NSERC C/PGSD 2020-2021

[Rtmchem]

1 minute ago, BioFish said:

I'm sure the TA contracts (hours, wage, etc.) vary between schools, but if you are working as a TA in the Fall and Winter terms and receiving less than $5,000.00 in income, I strongly recommend that the TAs at your school unionize and fight for better pay. 

For curiosity’s sake, how much an hour do you get, and what school? People have tried to argue this before. I am at dal and we need to complete TA hours as part of our degree requirements, and although there is fulfilment in the job, the labs (for the most part) are structured poorly/out-dated and we are most definitely short-changed for the effort we put in to making sure things run smoothly. If I TA’d the full year (summer included) I would likely be able to make just over 5k, but very few people do this at our school as there are not many summer sections available for those who want to TA to make extra cash. 

[labcoat777]

isn't CERB only for people who had to stop working this year bc of COVID? if you're still being paid by your university (i'm still doing TA duties remotely) despite physically not going into lab, you wouldn't qualify right? 

[labcoat777]

28 minutes ago, MetaB said:

Just got an email now, 11:40 EST, so it seems like there's either a delay or they're sending them in batches

do u mind sharing the first letter of ur last name? (to confirm this batches by last name theory) 

[BioFish]

6 minutes ago, Rtmchem said:

For curiosity’s sake, how much an hour do you get, and what school? People have tried to argue this before. I am at dal and we need to complete TA hours as part of our degree requirements, and although there is fulfilment in the job, the labs (for the most part) are structured poorly/out-dated and we are most definitely short-changed for the effort we put in to making sure things run smoothly. If I TA’d the full year (summer included) I would likely be able to make just over 5k, but very few people do this at our school as there are not many summer sections available for those who want to TA to make extra cash. 

That is shocking and disappointing to hear. You guys need to fight for more. At University of Waterloo, we receive approx. $5,000.00 per term from the TA contract, so $10,000.00 per year or $15,000.00 if I TA in the Spring/Summer. 

Approx. $38/hour

Edited April 15, 2020 by BioFish

[michmar]

19 minutes ago, FelixTheCat8888 said:

Still no email here. My last name starts with L.

Also no email and my last name starts with M. Definitely seems like batch emails alphabetically if everyone is supposed to get it. 

[OttawaPsych]

Just now, BioFish said:

That is shocking and disappointing to hear. You guys need to fight for more. At University of Waterloo, we receive approx. $5,000.00 per term from the TA contract, so $10,000.00 per year or $15,000.00 if I TA in the Spring/Summer. 

Same goes for Carleton. We get almost $5,500.00 per term so I made close to 11k for two terms this year. That's for 130 hours per term.

[Rtmchem]

Just now, BioFish said:

That is shocking and disappointing to hear. You guys need to fight for more. At University of Waterloo, we receive approx. $5,000.00 per term from the TA contract, so $10,000.00 per year or $15,000.00 if I TA in the Spring/Summer. 

That amazes me. Wow... Yeah, dal has a lot of things going for them in the Chem department, but TAing/labs are not one of them. I choose not to TA extra hours and I have almost ‘served my time’ LOL. It sucks because I love working with students and teaching, but the situation is very unfair to grad students. I know very few in grad school who choose to TA more than their required hours. 

[hrp]

16 minutes ago, BioFish said:

As long as you have $5,000.00 or more in employment income on your 2019 tax return or have made $5,000.00 or more in the last 12 months, you would qualify. Remember though, that if you have not been working this year, they will likely question your CERB application as one of the requirements is that you stopped working due to COVID-19. In my case and in most cases I'm sure, Spring/Summer TA contracts are no longer available to us because of the departure from in-person instruction.

Thanks. To be eligible for COVID-19, we should not be employed immediately before pandemic? I mean in March or April? Has there been recently changes in qualifying criteria?

[BioFish]

1 minute ago, hrp said:

Thanks. To be eligible for COVID-19, we should not be employed immediately before pandemic? I mean in March or April? Has there been recently changes in qualifying criteria?

You have to have been employed and working before the pandemic (for example, as a TA or any other type of employment) because one of the requirements to receive CERB is that you had to stop working because of COVID. So you should be okay if you stopped working early March or after. You cannot have quit voluntarily or lost your job before March though. 

[BioFish]

3 minutes ago, Rtmchem said:

That amazes me. Wow... Yeah, dal has a lot of things going for them in the Chem department, but TAing/labs are not one of them. I choose not to TA extra hours and I have almost ‘served my time’ LOL. It sucks because I love working with students and teaching, but the situation is very unfair to grad students. I know very few in grad school who choose to TA more than their required hours. 

Im curious what your total funding package is though? Maybe the TA contracts pay out less but you receive more in internal scholarships and fellowships to compensate? Our minimum funding package for PhD students in the Faculty of Science is about $30,000.00 per year (including our TA contracts of $10,000.00).

[Ecoevo]

Just received the email at 9:27am PST.  Last name starts with B..

[StructIntern]

37 minutes ago, BioFish said:

Teaching Assistantships are considered employment income and most TA contracts exceed $10,000 per academic year for graduate students so any grad student who has a TA contract should be eligible for CERB, regardless of any other funding. 

