Being a grad student during the summer

[Topher925]

Being a grad student during the summer...

Just curious as to what most of you non-RA grad students do during the summer semesters? I would like to take some classes this summer I'm but having a hard timing figuring out how to pay for them. There are usually TA positions open during the summer semesters at my school but they only pay a stipend and not tuition, so your basically SOL when it comes to financial aid unless your an RA. My school has no tuition assistant programs what so ever for its grad students and only offers low interest federal loans. I've applied to probably a dozen scholarships but of course only liberal art majors ever get those. Getting a part time job is questionable given the state of the economy. Do any universities offer help for their grad students during the summer months or do they usually just leave them to fend for themselves?

 

[mgb_phys]

Grad students get summer vacations? Since when?

 

[jtbell]

My university (U of Michigan) had special first-summer stipends for all graduate students, to enable them to work with a research group and get some research experience without necessarily committing themselves to a specific field. I spent my first summer with the low-temperature group, because that was what I thought I was most interested in.

I ended up going into experimental high-energy particle physics for my Ph.D. partly because my first-summer supervisor saw that I was into computer programming, and suggested me to one of the experimental HEP people. That took care of my summers after the first one.

 

[Topher925]

Great, another reason I should have gone to UofM.

 

[jtbell]

Disclaimer: I was there thirty years ago... I don't know if they still do it now!

 

[daveyinaz]

They do...something like Rackham Summer Institute..

 

[Topher925]

Well fortunately everything seems to be working out and I will be getting support from a TA and RA position and will be able to cover the costs of my tuition. I know of the Rackham thing but I thought that program only covered your stipend and not tuition for classes?