Assistantships at SIPA
Funding your degree doesn’t stop at scholarships !
Once on campus, much can be done to round up that budget sheet and provide some financial breathing space. Of those options, let’s take a deep dive into the world of assistantships.
What are we talking about ?
Assistantships are an integral part of the academic structure of graduate school, and SIPA is no exception. As the backbone of course success, student positions provide crucial support for the faculty in the teaching process.
Available assistantship roles can be divided into three categories, with varying degrees of responsibilities, salaries, and expectations for each:
- Teaching Assistants (TAs) represents the most intensive category in this list. TAs work closely with faculty, they lead recitations and small review sessions, host office hours, grade assignments and exams, and may perform administrative tasks such as managing the courseworks page for the course
- Readers have similar duties to that of TAs, though with more limited responsibilities and scope. They will support both instructional and administrative tasks. Though they must hold office hours of their own, they are not allowed to lead recitations and will tend to focus more on the administrative side of things
- Student Assistants (SAs) positions are purely administrative, and are forbidden from taking part in academic instruction duties
There are also Program Assistants (PAs), like myself and other students working at the admissions office for example. PAs are a separate branch as they are not linked to class-related duties, but rather connected to specific offices or departments at large. The role of PAs is instead to support the daily operations of their assigned institutes, offices, or departments.
Salary and Work Hours
2025-26 Assistantships Summary
|
Assistantship |
Salary/Semester |
Service Commitment/Semester |
|
Teaching Assistant (TA) |
$14,181 |
Up to 20 hours/week |
|
Reader/DRA |
$7,091 |
Up to 15 hours/week |
|
Program Assistant (PA) |
$30/hour (up to $6,000) |
Avg. 12–13 hours/week; 200 hours |
|
Student Assistant (SA) |
$23/hour (up to $3,450) |
Avg. 9–10 hours/week; 150 hours |
Eligibility
To be eligible for assistantship positions, students must be in their second year of studies at SIPA, and must satisfy these conditions:
- Enrolled at SIPA full-time for the semester of the assistantship
- Must be in good academic standing (3.0 CGPA or higher)
A note for international students
International students are eligible for all assistantship positions, but must ensure their visa requirements are respected. The ISSO remains the only competent office in this matter, and questions around the compatibility with an assistantship position with your current visa status should be directed to them.
Application Process
Emails will be circulated (to students who satisfy the eligibility criteria) with the opportunity to apply for assistantship positions for the following academic year. This typically occurs around mid-May. While the Fall and Spring applications are separate, they are both released in May to your inbox.
You can find the full rundown of the application process here, but this is what to expect from the process early on:
1. Student ranking: Students submit applications and rank all positions they are interested in from an online portal
2. Faculty ranking: Faculty receive a list of students who have applied for their position. They do not see the student rankings of their position. They submit their own ranked list of candidates
3. Selection: Assignments are made based on matching student and faculty preferences. If two or more faculty want to hire the same student, the student is assigned to the position the student ranked the highest
Resources
If you’d like to inquire some more, here are some useful links to review: