Various types of financial assistance available to DOP graduate students are summarized below. The majority sources of financial assistance for graduate students at DOP come from Graduate Assistantships granted by the Ministry of Education and the Research Assistantships from research projects solicited by individual professor. Currently they focus on providing a modest stipend. Additional sources of financial support are fellowships, loans, and jobs with the DOP staff office.

● Assistantships

Ph.D. Graduate Research Assistantships (GRAs) are funded by faculty research grants that may be government- or industry-sponsored. The stipend for Ph.D. GRA in general is NT$8000 per month but can sometimes be up to NT$12,000, depending on the project and/or the funding agent. Students on Ph.D. graduate research assistantships typically take part in the research projects in almost every aspect, including doing literature survey, running experiments, writing computer programs, analyzing data, and authoring/co-authoring papers and/or patents. Most of the research assistantships require at least one-year commitments from the students.

M.S. Graduate Research Assistantships are also funded by faculty research grants that may be government- or industry-sponsored. The average stipend for M.S. GRA is NT$6000 per month. For students who do not pursue the Ph.D. degree but desire to acquire industrial experience are highly encouraged to participate in the industry-sponsored projects. Like those on Ph.D. GRAs, students on M.S. GRAs typically take part in the research projects in some aspect and usually require at least one-year commitments.

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) help faculty mainly by grading, running labs, holding exercise tutorials, etc. Two-level graduate teaching assistants are enforced in DOP, Class A and Class B. Teaching assistants of Class A are designated to mandatory courses while those of Class B are responsible for elective courses having more than 30 enrolled students or serve as supporting roles in mandatory courses with a size of more than 50. In academic year of 2011-2012, the stipend for a Class A GTA is NT$7500 and that for Class B is NT$4500.

Lab Manager Assistantships are granted to just one student in each professor’s group. Students who are on this assistantship are responsible for regular lab maintenance and the work assigned by his/her advisor.

Working in DOP Staff Office is another way of getting funded while studying in DOP. Students who are not on GRAs or GTAs can work in DOP staff office on an hourly-basis. The stipend is about NT$3000 per month and the average working hours per week are xxx hours.

● Fellowships

For the foreign graduate students, the admission usually comes with tuition waiver of the first year and an international student fellowship. The fellowship for a M.S. student can be up to NT$15,000 per month and NT$25,000 per month for a Ph.D. student . After the first year, the international student scholarship and tuition waiver are determined by the academic performance of the student in the previous year.

The following table summarizes the information on assistantships and fellowships here in DOP, NCU.

	Type	M.S. Program (NT$/month)	Ph.D. Program (NT$/month)
	Tuitiom Waiver	Full Amount	Full Amount
	International Student Scholarship	up to 15,000	up to 25,000
	International Student Assistantship	2,000	2,000
	Graduate Teaching Assistantship	4,000 - 8,000	4,000 - 8,000
	Graduate Research Assistantship	6,000	8,000
	Academic Achievement Award	10,000	10,000

The maximum possible monthly financial support for each graduate student can reach as high as NT$36,000/month for a M.S. student and NT$46,000/month for a Ph.D. student.