First-Year Funding

[cwiersma]

I was under the impression that schools just fund you no matter what for graduate school if you're in research. However, I won't be starting my actual project until year 2, so my question is how am I supposed to pay for the first year? Do most first years in scientific fields apply for a teaching assistantships? That seems like a lot of work for the first year. There's also research assistantships available, but then aren't you taking on a project for 9 months while ALSO doing rotations? I'm so confused. 

[fuzzylogician]

Usually an acceptance to a PhD program will come with a funding package, often for the duration of the program. Funding will be contingent on you staying in good standing and being enrolled full-time, and sometimes some service is expected in return, e.g. work as a TA or RA. The fact that most of your time will be invested in coursework in the first year doesn't matter, you should still be supported. Some programs are set up such that early on you are supported by the department and later you are expected to find a PI who will take you into their lab and fund you from their own grants. Here too, there is always funding from some source while you are a student there. Some students do TA in their first year, this depends on the particular program, and it's not something we can tell you without knowing more. 

[Bhu_It]

Based on what I see at schools doing research rotations (my current school and also one school I'm applying to), first year PhD students compulsorily serve as TAs while taking courses and performing the research rotations. If someone chooses a PI before coming, they can do RA right from the beginning and won't have to go through the rotations. I believe this should be the case at most schools.

[ThousandsHardships]

In my former program, all admitted PhD students get a departmental fellowship for their first two quarters (so they don't have to teach or get into a lab at the beginning) while M.S. students get one quarter. Beyond that, they also nominate their top PhD admits for university fellowships, which can cover either the first year or the first two years. I'd say most programs that can afford to do so automatically cover their first-year students, and the ones that cannot afford to do this give them TA'ships instead to help fund them.

Edited March 9, 2017 by ThousandsHardships