This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(October 2019) |
A graduate assistant serves in a support role at a university, usually while completing post-graduate education. [1] The assistant typically helps professors with instructional responsibilities as teaching assistants or with academic research responsibilities as research assistants, aids coaches with an athletic team, or is employed by other university departments (such as housing or academic advising). [2]
Rather than receive hourly wages, GAs are often remunerated in the form of a stipend. Assistantships provide experience for graduate students, increasing their future employment options. This is especially true in U.S. college sports, in which a graduate assistant position is very often the first step on a coach's career ladder. [3]
Graduate assistantships are beneficial to the employing university as well because graduate assistants fill positions that would cost the university significantly more to fill with traditional employees.
A stipend is a fixed sum of money paid periodically for services or to defray expenses. That remuneration is termed a "fee" or "stipend" rather than salary or wages is immaterial. The stipend allows for the graduate student to focus on their studies instead of a full-time job, but only pays a portion of the income of a full-time job. A PhD graduate stipend is considered income in the United States.
Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor's) degree.
An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies. They are typically undertaken by students and graduates looking to gain relevant skills and experience in a particular field. Employers benefit from these placements because they often recruit employees from their best interns, who have known capabilities, thus saving time and money in the long run. Internships are usually arranged by third-party organizations that recruit interns on behalf of industry groups. Rules vary from country to country about when interns should be regarded as employees. The system can be open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
A research assistant (RA) is a researcher employed, often on a temporary contract, by a university, research institute, or privately held organization to provide assistance in academic or private research endeavors. Research assistants work under the supervision of a principal investigator or supervisor and typically do not bear direct responsibility for the final outcomes of the research. However, in certain countries, research assistants can be the primary contributors to the research outcomes. Research assistants are commonly educated to at least degree level, and they may also be enrolled in postgraduate degree programs. In some cases, such as when pursuing a PhD, they are referred to as Doctoral Research Assistants and may also have teaching responsibilities alongside their research commitments.
A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in association football and professional baseball. In other sports, such as Australian rules football, the head coach is generally referred to as the senior coach.
The title of docent is conferred by some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks at or below the full professor rank, similar to a British readership, a French maître de conférences (MCF), and equal to or above the title of assistant professor. In Southeast European countries, it is the first position that people achieve once they enter the University, and after the completion of their PhD degree.
A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. Salary can also be considered as the cost of hiring and keeping human resources for corporate operations, and is hence referred to as personnel expense or salary expense. In accounting, salaries are recorded in payroll accounts.
A resident assistant (RA), also known by a variety of other names, is a trained peer leader who coordinates activities in residence halls in colleges and universities, mental health and substance abuse residential facilities, or similar establishments.
A teaching assistant (TA) or education assistant (EA) is an individual who assists a professor or teacher with instructional responsibilities. TAs include graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), who are graduate students; undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs), who are undergraduate students; secondary school TAs, who are either high school students or adults; and elementary school TAs, who are adults.
A stipend is a regular fixed sum of money paid for services or to defray expenses, such as for scholarship, internship, or apprenticeship. It is often distinct from an income or a salary because it does not necessarily represent payment for work performed; instead it represents a payment that enables somebody to be exempt partly or wholly from waged or salaried employment in order to undertake a role that is normally unpaid or voluntary, or which cannot be measured in terms of a task. A paid judge in an English or Welsh magistrates' court was formerly termed a "stipendiary magistrate", as distinct from the unpaid "lay magistrates". In 2000, these were respectively renamed "district judge" and "magistrate".
A teaching fellow is an individual at a higher education institution, including universities, whose role involves teaching and potentially pedagogic research. The work done by teaching fellows can vary enormously from institution to institution, depending on the requirements and position of individual institutions.
The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education – Economics Institute, known as CERGE-EI is an academic institution in Prague, Czech Republic, specialised in economics. The institute is a partnership between the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education of Charles University and the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It is also a New York State Education Department entity with a permanent charter for its degree-granting educational programs awarded by the New York State Board of Regents. It is located in the Schebek Palace in the center of Prague.
Professors in the United States commonly occupy any of several positions of teaching and research within a college or university. In the U.S., the word "professor" is often used to refer to anyone who teaches at a college of university level at any academic rank. This usage differs from the predominant usage of the word professor in other countries, where the unqualified word "professor" only refers to "full professors". Other tenure-track faculty positions include assistant professor and associate professor (mid-level). Other teaching-focused positions that use the term "professor" include Clinical Professor, Professor of Practice, and Teaching Professor. Most faculty with titles of "Lecturer" and "Instructor" in the U.S. are not eligible for tenure, though they are still often referred to as "professors" in a general sense and as a courtesy form of address. Non-tenure-track positions may be full or part time, although the qualifier "adjunct" always denotes part-time.
In academia, a predoctoral fellow is a person combining study for a doctorate with some form of paid research or work, in other words a paid doctoral student. The term is only used in some parts of the world.
Professor is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors are usually experts in their field and teachers of the highest rank.
A Doctor of Philosophy is a terminal degree, that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the degree is most often abbreviated PhD, pronounced as three separate letters.
Academic ranks in the United States are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia.
Academic ranks in Canada are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia.
Academic ranks in Russia are the conferred titles, indicating relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel in Russian academia and scientific institutions. The rank “certifies” the demonstrated ability of an individual to function in the specific academic position(s).
In the United States, the PhD degree is the highest academic degree awarded by universities in most fields of study. American students typically undergo a series of three phases in the course of their work toward the PhD degree. The first phase consists of coursework in the student's field of study and requires one to three years to complete. This often is followed by a preliminary, a comprehensive examination, or a series of cumulative examinations where the emphasis is on breadth rather than depth of knowledge. The student is often later required to pass oral and written examinations in the field of specialization within the discipline, and here, depth is emphasized. After the comprehensive examination the student is a "PhD Candidate", which is the academic equivalent of a master's degree. Some universities will award terminal Master's for students who drop out of the PhD program at this stage, and some, like Columbia University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, award a Master's en route to the PhD. Some PhD programs require the candidate to successfully complete requirements in pedagogy or applied science.
An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is generally agreed to mean a bona-fide part-time faculty member in an adjunct position at an institution of higher education.