TAing vs. Scholarship?

[happy little pill]

Hi all,

 

I'm in a very "world's smallest violin" kind of situation but I was hoping to get advice nonetheless.

 

My school allows for a maximum of 40K of support per year between scholarships, TA/RA/GA work, etc. - I should probably mention that I'm in Canada since PhDs are shorter here, I think, than in the US (typically 4 yrs).  I won the top award at the university, which totals 30K per year of support for four years. I wasn't expecting to also win SSHRC (category B, 20k per year times four years). I cannot defer the start date on either award.

 

Obviously this totals 50k of support per year, more than the allotted 40k. I e-mailed my GPD to ask how it works and she said that I would have to decline SSHRC since 30k plus a half year TAship comes out to 40K. When I e-mailed the woman who actually deals with awards, she said it's up to me what to do.

 

My dilemma is this: I don't know whether it's better to accept SSHRC knowing it will dock 10k from my other scholarship and prevent me from TAing at my institution, or whether to decline SSHRC and take a TA job.

 

I eventually want to teach in an institution (surprise surprise), so I'm worried that if I don't TA for the next two years until I reach ABD status, it will make sessional teaching jobs at other institutions more difficult - I don't have the opportunity to teach classes as a PhD student at my own institution so I have to automatically look elsewhere. I have two years of TA experience at my current institution, but it's been solely marking papers, no tutorial leading whereas in my future institution you absolutely get to lead a tutorial session. I don't, however, have a guarantee of TAing every single year because the written guarantee of TA/RAship was nullified by this larger award and the GPD made it clear that students in our program usually TA for other departments in other years but that it's kind of up to us to facilitate finding those TAships. This uncertainty worries me.

 

At the same time, SSHRC is such a make-it-or-break it career award that I'm hesitant to turn it down. I know that I can put declined on my CV and probably explain it, but I'm paranoid about how that is going to look at other institutions who are just glancing at my CV and may not know me personally.

 

Thanks in advance - like I said, this is a world's smallest violin situation but I appreciate any input!

Edited April 27, 2015 by happy little pill

[nugget]

This situation isn't uncommon. There is a way to write it on a cv to indicate you received one but did not accept it (don't remember the specific phrase at the moment unfortunately, but perhaps someone else here does).

 

If you really do not want to decline and still want to TA, is it possible to be a volunteer TA? I've never heard of such a thing but it might not hurt to ask if this option appeals to you. You could also ask about not accepting the full $50,000 and only accepting a total of $40,000 worth of funding.  

 

(As a side note, I think it's silly you cannot accept more than $40,000/yr. I know of a couple of people who won a Canadian award worth $50,000/yr for 3 years and they had no problems accepting it. Congrats, nonetheless. That's quite an accomplishment).  

Edited April 27, 2015 by jenste

[TakeruK]

This situation isn't uncommon, but it sounds a little strange that you are so limited in your options.

 

To ensure I understand correctly, they are saying your options are:

 

1. Accept the top University award and a half-year TA, which totals $40k/year of support.

 

2. Accept the SSHRC ($20k/year) and take $20k/year from the University award, but no TAing is allowed since you're already at $40k/year.

 

Have you asked them about a third option? Which is, take the SSHRC ($20k/year), take $10k/year from the University award, and do a half-TAship for $10k/year, which also totals $40k/year. SSHRC (like NSERC) will allow you to TA along with the award, and SSHRC (like NSERC) will allow you to accept other awards, so I don't see any problem with this from the SSHRC point of view. Also, since Option (1) above involves the school award and TAing, I don't see a problem combining the University award with TAing either. So, the only thing that would stop you from pursuing this option is if the department simply does not want you to do this!!

 

In my field, in Canada, it's very common for science students to have funding like this. During my MSc, I was basically in the same situation as I describe above: 1/3 of funding from TAing, 1/3 of funding from a department/school award, and 1/3 of funding from NSERC. 

 

However, I'm not even sure that TAing now will help your job aspects later. Presumably you were a TA in your Masters degree? This might be a field dependent thing, since in the sciences, TAing is not a lot of responsibility so doing it once or doing it 5 times does not make you any more "qualified" for a teaching position. If you were in my field, I would advise you to take option 2 above and get teaching experience elsewhere, on your own terms (e.g. tutoring, outreach, etc.). But you should talk to those in your field to decide how valuable TA experience is to the type of career you want after your degree.

 

Finally, I don't think volunteer TAing would work at many schools. At my MSc school, our Collective Bargaining Agreement clearly states that all Bargaining Unit work (e.g. TA work) must be paid at the TA rate. Overall, I think this is a good thing because otherwise schools can implement rules like "mandatory volunteering before eligibility for TAships" and take advantage of free labour and exploit students even more!