Research Assistant during summer

laurylaury

Hi,

I'm mid-way through a part-time Masters degree and while everyone else is doing their dissertation this year while I'm not I thought I should do something to keep myself occupied.

Someone has suggested to me that I should volunteer as a research assistant during the summer at my department.
This sounds like a great idea but I have no idea how I'd go about it.

I know this is fairly common in the States (an example: http://frogs.uchicago.edu/frog/polit...nt-opportunity ) but I've not heard of this in the UK (except in the hard sciences and psychology, in the social sciences.

Has anyone done something similar? How did you go about it - emailing the department with a general email or by approaching individual lecturers? Would you recommend it?

Looking forward to reading your comments.

Thanks

agrinnall

If you have a personal tutor allocated to you then I would raise the subject with them first. If you don't then it might depend on how your department is organised. At mine there is a split of responsibilities for research and teaching, and while a lot of staff have a foot in both camps the decisions on what RAs are required is generally taken within the research institute. It may be worth taking a good look at the research sections of your university's website to see if you can determine who is responsible for what, and take it from there.

I should also point out that many academics take a lot of their annual leave during the summer, so if you do manage to get a position you might be left to your own devices for a long time. While that's not necessarily a bad thing it's something to be aware of.

dizzyrascal

My university takes on RA's throughout the summer but the positions are paid (as they should be) so check on the jobs boards at your uni to see what's available.

johnnythefox

Ask the course administrators or lecturers/personal advisers. If there are any positions, they should all know about it.