The Value of Graduate Students
Graduate students are a crucial part of any top research university,
including those in the UW System. They are essential for sucess in
UW-Madison's teaching, research and outreach missions. Also, the
opportunity to work with high-quality graduate students is an important
factor in faculty's decision to work at a university.
Most graduate students are simultaneously students and workers. At
UW-Madison, they earn tuition remission and a modest stipend by working
as Research, Teaching or Project Assistants.
As Teaching Assistants graduate students lead discussion sections,
facilitate lecture activities, grade assignments and exams and mentor
undergraduates. The support that Teaching Assistants provide to faculty
allows popular and required courses to be larger, and keeps time to
degree to a minimum.
As Research and Project Assistants graduate students provide the
skilled labor faculty members rely upon to perform essential research,
run their labs and complete their projects. By questioning existing
assumptions and methodologies they open up new avenues of
investigation, and also mentor undergraduates.
Graduate students are so important to higher education that an
institution's academic ranking is based on such factors as the ratio of
graduate students to faculty and the number of doctoral degrees granted.
Tomorrow's faculty will be drawn from today's graduate students. By
providing excellent graduate student training, UW-Madison is helping to
define the teaching and research directions of the future.
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