Graduate Assitantships

The Office of Geographic Information and Analysis offers 8 to 12 graduate assistantships each semester and over the summer. A standard assistantship at OGIA is 15 to 20 hours per week during the academic year and 40 hours per week for 8 to 12 weeks during the summer. Graduate students come from many different departments and are usually referred by the graduate program advisors in those departments. The Departments of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, Geosciences, and Natural Resources Conservation make the most placements but students from any department who are interested in working as GIS specialists in their respective fields are welcome to apply. Many students apply and are promised assistantships at the time that they apply for admission to the University. Other students apply to work with OGIA during the second year of their graduate programs. Each sequential semester spent with OGIA as a GIS research assistant involves progressively more complex GIS work with many second and third year students assuming responsibility for managing multiple projects that involve supervision of the work of less experienced assistants.

Students may also work on OGIA projects for credit, either graduate or undergraduate. Many students do independent studies or enroll in the Spatial Information Studio course through Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. Other students work at OGIA during the thesis stage of their programs. They may work independently using the system resources available at OGIA or they may actually work with an OGIA research assistant to produce a series of maps or other GIS products that become part of their theses. These latter arrangements typically involve payment of a consulting fee by the student’s home department or the research sponsor. Such fees are usually quite minimal and contribute to the assistantship of the student who is providing the assistance and to maintenance of OGIA’s system resources.

Faculty may also arrange support for studio courses and other group student projects with OGIA. Under such arrangements it is typical for OGIA staff to do some initial training, provide on site technical assistance, and to schedule hours in the OGIA GIS labs wherein groups of students are allowed to work on the OGIA computers while completing GIS projects

Any inquiries about assistantships or other arrangements to work at OGIA should be directed to Rick Taupier at taupier@tei.umass.edu.