I agree with you, though. I do not see them cutting NSERC funding because of COVID-19. I just wanted to clarify that grad students with funding packages who have made $5,000 or more in the last year or in 2019 can get CERB.

What if your RA stipend contract runs until end of Aug while meeting other criteria (i.e. T4 income > $5000 in 2019) ??? I assume that makes you ineligible to apply for CERB because technically I am employed ? 

[ZikaGuy]

Just now, Ecoevo said:

Just received the email at 9:27am PST.  Last name starts with B..

Same. Last name "C"

[BioFish]

Just now, StructIntern said:

What if your RA stipend contract runs until end of Aug while meeting other criteria (i.e. T4 income > $5000 in 2019) ??? I assume that makes you ineligible to apply for CERB because technically I am employed ? 

RA contracts are considered employment income so that would disqualify you from CERB if you are receiving payments during the CERB payment periods. Not many grad students, in my experience, receive RA contracts though. In my case, I do not receive RA contracts and in their place, receive research studentships which are not considered employment income. 

[RNA-Guy]

2 minutes ago, Ecoevo said:

Just received the email at 9:27am PST.  Last name starts with B..

Yeah same situation. Last name starts with 'B' and I got the email at 12:27 EST. However, I have not received any log in info for the extranet from NSERC, yet. Lets hope results are announced soon!

[Crawn]

Damn this "S" surname and EDT zone!

[StructIntern]

Just now, BioFish said:

RA contracts are considered employment income so that would disqualify you from CERB if you are receiving payments during the CERB payment periods. Not many grad students, in my experience, receive RA contracts though. In my case, I do not receive RA contracts and in their place, receive research studentships which are not considered employment income. 

Well not really....it's non-taxable (aka fellowship)..just that there is a contract start and end date with the funding....

[BioFish]

Just now, StructIntern said:

Well not really....it's non-taxable (aka fellowship)..just that there is a contract start and end date with the funding....

Are you sure? Our RA contracts are taxable where our studentships are fellowships and not taxed. If your RA contract is a fellowship and is not reported with a T4, then you should be okay, regardless of the contract start and end dates. I would confirm this before applying for CERB though, so it doesn't get clawed back from you. 

[Rtmchem]

9 minutes ago, BioFish said:

Im curious what your total funding package is though? Maybe the TA contracts pay out less but you receive more in internal scholarships and fellowships to compensate? Our minimum funding package for PhD students in the Faculty of Science is about $30,000.00 per year (including our TA contracts of $10,000.00).

Our minimum for a PhD student is around 17-18k I believe, although don’t quote me on that. Either way I’m sure it is below 20k. We don’t have to pay our tuition though (which is about 10k) so it is all take home with no taxes. Do you need to pay tuition?

[SaraA]

Guys PLEASE HELP! I feel like the administrator at my school did not submit my PGS D application. Just logged onto NSERC website and the status says "submitted" not "approved". Does that mean that the school did not submit my application

I did not get any emails from NSERC at all

[MittensProject]

2 minutes ago, SaraA said:

Guys PLEASE HELP! I feel like the administrator at my school did not submit my PGS D application. Just logged onto NSERC website and the status says "submitted" not "approved". Does that mean that the school did not submit my application

I did not get any emails from NSERC at all

Schools have an internal selection process, I got an email when they forwarded my application to NSERC. My application shows "Received" on the NSERC website.

Edited April 15, 2020 by MKE

[BioFish]

Just now, SaraA said:

Guys PLEASE HELP! I feel like the administrator at my school did not submit my PGS D application. Just logged onto NSERC website and the status says "submitted" not "approved". Does that mean that the school did not submit my application

I did not get any emails from NSERC at all

This could mean that your application did not make it past the internal review process at your institution and so would not have been forwarded to NSERC for consideration in the national competition. Unless you were told by your department that you were successful in being submitted to NSERC? 

[StructIntern]

Just now, BioFish said:

Are you sure? Our RA contracts are taxable where our studentships are fellowships and not taxed. If your RA contract is a fellowship and is not reported with a T4, then you should be okay, regardless of the contract start and end dates. I would confirm this before applying for CERB though, so it doesn't get clawed back from you. 

I should correct my wording. Our funding is called a research assistant fellowship (you can also get a taxable research assistantship without the fellowship name in it but that is usualy rare unless you are cross-hired by another research group other than your PI's)... it is typically renewed on an annual basis so you have to sign a document acknowledging the start/end date and various collective agreement negotiated by the grad student association....

You are right. I should double check. But I felt like the policies regarding graduate students are rather vague. We are kinda unique in that we are employed somehow but not really.....?

[RNA-Guy]

1 minute ago, SaraA said:

Guys PLEASE HELP! I feel like the administrator at my school did not submit my PGS D application. Just logged onto NSERC website and the status says "submitted" not "approved". Does that mean that the school did not submit my application

I did not get any emails from NSERC at all

I think it should say "Received" if your application made it to the National competition... You could try emailing your department or faculty of graduate studies about this?

[BioFish]

2 minutes ago, Rtmchem said:

Our minimum for a PhD student is around 17-18k I believe, although don’t quote me on that. Either way I’m sure it is below 20k. We don’t have to pay our tuition though (which is about 10k) so it is all take home with no taxes. Do you need to pay tuition?

Ah, that's why. We pay tuition, so we both end up with very similar total funding.