Teaching Assistantships
The Math Department awards graduate teaching assistantships to a large proportion of incoming graduate students. Teaching assistantships are normally a one-third time appointment, which means you are expected to work one-third of a full time (40 hours/week) schedule. Students with a teaching assistantship receive a tuition waiver, though they are still required to pay student fees (currently, student fees for a 9 credit hour schedule are approximately $680 / semester). Supplementary summer support is available to many of the graduate students enrolled during the preceding academic year. Teaching assistances receive health insurance through the Gator Grad Care program. In order to maintain your teaching assistantship, you must take a minimum of 9 credit hours per semester and maintain a grade point average of at least 3.0.
Fellowships
The Math Department awards a limited number of Alumni Fellowships each semester. Alumni Fellows receive a competitive 11 month stipend. Some teaching – though considerably less than that of a graduate teaching assistant – is required of Alumni Fellows. The Office of Graduate Minority Programs has a variety of diversity programs that offer support.
Travel
There are a number of funding sources available for graduate students seeking to travel domestically or abroad. Within the department, the Center for Applied Mathematics (CAM) provides scholarships to graduate students in the department (not just those working in applied fields). They take applications a few times per semester. The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences also provides a travel grant, and the application for this grant can be found on the CLAS forms page. The Graduate Student Council provides GSC Travel Grants, and if you have already passed your qualifying exams you can also apply for the Office of Research Travel Grant.
If you are traveling to attend a conference, you should always apply for conference funding. They will usually provide at least partial support for graduate students. You may need to search the conference website for information, and if that fails, don’t hesitate to contact the organizing committee. Your advisor may be able to put you in contact with an appropriate person. Moreover, if your advisor has a grant, he or she may be able to provide partial support for your trip.
Tutoring
For many graduate students, tutoring provides a supplement to the income received from a Fellowship or Teaching Assistantship. The department maintains a list of tutors with the courses which they feel comfortable tutoring. You may not tutor a student in a course that you are currently teaching, even if they are not in your section of that course. To be added to the tutor list, speak to the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies, who is also the TA Supervisor.