TakeruK

I'm in the physical sciences but I think one point I can contribute is applicable across disciplines. Make sure you know the person you are name dropping is actually going to take students next year. The best way to do this is to send a quick email to each POI before you apply to let them know that you are interested in their work, that you will be applying to their school, and just asking if they will be taking students from the 2013-2014 cohort. And try to mention more than 1 name so that it doesn't seem like all your eggs are in one basket basically. The idea is to show that your interests fits in with those of the department.

Ouch that's a really frustrating Catch-22! It seems like similar things, but at smaller scales, happen to many people. A friend of mine was in a situation where in order for his supervisor to have enough funding to pay for a trip to an international workshop, he needed to win a fellowship. So if he won the fellowship, he'll not only have a slightly higher stipend for next year, but also have a fully funded workshop trip, but if he didn't win, he would get a lower stipend for next year and also have to pay out of pocket for the workshop! Sometimes it might not be so bad to get a Masters then a PhD though -- especially if you are staying at the same school, it probably won't add another year to your PhD program. And if you were successful at SSHRC once before, it will help you when you apply for Doctoral level SSHRC this fall! But here's hoping that you get your award upgrade!

If the grad student eventually becomes a TA in course where the undergrad is enrolled, then the grad student should disclose this information to the professor of the course only. It's likely that the graduate coordinator (or whoever arranges TAships) would have to be involved too. But the minimum level of information that has to be exchanged is that the grad student should say to the prof that they have a conflict of interest in TAing this course (do not have to explain why and you don't have to name the undergrad student). That information should be enough for the prof and the TA to request a transfer. Similarly, if the undergrad student eventually ends up in the same research group as the PhD student, then it would be a good idea to inform the supervisor of the group. But this exchange would be a "FYI" -- it shouldn't affect whether or not the student is allowed to work in the same group. There's no need to inform even the department head, and definitely no one in the Graduate School / University admin level should care. Unless of course, there are regulations that explicitly say you have to, but I would be very surprised to see anything like that. PhD students might have "admin" duties, such as those you mentioned, but they are not faculty members. In my experience, relationships between a new PhD student and a senior undergraduate is pretty common. Also, not to be personally attacking you, but if you're not involved in this relationship, it shouldn't be your business either. Perhaps one of the people in the relationship asked you to find more information for them. I'm not assuming that you're prying (maybe you are in the relationship and just asking as a third party to maintain anonymity) but I am just stating that no one else needs to worry about this other than those involved in the relationship.

So far, we've spent just over $2300 to visit our new city to find a place to live in September (we stayed at a friends' place so most of that is on travel expenses). But due to the airline giving us a real 36 hour adventure on our way home, we got just over $2000 in compensation. For the actual move, it will cost us about $1300 to fly there (we're flying home first, then to our new place) and $2000 total probably to move all of our things (including moving supplies). But we are selling some of our bigger pieces of furniture and hopefully our car too, which should cover most of those costs. In the best case scenario, we will hopefully end up with about $1000 in total expenses for the move, including the apartment hunting visit. Then we will have to pay first months rent and a security deposit (which is higher since we're internationals). The school won't pay me until the end of October, but luckily there is a "new grad student" 0% fees/interest loan of $2500 or so that should pay me in September to help with these costs. We will also have to transfer some savings from Canada to the US but it's a small hassle to do so (and sometimes they take a while to clear).

I know you qualified this by saying that what happened was still not right, and I agree that there's a difference between ignorance/rudeness and flat out discrimination. But I think the rule of "impact not intent" is important. When it comes to harassment, one should consider the impact of one's words, not the intent. Particularly, ignorance/rudeness can enable prejudiced people to think their worldview is correct/supported by others. For example, in a group of coworkers, perhaps someone who doesn't consider themself homophobic or hateful towards gays might make a "gays are fruits" joke. But they don't really mean it in a hateful way, so it's okay? Everyone else in the group thinks the same thing, and laughs along, it's just a joke! But maybe one or more people in the group actually do feel hateful towards gays, and to them it's not just a joke. That person sees the conversation as affirmation from their coworkers that their worldview is correct and accepted by society. So, like you said, just because the comment might not have intended to be harmful, it can still cause harmful effects. I just wanted to illustrate the point a bit further

