Assistantship in another dept.?

[hopeful grad]

My friend in grad school got an assistantship through the department where she did her undergrad which was a different department than where she was getting her masters. Is this common? How would I go about applying? There doesn't seem to be information on the websites.

[silencio1982]

when i was in my MA program i got a part-time job in a center within the social work school. it wasn't an assistantship (didn't come with tuition remission - i already had that in scholarship form for all but 3 credits), but it did pay $15 an hour. i found out about it via the student jobs website of my university. i am sure you are probably looking for something in the realm of tuition remission though, so that probably doesn't help. but i would just broach the subject to your advisor or the director of your program first, then assuming they are okay with it, email the director of grad studies of the dept in question. i would also check university affiliated centers related to your area of study- for example, there was a center for human rights at my MA university that employed a grad assistant. you never know until you ask. i would just be sure to broach the subject to your program/department first. good luck!

[hopeful grad]

great advice, thanks silencio!

[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.