The life of a Graduate Student?
I’m 3 years out of my undergrad studies and, like many people, I’m thinking about persuing a Masters. But, how do you guys do it?
I’m not talking about the application process at all… I’m talking about, surviving.
See, I commuted and worked through my four year degree. But, if I’m going for my masters, I want to do it full time. I know tuition is covered by financial aid (hopefully) and student loans (definitely). How do you graduate students out there afford to live….food…room…transportation…social expenses. Do most of you work part time? Paid internships? Living off savings? Credit Cards?
I’m trying to stay away from the online masters programs. I’d like to devote myself to this 100%. Working through my 4 year was tough. This time I want to do it right.
Any suggestions?
Master’s programs vary tremendously with regard to what the expectations are as well as what’s available in terms of funding.
What you’re hoping for in the way of tuition is called a “tuition waiver.” These can cover all of your tuition, or part of it. Another strategy that some schools use is to reduce tuition for out-of-state students down to in-state rates with these. The availability of such things varies by field. In business, for example, they tend to be few and far between, while in the sciences, they tend to be quite common. The logic, if you will, is that the earning potential of people with masters degrees in business is such that it justifies the debt that they’ll accumulate, while in the sciences, earning potential is so low that few people will go without a waiver. In addition, the success of your home department in grant writing impacts such things… not as many grants cover students in business, but often do in the sciences. There are fields in between of course… Artists have very low earning potential, but often wind up paying tuition anyway since the numbers of interested students are so high that it’s just that competitive.
As to how to actually live… This also depends on the institution to some degree. My graduate program made us sign agreements that we would *not* hold jobs outside of the institution regardless of whether we were supported by the institution or not. That’s pretty extreme, but many schools expect that their graduate students are working full time for them with no time for outside employment. Internally, graduate students may be supported by stipends (aka, salary for non-employees), research fellowships (aka, slave wages for working off of some one’s grant), or teaching fellowships (aka, slave wages for teaching or assistant teaching classes to undergrads). These range from a few thousand dollars a semester to the mid $20k range. Often times, you might have a combination of these funding sources.
I can’t stress enough that your profs in grad school have very different expectations of you than did the ones in undergrad. In grad school, they expect you to treat your graduate program as a full-time job. That means showing up early in the morning regardless of when your first class is, and not going home until evening, again… regardless of your class schedule. So for this reason, they tend to frown on outside work at most institutions. Still… don’t hesitate to ask other (older) graduate students. You may find that your university or program has a more liberal approach. Good luck!
