Working another job while holding a TA position

[nathan88]

Anyone have any experience with this? I will be doing my first semester as a teaching assistant in my MA program this fall and while I'm thrilled with the tuition waiver, the living stipend leaves something to be desired. The position requires 20 hours per week and I'm obviously doing graduate work full time as well but I would like to get some sort of job on the weekends if possible. Do any of you supplement your TA income in any way?

[Dal PhDer]

Throughout my MA and PhD I have held several jobs to supplement my income...however, these jobs have been REALLY flexible and have always been RA work. This RA work has allowed me to determine when I want to put my hours in (and where) as long as the work gets done.

I think it is possible to work fulltime on your school duties, TA, and hold a flexible job. But I would be prepared to be honest with yourself and make sure the duties and time commitments are something that you can handle...while money is important, school does need to come first, and you don't want to sacriface that for work.

[TakeruK]

I don't hold an actual job while a graduate student (in my first year, a scholarship required me to not work more than an average of 10 hours/week). But, I do supplement my income by doing occasional tutoring. I did a lot in undergrad too, but as a graduate student, you can charge more! Just make sure there are no restrictions in your department. In my department, we can get our names posted on the Department Tutor List, which is a webpage that profs could direct students to if they needed extra help beyond what office hours can do. But we aren't supposed to tutor any course that we're currently TAing, for obvious reasons! However, you should also make sure that your funding doesn't come with clauses about outside work. See this thread for a discussion about this:

I like tutoring because it's good money -- I charge $30/hour but rates may vary depending on school/subject/location. Most other students tutor too and we keep our rates close to each other so that we aren't undercutting one another. It's also very flexible -- I can tutor more when I have more time and cut back during the busy weeks, take time off for conferences etc. If we have a regular student, we sometimes ask other students to substitute for us that week. It could be pretty hard to do this with a part time job. And I figure even tutoring for just ~3 hours a week is like a whole day working a minimum wage job! And you don't have to pay taxes

[Dal PhDer]

TakeruK has a great point- if you are funded, you should check with your department and/or the funding agency about your ability to work...it's also a good thing to run it by your supervisor first.

It's really interesting the attitudes/views you get on funded students seeking out additional work- it's kind of a hot topic. I also think the 'type' of work you do comes into play, e.g., RA work vs. waiting tables.

[fuzzylogician]

Like others here, I occasionally take on RA work in addition to normal TA/fellowship requirements. These normally happen over the summer, when there are no courses, and they are otherwise very flexible. If that is something that could be an option for you, I would highly recommend it over a job with regular hours.