Graduate Assistantships and Teaching Fellowships
Available at the Milledgeville Campus
All students who complete applications by February 1 are considered for graduate assistantships. Faculty review applications by genre (fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction) and primary criteria for determining assistantship offers are: 1) quality of the writing sample (including statement of purpose); 2) letters of recommendation attesting to the applicant's potential for success as a writer and student in our graduate program; and 3) academic transcripts demonstrating academic success in prior educational institutions. We do ask that applicants include a résumé with their applications. If you are selected for an assistantship, your résumé will help determine the assistantship best suited for you.
Please include a cover letter with your résumé that might address the following:
- What experience, if any, do you have with teaching or tutoring? Have you worked as a peer editor? Do you have experience working in a university writing center?
- Do you have any previous experience working on a publication (literary journal, newspaper, website etc.)?
- Do you have experience in public relations, social networking or marketing?
- Are you familiar with InDesign, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and other software such as Microsoft Outlook and Excel? Do you have experience with Apple hardware or software (MacBook, Ipad, epub etc.)?
- Do you have any special interest or literary studies related to Flannery O’Connor?
- One of our assistantships is a partnership with the theatre department. Do you have any special interest or experience working in the theatre?
Unless students already have an appropriate graduate degree (such as an M.A. in English), first year students on MFA Program assistantships divide time between working in the university Writing Center and another project (our national journals Arts & Letters and the Flannery O’Connor Review, our Early College writers-in-the-schools project, and other programs we sponsor). In their second and third years, students are eligible for Teaching Fellowships (and are sometimes assigned other duties related to their first-year assistantship assignment). For more detailed information about Teaching Fellowships, please visit the university's Graduate Catalog. Some university assistantships outside the MFA program are also available to students (these may carry a lower stipend, but still offer a full in-state or out-of-state tuition waiver).
The first-year MFA assistantship package (stipend plus tuition waiver) in 2012 for non-Georgia residents is worth $28,430 and for Georgia residents about $15,434, based on full-time tuition (fall and spring) for 18 credit hours.
The MFA program is designed for students and faculty to have time to write, travel, and pursue other experiences over the summer, and so summer opportunities are limited. Many of our students have become involved teaching in summer workshops sponsored by Emory University, Duke University, and other special programs. Current students often provide good leads for applying to work in such summer programs.
Peace Corps Fellows are admitted through the same process as other applicants, and their assistantships include work in our Early College writing-in-the-schools project.
Financial aid and student insurance information is available on the Scholarships tab.
See the complete list of graduate programs at Georgia College.
