The ASU Graduate College is pleased to announce the creation of the Caregiver Assistance Fellowship intended to support graduate students who are parents or caregivers and who have had additional financial burden due to COVID-19 closures.

The Graduate College is happy to announce several funding and fellowship opportunities available to graduate students in the upcoming months. 

Pandemic Impact Award

This award was created to assist graduate students whose research or culminating projects have experienced unanticipated costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Applications for this award are due September 25, 2020. 

On Tuesday, July 28, the Graduate College hosted its first-ever Graduate Student Town Hall virtually to address graduate student questions concerning the plan to return to campus this fall.

Large-scale disruptions to economies and industries like the COVID pandemic or the Great Recession can make entering the job market even more daunting for graduate students than usual. To help students prepare for a job search during times of upheaval, the Graduate College hosted a panel of four ASU doctorate program alumni, who entered the job market during the 2008-2009 Great Recession to provide real-world advice they gained navigating their job searches during a time of great upheaval. The event also inaugurated the Graduate College’s new Career Navigators programming initiative.

While ASU travel restrictions remain in place, the Graduate College will continue to offer professional development funding for internet-based programs and events which occur between August 1 and September 30, 2020. Awards of up to $500 are available to help cover registration costs for online/remote conferences, workshops, and training related to their degree studies.

The time you spend during graduate school can be some of the most rewarding as well as the most challenging times in your life. It is an opportunity to create lifelong friendships and learn skills that translate into a strong career. It is also a time when you can be challenged the most intellectually, emotionally and often financially. There can be incredible uncertainty about how your hard work and learning will translate into a long term career under the best of circumstances.

In seeking ways to best support ASU graduate students during the current pandemic, the Graduate College is pleased to announce the creation of a new award to help ease some of the unanticipated financial burdens due to COVID-19 as well as some flexibility with our summer travel award funding to continue supporting professional development during ongoing travel restrictions.  

Let’s face it. We’re all living in an anomaly. This is a singular time to be approaching the job market or thinking about next steps in your career. Doctoral students tend to think of their career path as linear — get into a grad program, write your dissertation, get a postdoc position or faculty position. In reality, most graduates find that their pursuit of a satisfying career takes many different trajectories and some inevitable stops and starts. The economic situation resulting from the global response to the pandemic COVID-19 requires an ability to see this reality more clearly.