Financial Support
Beyond tuition remission, Ph.D. students receive the following financial support from the Graduate School.
- A stipend for their first two years. During this period, students do not teach.
- Financial support via guaranteed teaching in the third and fourth year. During this period, students are hired as teaching fellows; the normal workload for a teaching fellow is two sections a term.
- A dissertation completion fellowship. This includes a full stipend for one academic year.
In addition, various university fellowships (for example: Term Time and Merit Fellowships, Fellowships at the Safra Center) are available on a competitive basis.
The Department also grants each Philosophy graduate student one academic term of stipend support through a Philosophy Department Fellowship.
Teaching
While teaching is only guaranteed for four academic terms, the Department is committed to attempting to (and generally succeeds at) making it possible for students to teach beyond the guaranteed terms of teaching. Students are especially encouraged to design and a teach their own course (a tutorial for about 9 students) in their fifth or sixth year.
During the first year a student teaches in the Department –normally the third year –he or she is required to attend a year long pedagogy seminar.
Travel and Research Funding
The Philosophy Department grants up to $5500 of fellowship money to use for professional development. This includes:
- Travel to a workshop or conference to present or comment on a paper.
- Travel to a workshop or conference where the subject matter is clearly related to the student’s dissertation research.
- Travel to a library/institution with a collection related to the student’s dissertation.
- In exceptional cases, travel to meet with a dissertation adviser. Normally such meetings are held via Zoom.
- Support for a foreign language course.
Requests for funds are accepted on a rolling basis and submitted via CARAT.
Harvard Griffin GSAS also provides additional resources for graduate students seeking short- or long-term funding support for research, language study, graduate school generally, and dissertation writing.
Philosophy Department Fellowship
The Department currently awards (from its own funds) a half year's stipend (a Philosophy Department Fellowship, or PDF) to students who have completed the topical exam for their dissertation and are otherwise in good academic standing. (‘Good standing’ is explained below).
There are two application periods for a PDF. Eligible graduate students may apply either during the Spring term by the end of spring exam period or in the Fall term by October 15.
Applications must include: the date of the topical; tentative dissertation title; a brief paragraph describing the area in which the dissertation lies; names of the chair of the dissertation committee and other members; which of the two following terms they prefer to take the fellowship (i.e., the next fall or following spring for May applicants; the next spring or following fall for October applicants). Note that students are expected to be in residence at Harvard during the time they have a PDF and to participate in the intellectual life of the Department.
Whether students are awarded PDFs is subject both to availability of funds and to the Department’s teaching needs. The award term for the PDF will be determined in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies. It does not depend on whether students are awarded other fellowships such as a Safra or Merit Fellowship. Teaching is not permitted during the PDF term. It is the students responsibility to inform the grad reps as to when they will be ineligible to teach due to receiving a PDF. Students may receive a PDF just once while in the program.
The norms for being in good academic standing include but are not limited to the following: By the beginning of a student's third year, having successfully completed the second year paper requirement and successfully completed at least 10 of the 12 philosophy courses required for the degree; by the beginning of a student's fourth year, having completed at least 11 of the 12 courses required for the degree and having satisfied the logic requirement; by the beginning of the student's fifth year, having successfully completed all requirements for the Ph.D., including the topical (but excluding the dissertation). These, it is to be stressed are norms: different students make progress at different rates, and not precisely conforming to these norms need not mean that you are not making satisfactory progress. (If you do not meet the guidelines above, consult with the DGS.)