Responsibilities as a Graduate/Research Assistant

As a graduate/research assistant in your first year, you are expected to attend class, seminars and perform laboratory rotations. If you are assigned duties as a Teaching Assistant, you are expected to perform any duties prescribed by the faculty member in charge of the course. By the end of your first year's course work, you should have chosen a mentor and laboratory in which to pursue your thesis work. Beginning at that time, you will be supported by your mentor and therefore, you should discuss your benefits as to time expected in the lab, sick time, vacation time, stipend and health coverage. As stated in the "Graduate Assistant Policies and Guidelines," you are not eligible for vacation or sick leave. However, each mentor has their own policies which may or may not allow such flexibility for vacation or sick time. The granting of these benefits is at the discretion of your mentor.

Please also note that the "Graduate Assistant Policies and Guidelines" states that a full-time graduate or research assistant need only work 20 hours per week. This limited commitment applies only to those students who must work outside their mentor's laboratory. Such a situation is not common to the students in the Combined Ph.D. Program in Biochemistry. When a student is receiving a stipend for his or her doctoral training in a laboratory, it is expected that a student commit to at least 40 hours or more of work per week.