Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between graduate student interns and graduate research assistants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a graduate research assistant has an average salary of $34,230, which is higher than the $30,945 average annual salary of a graduate student internship.
The top three skills for a graduate student internship include patients, speech-language pathologist and data collection. The most important skills for a graduate research assistant are R, technical reports, and research projects.
| Graduate Student Internship | Graduate Research Assistant | |
| Yearly salary | $30,945 | $34,230 |
| Hourly rate | $14.88 | $16.46 |
| Growth rate | 21% | 19% |
| Number of jobs | 56,982 | 52,695 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 72% | Bachelor's Degree, 71% |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Years of experience | - | - |
Graduate interns work in different industries, and their job responsibilities may vary. As a graduate student intern, you may be expected to offer your services free of charge to the company you find placement in exchange for the experience you'll be getting. In other cases, you may be offered compensation of some sort. Most often than not, you will be assigned to a department to work under the supervision of the head of that unit.
Graduate research assistants are students who work for senior researchers or professors. They help professors in their research. Usually, graduate research assistants are given allowances or stipends in exchange for their help. Graduate research assistants help the researcher in testing research tools, gathering data, and analyzing data. They may also help researchers in creating presentations, interpreting data through graphs, and crafting other collateral that the researcher may need. It is usually required that the graduate research assistant is studying a specific field related to the research topic.
Graduate student interns and graduate research assistants have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Graduate Student Internship | Graduate Research Assistant | |
| Average salary | $30,945 | $34,230 |
| Salary range | Between $18,000 And $50,000 | Between $22,000 And $52,000 |
| Highest paying City | - | New York, NY |
| Highest paying state | - | Pennsylvania |
| Best paying company | - | Los Alamos National Laboratory |
| Best paying industry | - | Education |
There are a few differences between a graduate student internship and a graduate research assistant in terms of educational background:
| Graduate Student Internship | Graduate Research Assistant | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 72% | Bachelor's Degree, 71% |
| Most common major | Psychology | Mechanical Engineering |
| Most common college | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Georgia Institute of Technology |
Here are the differences between graduate student interns' and graduate research assistants' demographics:
| Graduate Student Internship | Graduate Research Assistant | |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 25.8% Female, 74.2% | Male, 54.2% Female, 45.8% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 11.9% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 18.7% Asian, 5.7% White, 57.9% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.1% | Black or African American, 11.0% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 17.6% Asian, 11.8% White, 53.9% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.1% |
| LGBT Percentage | 6% | 6% |