I don't see why you can't do all three things at once. That is, why not apply to both PhD and MA programs this season and see what happens. I'm not sure when your current 1-year program ends, but what's stopping you from looking for work right after the program ends (unless you've just started the program so it will end by the time you start grad school). Otherwise, you can be working a job while you apply for graduate programs and wait for results. This way, you don't really have to make a decision until next spring. It keeps all your options open. If you are working by then and really like your job, then you can decline any offers you may get. Or maybe a few months working could get you itching to go back to school again. Or maybe you might change your mind in the 6-8 months from now until Spring and discover what you want to do.

I would also consider another factor: Is the financial package from GW their typical funding package for your program? That is, do you know if they offer it to everyone who they admitted? Also, how does that package compare with what other schools would offer? "No guarantee" could just mean that they aren't able to 100% confirm that you will get the same support next year. But it could also mean that the funding was very competitive. I think that's a pretty big difference, since if it's their standard financial aid package then you're not really risking the money from GW. Unless they have a policy of not offering the same package to deferring students, or that 35,000 was won through an intense competition, if you won it this year, you have a strong chance of winning it again next year. Sure, it's risky, but so is taking on that much debt. I guess my point is that how much risk is there of actually losing the GW financial package? If the risk is acceptable (or at least lower than going into debt), I think waiting an extra year is probably safer than risking 50,000+ in debt.

My CV format was - Name/Contact Info - Education -- For each school/degree, I included major, thesis supervisor, thesis title - Research Experience -- For each project, 3 to 5 lines listing what I did and what the main results were - Publications -- separated peer reviewed articles and conference presentations -- I picked out one presentation per topic instead of listing every single one. - Scholarships and Awards -- included year, name/funding agency, and dollar value - Teaching Experience -- For each item, 2-3 lines explaining my duties - Volunteer Experience -- same as above, only included things I thought were relevant (e.g. volunteering at a science camp, physics student societies etc.) A resume is usually a summary of a CV, but for most of us at the stage of applying to grad school, our CV is already pretty short, so a summary isn't much different! The above format was for my CV (which is what most schools asked me for). When a resume was required, I reduced the about of text used to describe each entry but didn't really cut out any entries. Anyways, I'd make sure to include ALL research experience, regardless of field. Just don't include random part-time jobs of course, but if you worked or even just volunteered in a lab or research group at some point, be sure to include it! Make sure you try to emphasize your strengths as best as you can. The last section, volunteer experience, isn't very important I've heard, so you probably wouldn't want to include too many of these. I would avoid listing personal information that are common in CVs from outside of North America, such as birthdate, marital status, etc. But I think that's obvious. Also, if you did present the same project at multiple conferences, I'd only list it once. If you just don't have much research experience (which is normal), then you just might have a short resume. Nothing really wrong with that -- it's definitely better to have a concise, short resume than one with filler material. That said, if you could mention things that might help your graduate application, such as graduate courses taken under Education, then that might be okay. If you are doing a senior/honours thesis, you can include that too since by the time you submit your application, that project should be underway!

The OP said they were already finished 1 year of masters and from that paragraph alone, it's not clear whether or not the "completed a minimum of one full-time term of studies at the master's level" means that the term must be completed while holding a SSHRC award, or just completed in general. What lewin00 suggest is a good idea if it's the former case, but again, your Graduate Office should know what to do best!

Here is the related text in the Award Holders Guide: http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/using-utiliser/guide-A/regulations-reglements-eng.aspx#a2 It says: Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS) Master's Scholarship holders: If you complete your master's degree or transfer to a doctoral degree program prior to the end of the term of the award, you can request and use the balance of your award to immediately start a doctoral degree program (at the first available start date of the program). To receive the balance of the award, you must have completed a minimum of one full-time term of studies at the master's level. I know for NSERC awards, if you "upgrade" to a PhD program, your stipend is also upgraded from the Masters level to the PhD level but it doesn't say this explicitly for SSHRC (but maybe it still does!). In any case, you should probably check this with your Graduate School because I'm sure they have dealt with this issue before. I'd probably ask about a stipend upgrade anyways! But this is not an upgrade to the PhD award, and you should make sure you choose your start dates properly so that you are still eligible for applying to doctoral level awards from SSHRC this fall for the 2013-2014 year.

