Hi, everyone. I am an international student who have just finished high school. I try to get a deeper understanding about graduate admission process, especially about mathematics. I found there were many schools with financial aid, but some people told me that those money were not from university like when we applied to undergraduate level and got financial aid, they said that these aid came from professors (after you have been admitted to the university) who chose you for working with them on their projects and paid you for that. Is this true? Is this finacial aid on the website of university derived from professors? Thank you.
If you just graduated from high school you should be concerned about undergrad study at this time. By the time you are ready to apply to graduate school you will have learned how it works.
If you are talking about eventually getting a PhD in math, many PhD students get offers to be teaching assistants.The department would make this offer when they decide to accept you. Some professors have grant money to hire research assistants. You can learn about their research projects on their website. Professors prefer to hire students who have similar research interests. Ideally they hire people they know or students who come with good recommendations. I don’t know about the job situation for masters students in math, but I assume there would be lots of TA jobs at colleges where there isn’t a PhD program.
If you haven’t started college yet, it seems a little early to be so curious about how to find these PhD student research assistant jobs.
That is correct. Most of the funding provided to graduate students comes from faculty members who have grants that either buy out teaching or that pay students directly. Nearly all the money for grants comes from US resident tax payers. That is an important point. Most grants are funded through the US government and rely on the hard earned money of US tax payers.
I’m curious why this is an “important point,” given that the student merely asked about how grad students find assistantships.
It’s important because it means that some grants, fellowships, and assistantships are only available to U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
I would like to add, though, that some funding does come directly from universities and departments. Sometimes departments/universities fund special fellowships for doctoral students. Those students are not funded directly by professors, in that case.
Yes juilet is correct and I should have spelled the reason out instead. I had a line in their in my head but not on the screen apparently.