Summer Jobs, Co-ops, and Internships

Depending on one’s individual goals, there are many summer opportunities available.

Academic Opportunities

Completing Course Work
Taking courses to fulfill department requirements. These courses may be inside or outside the department. Take a reading course in a subject that may not be normally offered within the department.

Preparing for Exams
The campus become substantially quieter in the summer which provides a good environment for studying for the Preliminary or Qualifying Exams.

Research Assistantships
Faculty within the department may have summer funds to support a research assistant. You may also want to use faculty contacts to obtain research assistant positions at locations other than Rensselaer.

Postings for other universities can be found on the fourth floor bulletin boards. Summer research work does not need to be related to your intended thesis work.

Summer Workshops
The Mathematical Problems in Industry workshop is held annually and is free to graduate students.

Job Opportunities

Teaching in the Department
Two sessions of courses are held over the summer. Each is about six weeks in length. Both instructor and TA positions are available during these sessions. An email is distributed in the spring semester notifying graduate students of the needs.

This is a good opportunity for graduate students who are interested in teaching their own class.

There are also occasionally opportunities at other colleges in the area (see the web pages of area colleges).

Summer Jobs
The Career Development Center is located in the DCC and is a great source of information about job opportunities.

There are several on-site interviews for people interested in summer employment, as well as large career fairs where many companies from industry come to RPI to recruit for full-time and summer employment.

As with all job searches, it is a good idea to begin looking early (February at the latest).

Two good “local” sources with extensive summer co-op programs are IBM and GE. These jobs could be good ways to get industry experience, enhance your skill, and get paid!