Hmm that sounds pretty cool -- but I can't say I've read those two works you mention (I have at least heard of 100 Years of Solitude though). We're in Kingston right now, which is an alright town, but it's just kind of homogeneous! Pasadena is much more multi-cultural so I'm looking forward to that. Although I'm not sure how well I'll fit in at Caltech itself -- when everyone introduced themselves and their undergrad schools during the prospective student visit, my background was clearly one of the odd ones out (and not in a good way!) And the department head basically welcomed us with a message that we'll have to work all day every day to succeed at Caltech. But I have a good friend in the school already and everyone I've met so far is great. So, I guess I'll just keep a positive attitude and be optimistic that everything will work out

Now that you mention it -- that is a bit strange! Maybe they did skip a grade. Or maybe they are going to turn 22 later in the year? I just remember that during the prospective students visits, we went to a pub one evening and several of the prospectives made a comment that this was one of the first times they've been able to enter a pub / order alcohol legally. My mind was still on our 18/19 drinking age so I was really shocked until I remember that their drinking age is 21! But maybe they were just not pub-types and haven't been drinking very much since their 21st birthday.

Sorry, I meant to say that it's not unheard of for students with a 3.3 GPA to get into PhD programs, but unfortunately, that GPA does seem low for the Fulbright awards I'd normally have the attitude of "let's try the application anyways!" but maybe that's not the best use of time and energy! I also agree that Canada does seem to have stricter GPA requirements -- many Physics departments here will outright say "if you don't have a 80% average, don't bother applying", and many schools will also require an honours bachelors degree (with majors admitted under some conditions). However, in the sciences at least (but I heard not in humanities and social sciences), PhD students are generally "hired" by their advisor directly -- i.e. our admissions letter usually say that Profs X, Y, and Z are willing to fund you (and thus we have to pick which supervisor when we accept the offer). This means that you don't have to be as competitive to get in -- as long as you meet the school and department's baseline levels, you just have to convince a prof to "hire" you as a PhD student. So, you just have to beat out other students who are applying for the same supervisor and GPA isn't always the sole determining factor -- a strong research background can more than make up for a weaker GPA. But I guess if you already tried Canada twice, then it's definitely time to "move on", so to speak! I don't think it's silly at all to apply to California to be with your partner. From the earlier posts here, I had assumed your partner is still in Canada with you. Although my wife isn't a student and decided that she would move wherever the best program was for me, we decided that we both needed to have an equal opinion in my school selection. So I made a list of schools that I thought were good and she got first veto rights to scratch off any places she would absolutely not want to live (while retaining the right to scratch more off the list after school visits). After I/we visited some of the schools, I removed schools that I thought didn't fit me as well and then we both made a decision. It turns out our rankings were exactly the same, so that was awesome. When I made my ranking, I weighed the academic program and the quality of life we would have in that city/location (based on weather, culture, stipend, etc.) equally. We applied to a lot of California schools as well because we grew up on the west coast of Canada and we wanted to return to the west coast weather, culture, lifestyle etc. We're living in a small town in Ontario right now and we learned that we really don't like it at all, especially not the real Canadian winters! And living far away from a hub city airport (i.e. Toronto) has been very inconvenient as well, so that was also a factor in deciding on a school! When I was visiting schools, I met many other prospective students who had to decide between a school they really liked academically vs. a school closer to their partner. Most of these students expressed some kind of shame (if that's the right word), or guilt for choosing schools based on personal reasons rather than professional/academic reasons. I guess everyone has different priorities. While there's no problem if one chooses to prioritize their career over personal desires, it's a bit depressing to think that academia has trained us to feel guilt when prioritizing (or even just factoring in) personal desires for career-related decisions! PS. I'm glad to hear that my research sounds interesting Do you have a research project in mind? Your signature mentions "magic realism", what is that?

I agree with Dal PhDer's points and to expand on point #2 regarding volunteering. I think that working for free on a long term basis is a very bad idea but offering to volunteer for a prof upfront is a very good way to get your first research experience. Hiring research assistants is expensive and profs may be reluctant to hire you if there are other more experienced people. My first ever research experience was just one summer volunteering for a prof and he later hired me for other work. Many (but not all!) profs do feel bad about not paying their students. The relationship between volunteer + prof is very different than one between paid research assistant + prof. For the former case, there is no formal responsibility between the volunteer and the prof -- the volunteer is basically doing this for their own benefit only. If you are hired though, then that creates a much more formal and stable working relationship. For this reason, even just offering to volunteer will show enough drive and motivation that might cause your prof to hire you (maybe after a few weeks to see how it works out). I don't know if I really explained it clearly, but the bottom line is that the working relationship as a volunteer is very different than that of an employee and most profs would prefer to work with employees than volunteers. In fact, the prof I originally volunteered with was very reluctant to even take me on for free, but he didn't have funding that summer, so he made me promise to not work too hard, basically. It was a very casual job, after a few weeks of learning the basics, the rest of the summer was just checking on some simulations every couple of days (which takes 1-2 hours).

I am pretty young, but not the youngest. I was 23 when I started my masters and I am now 25 and going to start my PhD this fall. Most of my cohort will be 21 though! I know having a PhD by 30 is pretty good but my wife isn't a student so I understand the need to "start making a real income". Both sets of parents have started families, gotten jobs, and settled down by about 27-28 years old and graduate school/academia is completely foreign to our families, so we experienced a lot of concern from our families about my pursuit of a PhD. My wife and I plan to have kids in about 2 years time, when I'm finished with courses and hopefully have a fairly concrete plan for thesis and graduation. I feel really bad that my wife is effectively giving up / pausing any potential career plans until I get a PhD. Even though she chose to do so, I still feel bad. I'm lucky to have the support from her though. She also knows that she wants to stay home with the kids for the first few years of their life, so it wouldn't make sense for her to finish school and then have kids and put all career plans on hold indefinitely. But before we decided that I should go ahead with the PhD, we made some promises to ourselves so that we can ensure our happiness in the future. We plan to settle down in our hometown no matter what -- there should be plenty of opportunities for a PhD, hopefully. But I'll probably end up leaving academia, or at least research unless I get really lucky. My only goal is to end up with a career that I don't hate and will feed our future family. I am passionate about science and research but my family will always come first! Committing 5+ (PhD, postdocs, etc.) of your life to academia is hard. Especially when a partner or children are involved, I think it's very important to know what you're willing to compromise and what you're not when it comes to a career in academia.

I can't give any advice about graduate writing assistant specifically as I have no experience in that. But there is a general tip that might be helpful. On most universities' HR webpages, there are tables of salary grades and ranges. Sometimes you can even see current job postings, which usually list the salary grade/range for that position. Maybe you can find a job posting with a similar level of responsibility (and education) and match your "minimum salary" to the posted salary grade -- i.e. it sounds like you should match with a job that requires a graduate degree but isn't a supervisory position. I'd pick a number in the lower range of the salary grade since it is an entry level position? Alternatively, you can also consider the salary of tutors working in writing centres in your city/university. Private tutoring usually pays more than those who work in writing centres though, so if you see those numbers, be sure to scale appropriately. Finally, usually on forms that ask for a minimum salary, if you know that the line isn't absolutely required, I'd put in something like "to be negotiated upon interview" or whatever. That kind of just moves the problem down the road, but at least in an interview, you can have a dialogue about the number instead of just a figure without context. Usually I am noticing more and more jobs requiring you state a minimum salary though!

