my former college's Office of the Bursar). I found a list of of departments on the web (http://www.vt.edu/administration/; there should be something similar at your school), and began e-mailing any that looked good to ask about graduate assistantships. I found an office called Capital Assets and Financial Management (my current employer) at VT through this process. My current assistantship is a full 20 hour one that covers tuition remission, out of state, medical, etc. I was lucky because CAFM had a bunch of MBA students and wanted to hire an IT person. However, this year they hired students from the MPA program. With your background and program, you should (hopefully) be able to find an administrative department that will take you on in an analyst/financial kind of position. Good luck with finding one! P.S. If you e-mail too early, you'll get a lot of "we're not looking yet." Give it a while and follow up. It isn't a fun process. Just ask if you need any further info.