Funding your M.Eng. year of study at MIT

by Michael Ernst (mernst@cs.washington.edu)
September, 2004

(There are many other sources of advice for M.Eng. students; for instance, see the official policies and procedures.)

Many M.Eng. students wish to avoid paying for (or having their parents pay for) their final year of study and living expenses, as would ordinarily be the case, and as is the case at other universities. This document suggests a few ways to locate funding for your M.Eng. studies.

Contents:

Paying your own tuition

If your motivation for getting a M.Eng. degree is the desire for improved job prospects or salary, then you should consider paying your own way (or asking your parents to do so). In purely economic terms, it's a good investment, given the expected return. Students typically pay their own tuition for other professional degrees, such as an MBA or MD.

Fellowships

Fellowships, such as those administered by NSF, NDSEG, and Hertz, pay tuition and a stipend to outstanding graduate students. Particularly if you plan to pursue a PhD later, you should consider applying for these fellowships during your senior year. Applications are often due in October or November. Seniors applying before their M.Eng. year are on equal footing with undergraduates from other schools, who also apply early in their fourth year. If you have prepared for your graduate studies by participating in undergraduate research projects, then you will have research to talk about and will be able to obtain good letters of recommendation from faculty members.

If you wish to apply for a fellowship, don't forget to study for, and take, the GRE during the fall.

TA position

During the first years of the M.Eng. program, many students funded their studies by serving as TAs. With declining undergraduate enrollment in the department (and a concomitant reduced need for TAs), only the most exceptional students are being accepted for TA positions.

See my advice on applying for a TA position.

RA support

A faculty member who has a research project to complete, and an excess of funds to spend, may hire M.Eng. students as RAs. From the point of view of an M.Eng. student, this situation is ideal. In return for working on your thesis (which you would have had to do anyway), your tuition is paid, and you even get $2000 per month in living expenses.

It takes a lot of work to fund a graduate student for a year. The supervisor must not only write multiple proposals to raise the money, but then must produce research results and reports to satisfy the funders, and most likely travel to give presentations to them. Therefore, the best way for you to secure (and retain!) RA funding is to convince your supervisor that your research productivity outweighs the effort of fund-raising, advising, etc.

Your job is to make sure that granting you an RA is worth it to your supervisor. Don't assume that you are entitled to funding, and don't enter a negotiation with a potential supervisor by first demanding a funding promise. It's essential to prove yourself first. Obtain an undergraduate research position to establish what you are good at and whether you have a good working relationship with the supervisor. This will also help you to figure out whether the project and the group is something that will capture your attention and your enjoyment for the next year or two. I do not recommend selling yourself to whoever will fund you. You will have more fun and do a better job by working on something that you enjoy, and the good results may well shake loose more money.

I have had generally good success with funding M.Eng. students as RAs. The very best M.Eng. students are as good researchers as a PhD student (regrettably, not all M.Eng. students rise to that level). I expect to continue funding select M.Eng. students in the future.

Some faculty members are reluctant to fund M.Eng. students. This is unfortunate, but it helps to understand the (often legitimate) reasoning behind such an attitude. Some M.Eng. students are disturbed by the apparent lack of symmetry between PhD students (who are routinely granted RA funding) and M.Eng. students (who have no such assurance). After all, both are graduate students, so shouldn't both be treated the same? The similarity in titles masks differences in the groups, however.

  1. PhD students have made a commitment to 6+ years of study. They will follow projects to completion. They know that if they do a bad job (say, in coding or documentation), they will be haunted by it in future years. M.Eng. students typically leave after just one year.
  2. PhD students' goals are aligned with the goals of the faculty member: publishing good research. As a related point, a faculty member's reputation depends on the success of his or her advisees. An investment in a PhD student is repaid after that student graduates, when the student publishes papers or advises students. A (M.Eng. or PhD) student who publishes little, then disappears into an anonymous programming job, does not support the goals of the faculty member — to contribute to the store of scientific knowledge.
  3. PhD students are chosen from a more selective pool; we accept about 3% of applicants. Most MIT undergraduates who apply to the PhD program do not get accepted; ergo, there really is a difference in the populations.
  4. There is a shift in attitude between being an undergraduate and being a graduate student. Part of this is initiative: figuring out what needs to be done, and doing it, rather than waiting to be told. Part of it is imagination: having new research ideas rather than simply doing the same thing everyone else has always done. I am always delighted when I notice a M.Eng. student shifting from being an undergraduate (or just a programmer) to becoming a graduate student (or a budding independent researcher). Sadly, some students never make the transition from doing problem sets to becoming researchers, and faculty would be bad stewards of their research money to spend it on such students. Unfortunately, staying at your undergraduate institution can make it harder to make this crucial transition, because you may stay in the same modes of thought and action as were so successful during your undergraduate career. Don't let this happen to you. You can make it easier for your supervisor to fund you by acting more like a professional and less like a 5th-year undergraduate.

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Michael Ernst