Department of Mathematical Sciences

Graduate Assistantships

The Department of Mathematical Sciences supports about 20 graduate students each year with graduate assistantships. A graduate assistantship is basically a part-time job that allows you to earn just enough money to support your graduate studies. The benefit of an assistantship over most other part-time employment is that your duties are designed to benefit you professionally.

The Assistantship and Your Studies:

All graduate assistants are required to be full-time graduate students. At Ball State this means that an assistant must enroll for at least 6 hours of graduate credit each semester. Because of significant employment responsibilities, a graduate assistant may enroll for a maximum of 12 hours of credit during any semester.

Assistantship Duties:

A graduate assistant is expected to spend up to 20 hours per week on professional duties. Renewal of an assistantship depends on acceptable performance in both assistantship duties and academic studies. The following are common assignments for graduate assistants in the Department of Mathematical Sciences:

Computer Lab Assistant -: The department maintains a computer laboratory that supports specialized software such as Mathematica that students are expected to use for laboratory assignments. Lab assistants are expected to help students with both problems of syntax and mathematical content as they work on computer laboratory projects. Paper grading responsibilities may also be combined with this assignment.
Learning Center Tutor -: University College operates a centralized tutoring center which provides help to lower division students in core courses. Four of our graduate assistants are assigned to the center to provide tutoring for lower level mathematics courses through Calculus II.
Class Instructor -: A few graduate students will have full responsibility for teaching a small section of a lower-division mathematics course. These responsibilities are carried out with the help and support of a faculty mentor.
Research Assistant -: A few graduate students may be assigned to work with a faculty member on research related matters.

Remuneration:

The pay for a graduate assistantship consists of (i) a stipend and (ii) tuition remission. During the current year the stipend is $10,500.

Tuition remission is an important additional benefit which is often invisible to the student. Depending on the load taken, the value of this benefit during the academic year is about $3592 - $5754 for in-state students and $8848 - $14,928 for out of state students. Though tuition is forgiven, the student is still responsible for student services fees of approximately $1500.

Assistantship Application:

Those who wish to apply for a graduate assistantship should follow the instructions listed under Graduate Assistantship Application Process given at either here for U.S. Citizen applicants or here for International applicants. The assistantship application deadline for first-round offers is February 1 in any year in order to receive first-round consideration. Applications will gladly be accepted after that date, but the candidate will likely not be considered for the first round of offers.

Assistantships outside of the Department of Mathematical Sciences

If you are interested in obtaining an assistantship outside of the Department of Mathematical Sciences (in case the department is not able to offer you one), please read the information provided at http://www.bsu.edu/gradschool/assistantships/ and http://www.bsu.edu/students/careers/students/viewjobs/. If you have any questions about these web sites, please use the contact information listed on the web sites.

Last Modification: February 2007 Ball State University practices equal opportunity in education and employment and is strongly and actively committed to diversity within its community. Links contained in this file to information provided by other organizations are presented as a service and neither constitute nor imply endorsement or warranty.