Zzhuangzi

Thanks for this advice. You're right. I should probably talk to my supervisor about it and ask if he could do anything first. Maybe he doesn't think its a problem until I say it to him. I was just afraid it might be pretty awkward. Especially if he turns me down.

This is the weirdest part!! I've worked with university research departments before so I know that funding doesnt get rolled over. Once the timeline or the project is up, whatever you have left just gets returned. This applies for the funding for my research assistant position as well. So I don't understand why the administrative person in our department is so hard up on the timesheets. There was even one case where they doubted me and I had to prove that I had done work that week for my supervisor. Heck, my supervisor could just tell me to read a book or do a lit review and put that in the timesheet, there would be no loss to him. Yeah, I don't like it either. My definition of "salary" was definitely not this. They do allow me to be employed elsewhere, as long as I keep it under 20 hours a week during term time and 40 hours a week during breaks (federal laws). I am currently trying to find other part-time work in other research teams. While I am qualified for these other jobs, I'm afraid that its in a very different direction from my dissertation work. These other jobs are financially beneficial, but not academically beneficial and I'm quite afraid that the mental fatigue of juggling multiple areas of research will bog me down. I also did a TA job last semester for a different professor, but sadly, the school compensates TAs by giving us tuition credits. There's no money for the work. The credits are pretty useless for me given that I have tuition scholarship, but the teaching experience was definitely beneficial for me.

The exact wording says "An XXX position with a salary of up to $25,000 per year". Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to find fault with the school. I'm just trying to look for advice on what else I can do to find funding or if a loan would be appropriate. In hindsight, they are in the right since it does say "up to". So if they paid me a $1 they'd be justified as well. I just thought....that they wouldn't? I mean, imagine if you were offered a job, but didn't get any work (or any pay), does that still count as a job offer? I just assumed that the "up to" part would be up to me, not up to them. Since PhD students can sometimes be away for months during Summer, I thought it might scale depending on how often I decide to be on campus. Or say if I finish my PhD halfway through an academic year, they wouldnt have to pay me the whole 25k/year, which is fair.

Hey there, So I'm a first year PhD student at an R1 institution in the US. Last year, I was elated to find that I was accepted into my first choice program, but now I'm facing a problem that I didn't expect. When I received the admissions offer, it stated that I was provided a full tuition support and health insurance. On top of that, the offer stated that I would be receiving $25,000 per year as salary for a research assistant position. Sounds great right? Here is the problem, I thought I would be receiving a regular salary/stipend in the form of that $25,000 a year. But turns out, that $25,000 was tied to a $20/hr job for my supervisor and that "job" isn't very regular. Meaning that there would only be work when my supervisor actually needs my assistance, and the department is very strict with work reporting, so I can't just report that I've worked 8 hours a day when my supervisor hasnt given me any work at all. I take up every single piece of work that my supervisor sends my way but I've only managed to chalk up around $5000 for the past year. This is obviously not enough for my living expenses and rent. Any advice? I've been trying to look around for fellowships in the US but it doesn't help that (a) I'm an international student and (b) my research area is quite niche so there's very little funding and most of it as at the post-doc level. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to have tuition support at least, I know lots of PhDs these days get offers without tuition. But I'm contemplating taking out a student loan to pay for rent, with my parents as guarantors. But there's a lot of advice that say you should never take out a loan for a PhD because the job market is so bad. Would it be so bad to take out a loan for this? I burned through my savings paying for rent in my first year. If rent is covered, I could probably live off the small amount of money from the work with my supervisor. TL;DR: Was expecting $25000 salary which turned out to be $5000.