Financial Support
There are three main types of financial support for the graduate student:
- Fellowships (which may include a stipend)
- Research Assistantships (RAs = GSRs = Graduate Student Researcher positions)
- Teaching Assistantships (TAs)
The programs administered by the school require a student to be enrolled in at least 12 units and meet minimum requirements of academic progress. Some or all of those 12 units may be research units rather than coursework.
Fellowships opportunities vary. They are usually highly competitive so apply to as many as humanly possible. Some of them are for new graduate students (e.g. the NSF Fellowship) while others are generally given to more established students (e.g. Microsoft, Intel, etc). UCSD now has a nice Graduate Funding Blog that is frequently updated with new opportunities (as well as reminders).
Most RAships are distributed by individual professors from grant money they acquire through research proposals (often NSF). You will usually be working with a professor before this arises, though sometimes advertisements for positions are made.
TA's are assigned by the department. The CSE department goes through cycles of high and row undergraduate enrollment, which directly effects the number of TA positions that are available. Unfortunately, we are currently in a down phase so opportunities are more limited. SamiraKhazai sends out reminders to all grad students each quarter when it is time to apply for TA positions.
RAships are provided by faculty, who in turn get the money from agencies that fund their research projects. As a whole, the department is doing well in obtaining grant money and there are often RAships available, but this can vary from time to time and from area to area. Ideally, a student would like an RAship that directly supports his or her research towards the degree.