No problem! I'm not sure about your field, but a 3.3 GPA isn't too low for some PhD programs in my field. You could also consider a MA at a Canadian school maybe? Those are usually fully funded. I ended up doing a Masters in Canada before transferring to a PhD in the US and for my programs, it made no difference that I did my masters in Canada instead of the US. That is, none of my PhD programs will grant any substantial credit for having a Masters (Canada or US). The most credit I could have got was 3 courses waived (out of a school that required like 16 courses though). Of course, things could be very different in English Lit, but just saying that if it doesn't make a difference where you do a masters, you might as well do it in Canada and get funding as well as not have to worry about visa/immigration for another 2 years.

I actually thought Fulbright was geared more towards the humanities since there is a separate Fulbright specifically for Science and Technology (missed that deadline since it's 16 months before your program even starts!). In addition, they say that public policy/international affairs type students are preferred. But looking at the recent winners, it sounds like you are right! I was proposing an extension of work I've been involved with in the past. I was interested in building a better/more accurate/precise model of the orbits of Near Earth Asteroids using simulations by including several important factors not used in recent models. Many of these limitations are based on computing power but these simulations were designed almost a decade ago. With such great advances in computing power since then, we should be able to have much more powerful simulations resulting in more accurate and precise models! I treated this application like a super-hard-to-get NSERC/SSHRC application, so I didn't try to propose a research topic that the Fulbright people would have been specifically interested in. However, I did propose a "real" PhD level project that I could actually work on -- I even contacted potential PhD supervisors and discussed my proposal with them. I really don't think the topic has anything to do with whether or not you get the award -- I would think that, like NSERC/SSHRC applications, they are more interested in your ability to communicate your research as well as how much background you've done. In addition, like NSERC/SSHRC, I wrote it on the assumption that I'm not bound to the research project and probably would do something else for my PhD -- it's just a potential project. I think I didn't get it because it's a really really competitive program, only a dozen or so students from all fields in Canada get one. It's much much much harder than a NSERC/SSHRC, where hundreds of students are awarded one (and the latter awards pay more too!). If you want the rest of my stats, I have a ~88% average in undergrad, a 93% average in my masters, 5 publications (1 pending) at time of application, although none of them were first-author, and fairly strong letters of recommendation. I don't usually mention specific stats (and I'm not doing it to show off or anything) but I think it's necessary here to make my point. I sent basically the same application to NSERC and ended up with a CGS (which I turned down for a PGS so I can take it to the US), though, so I think that attests to how competitive the Fulbright is! I would really recommend you apply to SSHRC as well! I was just going to say that you can take the "Tier 2" (i.e. PGS) awards abroad but decided to check this on the SSHRC website instead of assuming that NSERC and SSHRC works the same way! It turns out that there isn't a PGS level award for Masters with SSHRC, as far as I can tell. There is one for the Doctoral level though (called the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship). So I guess that's out The award levels are basically the same with NSERC and SSHRC but just no second tier masters award, weird! The SSHRC Doctoral fellowship is allowed to be held aborad: http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/fellowships/doctoral-doctorat-eng.aspx#a4 (scroll down to "Eligibility to Hold an Award") and you'll see the same paragraph that appears for NSERC holders I'm just going to say this, but you might have already considered it / know about it -- in Canada, we all do our masters first, then our PhD. In the US, one generally applies to a PhD program directly and get the masters along the way (usually the requirement is completing courses and the comps/oral exams). People do MA programs mostly only if they are sure they want to end at the Masters level, or feel that they cannot get into a PhD program right away. But even if you're in the latter case, it would still be good to apply for PhD programs too. Anyways, just want to say that the norm, as far as I know, is to apply for PhD programs directly from undergrad. PhD programs are usually fully funded and you don't have to worry about paying nonresident tuition. Sorry if you already know this and I'm just repeating obvious things. Of course, some things are different because I'm in the sciences, but most of this appears to be true from reading posts from humanities/social sciences students here. But if you are able to get a Fulbright award, you will be more than qualified to enter a fully funded PhD program in the US! By this, I mean the Fulbright is not a realistic way to earn money for US programs -- if you are able to get the FTA, you will be able to get a ton of other awards too. For example the NSERC and SSHRC Doctoral CGS are both valued at 35,000 CAD/year in Canada and the second tier awards (which you can take to the US and are payable in USD) are 21,000 CAD/year and 20,000 CAD/year, respectively. All of these awards are for 2-3 years -- much much more than the 15,000 USD for 9 months awarded by the FTA. The FTA is more like a bonus/top-up since anyone with a FTA surely has some other major fellowship as well.

