Graduate Students Employment
Communication Studies Department graduate students can be funded in two ways, either as
- Multi-semester commitment - students who are offered funding during the initial admissions process are multi-year commitments (eight long semesters for doctoral students, four long semesters for master’s student)
- Semester-by-semester basis – students offered funding at the beginning of the school year are offered funding on a semester-by-semester basis
If a student is appointed for at least 20 hours for 4½ months, the student will receive from the first day of employment, the following benefits:
- Health insurance paid by the Office of Graduate Studies. This is the same health insurance as faculty and staff. Students can add dependents to be paid by the student. http://www.utexas.edu/hr/irg/
- In-state tuition waiver http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/employment/entitlement.html
- Tuition assistance see http://www.utexas.edu/provost/planning/tuition/index.html
Communication Studies Department has two paid positions that can be offered to graduate students: Teaching Assistants and Assistant Instructors.
At the University of Texas, Assistant Instructors must be doctoral students. However, not all funded doctoral students will start working as an AI. Funded doctoral students with little teaching experience will be assigned to TA positions while taking the introductory teaching class, CMS 398T and then can move to teaching their own classes as Assistant Instructors.
Assistant Instructors teach their own classes such as
- CMS 306M Professional Communication Skills
- CMS 310K Team-based Communication,
- CMS 314L Language, Communication and Culture
- CMS 317C Speechmaking and Society.
Generally, the first course AIs teach is the introductory public speaking class, CMS 306M. In later semesters, doctoral students can apply to teach other freshman and sophomore level classes, such as those listed above.
Masters students are funded as Teaching Assistants and do not teach their own classes. The duties of a TA include creating exams, grading papers and exams, and meeting with and answering student’s questions. The department offers several large lecture classes per semester with a need for TAs such as:
- CMS 315M Interpersonal Communication Theory
- CMS 332K Theories of Persuasion
- CMS 334K Nonverbal Communication
Initial funding is offered on a half-time or twenty hour basis. As a Teaching Assistant, the teaching load is usually being a TA for one large lecture course of about 100 students. Courses larger than 100 students will have multiple TAs.
As an Assistant Instructor, half-time is teaching two courses. After doctoral students have taught for a year and if there is a departmental need, some students may teach three classes or a ¾ time basis. Summer teaching funding is available for about three to four graduate students and usually goes to students who have high teaching evaluations in previous semesters. We do try to “spread the wealth” and not appoint the same graduate students to teach every summer.
Learn more about how the department assists graduate students financially by clicking on the links below.
