Close your eyes for a moment. If you went to a university, quickly think through your experience. There were likely graduate students organizing and executing engaging recruitment evens. Graduate students likely welcomed you onto campus and helped you get oriented to a new way of life on campus. Graduate students likely taught some of your lectures and stayed late during office hours to help you unlock that concept you just couldn’t quite untangle. 

Now, focus on this screen, the one you are reading from. Likely it was through the daily work of hundreds of graduate students that allowed for this marvel. The discovery of various elements of technological breakthrough in the hardware, software, human interface and usability, ultimately was put together to create the device in your hand and the network that makes it possible. 

Reputation and quality of a graduate program are certainly top factors for recruiting top graduate talent. However, it is also strongly affected by the ability to provide a competitive stipend to the graduate students who enable us to succeed at our greatest calling.

“If you’re able to go to graduate school and you’re a high-quality STEM major working in a STEM field, those research opportunities should be ones that can pay you, pay your tuition, pay you a stipend. A master’s degree, a research thesis, a doctoral dissertation, that’s about you making new contributions to the field. In the STEM disciplines, those new contributions might turn into research grants, they might turn into new equipment, they might turn into new startup companies,” explains Barrett Caldwell.

If you would like to honor the TAs that made a difference for you, consider contacting Andrea McIntyre with Purdue for Life to learn how to make a gift, or look for an opportunity to give on Purdue Day of Giving, this year on April 27, 2022. 

Writer:

Julia M. Sibley, jmsibley@Purdue.edu

Sources:

Barrett Caldwell, bscaldwell@purdue.edu