There are three types of financial aid available to graduate students
in the School of Computing. Teaching and research positions are
awarded on a semester-by-semester basis. Teaching assistantships are
provided by the School, while research assistantships are awarded by
individual faculty serving as investigators on research grants and
contracts. A third form of support is research fellowships (including
traineeships), the terms of which vary.
The duties and benefits of School teaching and research assistantships
are defined as follows:
- Teaching Assistantship: A teaching assistant is a
matriculated student employed 10 to 20 hours per week to assist a
faculty member in teaching. The teaching assistant is required to
meet with students regularly in a classroom, laboratory, or other
instructional setting; to assist in instructional duties through
lesson and materials preparation; to counsel students outside of the
regularly scheduled instructional periods; and to evaluate and grade
students' work to aid in the determination of final course grades.
Tuition waivers supplement salary support.
- Research Assistantship: The Director of Graduate Studies
assigns each research assistant to a particular faculty member based
on mutual agreement of the faculty and student. The duties assigned
to a research assistant are consonant with the student's research
interests and also useful to the professor's research efforts. A
research assistantship can be viewed as an internship, whereby the
student learns by practicing under faculty supervision. Research
assistants are employed up to 20 hours per week. A student wishing to
be a research assistant should inquire directly with appropriate
faculty sponsors. Tuition waivers supplement salary support.
Continuation of financial aid is dependent upon continued competent
performance of teaching or research duties, as well as satisfactory progress
in the student's program of study.
Research fellowships, such as those awarded by national foundations,
can be requested directly from the granting agency under the
supervision of the Director of Graduate Studies. In addition, the
School annually nominates outstanding graduate students for University
Research Fellowships, as well as fellowships for certain categories of
graduate students from private corporations and federal agencies. In
the past, students in the School have been awarded fellowships from
NSF, DOE, DARPA, ACM, AMOCO, Apple, ARO, ONR, and IBM.