I haven't seen this book before so I reacted the same way to your thread title/post as you did to the book section! Not to justify it, but I think the reason this section exists is that studies of GRE scores apparently show that women tend to score lower than men in some sections (so I've heard claim, but I haven't personally seen the data). Again, this doesn't make this okay, but maybe it provides some context! Although that quote you wrote is outrageous!

Hi! I applied for the same award last year (2012-2013 funding year), so good luck to you I didn't get an award though, but I at least made the first cut and got my application forwarded to the US! I just want to say that the 2-year home residency requirement is a J-1 visa thing, NOT a Fulbright thing!! I will be attending a US school this year with a J-1 visa and be subject to the same 2-year home residency thing. Did you know that you can get your J-1 extended for your first post-doc? If you get a post-doc position in the US before your original J-1 expires (within 30 days of graduation, but you usually get these things before you graduate), then you can extend your J-1 for an additional 3 years for post-doc. In addition, you only have to go back to Canada for 2 years before applying for a IMMIGRANT class visa (i.e. H1- . So this does NOT preclude you from applying for additional J-1 visas in the future. So this means you can do 2nd and 3rd post-docs in the US as well if you are on J class visas instead of H1-B class visas for these post-docs. You can also go anywhere else in the world -- you just can't go back to the US on an immigrant class visa until the 2 year home residency requirement is met (or you apply for a waiver). So, if you land a job in, e.g. France, after your PhD, you can move there forever -- no need to return to Canada! The home residency requirement will be a big issue if you want to eventually immigrate permanently to the US. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad to do a 2 year post-doc in Canada So, to answer your questions: 1. If you get the Fulbright for your MA, then you will attend the MA program as a J-1 status student. After your MA, you are free to apply for and attend PhD program as either a F-1 or J-1 status because both of these are non-immigrant class visas. To summarize the above, the only requirement is that you must be in Canada for 2 years before applying for an immigrant-class visa to the US, but you can visit and live in the US on any other non-immigrant class visa without returning to Canada!! 2. You only submit letters of acceptance once you get them. I just submitted my application by the November due date without any letters of acceptance. In late January, the first cut (by the Fulbright Canada office) is done and people who made it are notified and asked to submit an additional form where you rank your top 5 schools (and note if any have accepted you yet). You are then asked to continually update Fulbright Canada if any of this changes (i.e. as results roll in and your rankings change). Meanwhile, all of the short-listed candidates are evaluated by the Fulbright people in the US and final decisions announced in April! 3. GRE scores: they are not required for this award. I had the same questions because some documents do mention these scores (as well as a writing sample). Apparently some of these things were prepared for all Fulbright awards in general. A representative from Fulbright Canada told me that GRE scores and writing samples are not required for the FTA application. But it wouldn't hurt for you to check again in case things change -- they are very friendly and helpful with email replies I'll be apply to answer any other questions about F-1/J-1 visas and the Fulbright FTA application process (remember that I failed to get one though!)

I just want to add that the title "Professor" is not legally protected in Canada/US and some schools do grant the title to people who do not hold PhDs. These don't even have to be tenure-tracked or include research (i.e. many other places would call these employees "instructors" or "adjuncts" instead). In addition, the term "professor" is used colloquially to mean any instructor at the college level. Professors are usually tenured employees with research and administrative responsibilities on top of teaching. They aren't "just" more experienced/more senior instructors -- I'd argue that the professor job and the instructor job are similar, but distinct career paths and if your primary goal is to teach, maybe the professor path isn't ideal. In addition, to address your point about stipend, most of the time you are told what your stipend/waiver would be when you are accepted to a school. So, if that is a concern but you still want to attend PhD programs, you could always just spend the time (and money) to apply to programs that interest you and then see if the stipend they offer is acceptable. You might be able to filter out some schools because most of them will say whether or not they provide these things in their admissions information (but usually not the exact amounts since that can vary).

