got fellowship but still work as RA?

[iowaguy]

Hi all, I was accepted by a University that has offered me a one-year departmental fellowship, followed by 3 years of RA funding.  (I have not accepted the offer yet).  The fellowship letter spells out that it covers full tuition + a stipend of $X,000.

 

So, I was talking with my POI and she says "we're really hoping you accept this offer, and would ideally like you to come down a month before classes start so you can get started on our research project" (setting up field instrumentation, etc).

 

That kind of caught me off-guard, and now I'm trying to figure out what the general difference is between a University (departmental) fellowship and a RA.  My understanding was that fellowships don't require any "work" as a RA.  (i.e. you instead spend your time getting classwork requirements out of the way or researching your own dissertation project).  Is this not the case at some universities???

[jmu]

The requirements vary from what I've seen. Most seem to be multi-year offers with a 1-year work requirement of some kind. They may simply want you to do that work requirement at the beginning rather than the end. I don't think it would hurt you to ask for more details about the fellowship and its requirements but, if it has a name, look it up first. You don't want to be asking questions when the answer is easily found.

[RandiZ]

Minimally, I would hope they throw in health insurance for the day you start rather than the first day of classes. Also, if your stipend begins when you start working, does that mean that you're doing more for less? I.e., $8,000 for 11 months instead of $8,000 for 10 months.

 

As for the RA, professors think of themselves as mentoring the PhDs. Yes, if varies by institution and even varies by professors within the same institution. But, what they are in part saying is that you are doing your coursework for the first year and under their direction, meaning doing their research, learning how to do research for the other years. I've had professors tell me that they expect me to be presenting work at conferences by the second year even thought it will likely be a piece of what they are doing in conjunction with my research.

 

Speak with other grad students that the POI is working with before you speak with the professor.

[TakeruK]

In my experience, most science PhDs are paid as RAs while they work on their own dissertation project. Usually, the RAship is whatever amount necessary to fulfill the difference between any other fellowships, TAships, and your actual stipend amount, and they are paid at some standardized hourly rate so your RA hours can be pretty arbitrary. For example, during my MSc, my RA contract was 20 hours per month. I obviously worked many more hours than that though.

 

On the other hand, I know some other fields, you don't get paid for thesis work at all and your RAship is an extra project that may or may not be related to your own work. That's probably not the case here since your POI talked to you about starting work with them.

 

In your case, it just sounds like your POI wants you to start school early. Most schools will pay you for starting early (and benefits should begin early too). You should definitely clarify this though. 

[juilletmercredi]

In my experience, you will always do work as an RA.  It's just that with a fellowship, you get to choose what work you will do and who you will work for.

 

I have an NSF GRF.  It's a fellowship that, technically, does not require anything from me except that I do well in school.  But in my social science field, you work as an RA and that IS researching your dissertation project or working on research.  Doing independent research is nigh on impossible - you don't have the equipment or the funding on your own to design your own project, pay your own participants, get them to take the web-based survey in the lab or do the experiment in the lab and then do the statistical analyses to produce the paper.  So you establish a mutually beneficial relationship with an advisor/PI.  Their grants pay for the equipment and participants you need to do your dissertation project, and ideally they also advise you on your path to the PhD and a postdoc. In return, your work helps produce publications for them and get needed work in the lab done.  And in my field, it's far more common for PhD students to carve out a "piece" of the overall grant project to work on for their dissertation.  My dissertation is a "piece" of the larger survey that we did in the lab, that I helped recruit participants for, am cleaning the data for, will run statistical analyses for, etc.

 

The benefit of my NSF is that I was not arbitrarily attached to whatever faculty member had an RAship, and required to do their work (which I may or may not have been interested in) but that I got to choose who I wanted to work for.

 

So while, technically, your fellowship won't require any work as an RA, you will still be doing work as an RA.

[tarrman]

Usually offers that come in the form of a 1st year fellowship + RA are essentially an "RA" for the first year as well, as any RA offer is a commitment to work with that professor. First year fellowships by themselves (no RA offers) are there to free up any research/teaching obligations for the student during the first year so they can work on finding an advisor. If you already have an advisor, there really isn't any reason that you shouldn't be starting work once you classes begin. It sounds to me like your POI just wants you to start gaining some experience working in her lab on a project that may or may not lead to a dissertation topic.