What can I do as a grad student in the summer?

 Although it’s not required, you can use the summer to take classes and make progress towards your degree. Watch for announcements during Spring semester about eight-week courses and one-week workshops, conferences, and symposia offered for graduate credit during the summer. Some of these fill very quickly, so make your plans early. No more than 12 credits from workshops, conferences, and symposia can be counted towards your degree. Some summer workshops may be held at off-campus locations along the Wasatch front. The Literature and Writing specialization limits students to no more than 12 graduate credits in any one summer.

During the summer, don’t count on defending your thesis or working with faculty members outside the context of classes they are teaching. Faculty members are on 9-month or 10-month contracts, and they are not paid to do Supervisory Committee work for students during the summer. Although they may agree to work with you during summer, those months are their time to catch up on their own research for tenure and promotion, so plan to avoid encroaching on that time.

You can also apply to teach online sections of Engl. 1010 or 2010 in the summer. These courses are offered through Extension’s Time-Enhanced Learning (TEL) and are taught completely online via the Internet using a Blackboard classroom. However, availability of these courses is severely limited. Priority for summer teaching will be in the following order: (1) New GIs, (2) Second-year GIs, (3) Instructors and Lecturers. Because our summer courses are now all taught through extension, there is no requirement to register for any number of graduate credits in the summer. Because they are taught online, you may teach your course from anywhere you happen to be located during the summer.