My friend from a Middle Eastern country has had many problems entering the US from Ontario in the past. From his experiences, including a frank conversation between him and a US border agent, Toronto Pearson Airport's Pre-Clearance will cause the most problems (especially if you have had issues in the past). The easiest border crossing for him (and I'd agree) is the Thousand Island crossing that is about 1 hour east of Kingston (so ~3 hours drive from Toronto). Although it's very small so maybe they might not have as much experience with visas? For me, I live in Kingston right now, but I will probably cross the border in BC, since I'll visit my hometown before moving to the US. Hope your border crossing goes smoothly too -- I've heard it's really not so bad if you have Canadian citizenship.

Grad school is a long process, and as the cliche goes: it's a marathon, not a sprint. There really isn't a rush, in my opinion, to start full time right away. Grad school is also about time management. Maybe you can take this opportunity to practice -- decide how much time you want to spend reading/doing work this month and make sure you stick to it and manage your time spent working as well as "playing".

In Canada, these positions (where you are fully responsible for your own course) are called Teaching Fellows (TFs) rather than TA positions. At my school, these students are paid ~$7500 for a one semester (13 week) course, with an additional 12.5% bonus if there are more than 100 students in the course and a 10% bonus if there are more than 3 contact hours (e.g. lab, tutorial, or discussion group). The wages vary from school to school here, but that's about the average. Yes, Canada is a different country but the value of your labour shouldn't be too different. By the way, these wages are uniform across fields. I guess for comparison, minimum wage here is $10.25/hr so this number should be scaled based on minimum wage/cost of living where you are. EDIT: Okay, I reread your post and realised that you aren't actually doing equivalent work to an adjunct/teaching fellow. So the above paragraph may not really apply, but it's interesting to see the large differences. However, what I can say is that leading discussion group for a class is very normal, especially in the humanities/social sciences. At my school, we are paid hourly for TA work, so the time you spend attending the prof's lectures, and the time you spend reading any assigned reading counts towards our hourly wage. So, if you want to see what is fair, you should add up all expected hours of work (office hours* + time replying to emails from students + marking time + discussion group + lecture attendance + doing readings) and divide into your expected value of stipend and see what your effective hourly wage would be. * We count office hours towards work time because it's time that you are forced to be in the office and you cannot schedule other activities during this time. If a student shows up, we drop whatever else work we were doing and help them. In other jobs, if we are required to stay on the job site for a lunch break, then that lunch break has to be paid. Office hours are the same idea. I think these wages represent what is "fair". But from the typical numbers that Eigen mentioned, it sounds like typical is probably not equal to fair! So, I guess it depends on what you mean by "underpaid" -- do you mean underpaid in relation to the value of your labour, or underpaid in relation to typical stipends offered to students in your department? Fair or not, I think the former case is going to be common at entry level positions (e.g. graduate students) everywhere. But if it's the latter case, I would definitely try to start a discussion on this issue!

We had something kind of similar -- sometimes graduate students are needed to act as temporary TAs for a course when that course has an evening midterm and they need extra people to proctor the exam. These temp TAs were paid $23.67/hr for the 2.5 hours needed to set up the exam room, supervise exam, collect papers, etc. However, the TAs assigned to the actual course were paid the full TA rate -- $37.37/hr for the same work. After we brought this up to the department, things were changed to ensure all TAs, temporary or not, were paid the full $37.37/hr. However, this was much easier for us to accomplish because TAs were unionized so that there was an existing collective agreement that stipulates our wage. I'm also talking about an experience in Canada where stipends work a little differently -- all of our RA and TA work are contract-based and our stipends are based on hourly wages. So, not everything necessarily applies, but hope the info was helpful. One thing that should apply is that people should be paid the same for the same work!