Do you work during the summer?

[tangrinka]

I have received 12 month stipend and I naturally assumed it meant working during the summer. However, my friend who also receives 12 month stipend has 3 months off. What's your experience with 12 month stipends? If you are required to work during the summer, do you get some time off? Does it make any difference if you have RA, TA, or a fellowship? Thanks!

[runonsentence]

I have received 12 month stipend and I naturally assumed it meant working during the summer. However, my friend who also receives 12 month stipend has 3 months off. What's your experience with 12 month stipends? If you are required to work during the summer, do you get some time off? Does it make any difference if you have RA, TA, or a fellowship? Thanks!

This sounds like a question best addressed to current grad students at your program, as we'll only be able to speculate. But I would imagine that if it's some kind of research or fellowship, you can expect to do at least some work over the summer. A TAship would be less likely to entail summer work since universities are pretty lean on summer courses, but at my university they're never awarded as 12-month stipends, anyway, so that's pretty clear up front.

[StrangeLight]

i TA'd for 8 months during the fall and spring term, but i chose to get paid over 12 months (we can also choose to be paid over 8). i don't have to perform any TA functions during the summer and i don't work a summer job at the gap (like many of my colleagues do), but i "work" during the summer. i still try to put in a minimum of 50 hours a week and i'll be going abroad for research for over a month.

whether you need to be in the lab doing work for someone else during the summer or not, you should use those months to focus on your own research and work as well.

[lewin]

whether you need to be in the lab doing work for someone else during the summer or not, you should use those months to focus on your own research and work as well.

Agreed. If your friend is actually taking three months off (i.e., not working at all) that's a surefire road to an eight-year degree and eventual unemployment. If by "three months off" you mean "free of other responsibilities and able to focus on individual research for that whole time" then your friend is lucky and should make the most of it.