Assistantship Workloads

[b_bstevie]

I'm hoping for a little advice from PhD students regarding the workload of various assistanships in the first year.

I will be doing a 25% assistantship this fall, my first year as a PhD student, and am trying to decide whether or not to bump it up to a 50%. Doing so would result in a decrease of health insurance payments--something that is important since I'm married with a baby on the way. Also, the extra hours would provide about 700 dollars extra income every month.

I'm worried however about handling 20 hours a week in addition to performing well in my classes and establishing good working relationships with professors, publishing, etc.

What are your experiences trying to balance assistantship responsibilities with other parts of the PhD experience? Is 50% too much or is it something that most people can handle?

[rising_star]

That's interesting that you even get an option. In my program, everyone works .50 time. Most weeks, you don't have to put in the full 20 hours but, depending on the assignment, you may find yourself putting in 45 hours in one week (yes, I actually did this!). It really does depend.

[liszt85]

That's interesting that you even get an option. In my program, everyone works .50 time. Most weeks, you don't have to put in the full 20 hours but, depending on the assignment, you may find yourself putting in 45 hours in one week (yes, I actually did this!). It really does depend.

^Very true. Mine is a 50% TA position. Since I just started, I only assist courses (print out exams, make copies of them, get scantrons, pencils, etc..go to the disabilities office, administer exams there, grade exams, writing assignments, post grades on the course website, etc) but the problem is that they divide up my 20 hours arbitrarily. So I've been assigned to 4 different professors (my break up is 5 hrs for each course) but as rising star said, (for me) during exam weeks, I end up working ~40 hrs. The classes that I'm assisting this time are HUGE (120 students each in 2 classes and 60 in the other, the 4th professor fortunately decided not to offer the course this quarter). Then there are the undergrads who mysteriously fall sick during exam week. Scores of them trickle into my office the week(s) after the exam to take make ups. So I think I end up doing much more than the avg 20 hrs/week job but I'm not complaining because that's how I get paid.. They pay my tuition and a good stipend. The workload also is very department specific. So you probably would be better off asking grad students at your own school about this. There are many people who do manage to get this work done in addition to providing care for a baby but that's if you have a good support group around you (eg: spouse).

[Firled]

I'm hoping for a little advice from PhD students regarding the workload of various assistanships in the first year.

I will be doing a 25% assistantship this fall, my first year as a PhD student, and am trying to decide whether or not to bump it up to a 50%. Doing so would result in a decrease of health insurance payments--something that is important since I'm married with a baby on the way. Also, the extra hours would provide about 700 dollars extra income every month.

I'm worried however about handling 20 hours a week in addition to performing well in my classes and establishing good working relationships with professors, publishing, etc.

What are your experiences trying to balance assistantship responsibilities with other parts of the PhD experience? Is 50% too much or is it something that most people can handle?

Think of the workload as preparation for life as an assistant professor. TA workloads are not that high. This depends almost entirely on how well organized the professor is. If you work for an organized prof, you end up doing 15 hours but it can go up to 25 if the professor requires you to organize a lot of lectures, do all the grading, etc. Good profs will split the grading with you and generally keep it to 15 hours. I currently have a TA contract for 20 hours per week and get everything done in 10 hours.

[liszt85]

Think of the workload as preparation for life as an assistant professor. TA workloads are not that high. This depends almost entirely on how well organized the professor is. If you work for an organized prof, you end up doing 15 hours but it can go up to 25 if the professor requires you to organize a lot of lectures, do all the grading, etc. Good profs will split the grading with you and generally keep it to 15 hours. I currently have a TA contract for 20 hours per week and get everything done in 10 hours.

Yours probably is not the norm. I believe TA workloads are the highest everywhere and entails much more than 20hrs/week (for about half the quarter/semester) but if you calculate the total time put in over the entire semester, you would probably end up with an average 20/week figure but the reason why people say TA workloads are horrible is this: You get to do all that work (~40-45 hrs) during the weeks when you have your own exams, your own project presentations, paper submission deadlines, etc. The weeks you don't have too much work are the weeks you don't have too much work for your own courses (first few weeks of the quarter/semester). None of my 3 professors help me with the grading, I do it all on my own. I proctor exams myself (the professor of one course doesn't even show up), grade them, post them on the course websites, print out the exams, administer make up exams, grade them, look at doctor's notes, and whatnot.. at the end of it all, they all want individual item analysis and other statistics (which is okay if you are using scantrons but is a pain otherwise). So yes, TA workloads generally are the highest and people try to avoid TA positions during crucial years (might be difficult to locate the crucial years because it would seem like every single one is.. but I prefer doing my TA duties in the first 2 years. My professor has agreed to fund me for 2 years, and I prefer those two years to be part of my dissertation writing yrs).

[geochic]

I'm hoping for a little advice from PhD students regarding the workload of various assistanships in the first year.

I will be doing a 25% assistantship this fall, my first year as a PhD student, and am trying to decide whether or not to bump it up to a 50%. Doing so would result in a decrease of health insurance payments--something that is important since I'm married with a baby on the way. Also, the extra hours would provide about 700 dollars extra income every month.

I'm worried however about handling 20 hours a week in addition to performing well in my classes and establishing good working relationships with professors, publishing, etc.

What are your experiences trying to balance assistantship responsibilities with other parts of the PhD experience? Is 50% too much or is it something that most people can handle?

I'm an overachieving undergrad so my situation is different (although I have taken graduate level classes, completed a more intense than normal senior thesis- and I did this all in the midst of carrying and having a 2nd baby last February while raising another toddler so I think I'm equally as overloaded as a first year grad or doctoral student if not more so-certainly seems that way judging by my office mates daily lives) and I TA three 26+ student lab sections. My TA is supposed to be a .50% position and while some weeks are a bit more than 20 hours for the most part I am not quite working that much. I have quite a bit of creative license w/my curriculum, I write all my own exams sans scantron which I loathe, I'm responsible for maintaining my own grade rosters, and course websites, etc... and I hold office hours for 3 hours per week and I still don't spend more than 20 hours on the classes (which should not imply that I am an ineffective or lazy teacher-at the risk of sounding arrogant I know my students are receiving a quality review of the material with me)-I'm in geology and the courses are a blast to teach which makes the subject all the more easy for me to introduce to my students.

I think 20 hours a week is totally doable with a classload and as a parent I know how important it is to have some extra money coming in- I don't see those types of decisions as elective-Daycare is not cheap, the kiddos have to eat good wholesome food and the clothes don't last 5 years with a baby!

I don't know what a PhD program in your field demands but I'm assuming you will have a few years to develop good solid relationships with faculty and you never have enough time for classes anyhow, but preparing for the task that is in the near-future for you and your wife is big (bigger than anybody w/out kids could possibly know) and I say that you should do all you can to make that adjustment easier. Good luck!

Oh, and congrats!

Edited March 12, 2010 by geochic

[UnlikelyGrad]

Mine is 50%. As other posters have mentioned, my department doesn't give me any other option. So: theoretically 20 hours per week, but I usually put in less than that. 9 hours of class time, 5 hours of office hours. I have to grade etc. but most of that can be done during office hours since it's rare I actually get students showing up for those. The only thing I can't do during office hours is runs Scantrons through the machine--but that's only a few times per semester. I think I work less than 20 hours/week most of the time.