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Summer Support

There are many opportunities for support during the summer. Students may work as TA's or RA's or a combination of RA/TA. Students are sometimes supported in the summer after receiving their PhD. (Non-US students who graduate in June must apply for an Optional Practical Training visa several months in advance of summer employment.)

All students may receive up to one month of departmental fellowship support during the summer, if they are not engaged in summer internships or other sources of full summer support. The remaining two summer months may be covered through a variety of opportunities, such as those listed below.

Mentorships

Faculty advisors select 20-25 graduate students to serve as mentors for MIT undergraduates and high school students in three separate summer programs:

  • Summer Program in Undergraduate Research (SPUR/SPUR+), for MIT undergraduates
  • Undergraduate Research Opportunities (Supervised UROP, or UROP+), for MIT undergraduates
  • Research Science Institute (RSI) at MIT, for gifted high-school students

RSI lasts five weeks; SPUR six weeks; SPUR+ nine weeks; UROP+ twelve weeks.

Further details are on the Mentorships page.

Teaching Math Subjects

Greater detail on summer teaching opportunities can be found on the Summer Teaching page.

  • Summer subjects:

    Several graduate students are selected to teach 18.085 and 18.089 during the summer. 18.085 meets MWF for 1.5 hours each day for 10 weeks (June to mid-August), while 18.089 meets two hours daily MTWRF, for six weeks, from early June to mid-July. The teaching of 18.085 or 18.089 may be split between two graduate students, if desirable.

  • Project Interphase:

    The Office of Minority Education runs a summer program for about 80 students who will be entering MIT in the fall, primarily under-represented minority students. It includes a mathematics portion with three calculus classes divided according to students' backgrounds, each with a teacher and a tutor. Hiring is done by the OME.

Research Assistantships

Professors with research funding are sometimes able to appoint students as RA's for as little as several weeks, with 1-3 month appointments being the norm. It is up to the student to explore RA funding opportunities.