Surviving in university

[MiroslavBass]

Hi,

 

I'm curious, is it possible to survive as a PhD student in university having almost no savings and working 20 hours per week at campus? Anywhere? My monthly rent will be 400$ with everything included. I will not pay for my studies, because I have a financial aid,  but NO STIPEND. I'm ready to work anywhere, I don't care about conditions. I just want to know, how much students are usually paid on campus? I can't find any info about it. 

[geographyrocks]

The typical work study rate that I have seen is around $10/hr.  However, it may be more in larger cities where the cost of living is higher.  I'm not really sure about that.  You can make more if you are able to get a more specialized position.  Work study positions generally go through financial aid.  My university is nice enough to list their positions online along with payrate.  You might want to google your school's name and either "jobs", "careers", or "work study". 

My biggest piece of advice is to start asking the professors and office staff in your department.  They sometime know of positions others don't.  They also tend to be close to alumni who are now in the position to help current graduate students get a part-time position with the company they work for. 

[MiroslavBass]

The typical work study rate that I have seen is around $10/hr.  However, it may be more in larger cities where the cost of living is higher.  I'm not really sure about that.  You can make more if you are able to get a more specialized position.  Work study positions generally go through financial aid.  My university is nice enough to list their positions online along with payrate.  You might want to google your school's name and either "jobs", "careers", or "work study". 

My biggest piece of advice is to start asking the professors and office staff in your department.  They sometime know of positions others don't.  They also tend to be close to alumni who are now in the position to help current graduate students get a part-time position with the company they work for. 

thank you, I asked the Head of My dept, but no positions are available so far. So I focused on more simple jobs, just to find at least anything

Edited October 27, 2014 by MiroslavBass

[geographyrocks]

Don't just ask the head of the department.  They have a lot on their plate and are probably less aware of opportunities than others in the department.  They just don't have the time to pay attention. 

The graduate secretary, on the other hand, is an amazing person who somehow manages to remember everything! 

Make sure you also ask your adviser (or potential adviser).  They benefit the most from helping you find a job that fits your schedule and pays well enough that you don't have to drop out of graduate school just to pay bills. 

[juilletmercredi]

I'm leaning towards no.  But it depends on a lot of factors.

 

First, it depends the cost of living in your university city vs. the amount that you will make on campus.  The upper-limit of most student work on campus was about $20/hour, but how much you made really depended on what you did.  Many part-time grad student positions - like RAing or doing administrative tasks - paid closer to the $20/hour, whereas the more undergrad-student type work (desk attendant, library aide, etc.) paid $10-15/hour.  However, this was in Expensive Grad City.  If you were able to make $20/hour in a place where the rent only costs $400, then you might be able to get by if you lived VERY frugally.  But I suspect that a place with $400 rent also does not pay students $20/hour.

 

The other thing to remember is that PhD programs are extremely time-consuming.  I'm not sure whether you've already begun or not and whether you're in coursework or advanced.  But during the coursework phase of a PhD program, it is extremely difficult to work in non-related work.  If you have a 20-hour RAship, that contributes to your research and program advancement and so it's kind of woven into the program; even a TAship is more related to your career advancement (and, ideally, takes less than 20 hours a week anyway, and much of that can be done in the evenings).  A non-related job will take 20 hours on top of your already busy schedule of classes, research, and any required teaching; you may be scheduled mostly between 9 and 5, which may make it difficult to schedule courses.  I did successfully work part-time during the later stages of my grad career, after I had finished my coursework.

 

*

 

This is also just my opinion though, but I don't believe in attending unfunded PhD programs.  Your profile says you are already attending.  Did you have funding and it got cut somehow?  Is there a plan for you to regain funding?  How much assistance does your department give to students who don't have official funding re: obtaining external money or getting a related part-time position, like being a research associate at a nonprofit?  (You don't want to flip burgers or shelve books to support yourself in grad school, not because there's anything wrong with that kind of work, but because it will not benefit your career.)  How likely is it that this will be an ongoing problem?  If you are early in your program, will you have to struggle to get money every year?

 

Explore the answers to these questions.  I think that if your program is unwilling to pay you a stipend but also more or less unwilling to assist you in some significant way to find additional funding (significant meaning more than "here is a list of alumni with jobs" or "here is a list of fellowships you can apply to; good luck), then you should be unwilling to continue.  But that's just my opinion.

[TMP]

Gotta say this.  Don't forget the food!  It's another big expense.

[maelia8]

Another aspect to take into account is that your workload will probably shift over the course of your Ph.D. career in terms of how much you are teaching or working as a grader/lab assistant. These jobs are often mandatory for grad students and can eat up a lot of your time, so prepare for the possibility that your available hours for an outside job will be cut down considerably when you're teaching.

[avflinsch]

 

The graduate secretary, on the other hand, is an amazing person who somehow manages to remember everything!

 

In general - the department secretary/office admin is the person to ask - they know EVERYTHING and can usually be bribed with cookies & coffee, or if not actually bribed, they will at least remember you the next time you ask.

[dr. t]

If you make it a priority to be friends with the secretaries and building maintenance wherever you go, you will be shocked how easy life can get.