How I Secured Multiple Graduate Assistantships in My First Semester: Part 1

Tharun Kumar Reddy Polu
6 min readJul 10, 2024

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Unlocking Opportunities with a Powerful Resume — Tips, Tricks, and a Free Editable Template for Aspiring Graduate Assistants

Landing a graduate assistantship can be a shot in the arm both academically and in your professional career. It brings financial support, and great work experience, and creates very strong relationships in areas of interest. Here is my story about how I went about getting not one, but two, assistantships at the University of Maryland, College Park, and how you can write a resume to open similar doors for you.

To help you in this journey, I’m available to help you for free on Topmate. Schedule a meeting and we can discuss your questions and concerns.

Benefits of holding a Graduate Assistantship:

Typical Graduate Assistantship benefits (Ft. UMD)

So, Where did my journey start? I came to the USA in January 2023 as a graduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Everything was new, exciting, and overwhelming. Searching for a graduate assistantship, and little did I know I was going to be part of this important journey.

First, I did not even know what graduate assistantships were available on campus. It came to my attention only because my roommates at the time were already graduate teaching and research assistants. They informed me of the opportunities available and really encouraged me to apply on the campus eJobs portal. They impressed me with the benefits accruable: financial support, work experience, and health insurance benefits.

However, that did not turn out as easy as I thought it would. I applied to many positions but got no positive callbacks. This is the moment I realized that rejections are part of life. I was frustrated, alas with what I was doing wrong. Thus, I turned to my roommates and other friends for help. They said maybe I haven’t been catering enough to the particular jobs I am applying for on my resume, and that is why I am not getting any hits.

I set out to better my chances by first revamping my resume. I started off by reading the job descriptions carefully and listed down the keywords of essential skills and qualifications mentioned in most of them. Keeping this in mind, I made another resume that included the right adjectives and focused more on my relevant experience and technical skills.

This time, with my new and improvised resume, I again applied through the eJobs/ Handshake portal. The response was quite different this time. Within a week, I got two interview calls. With the enhanced optimism from the revised version of my resume, I prepared thoroughly for the interviews and succeeded in both.

The two positions offered to me were graduate research assistantships in two different departments. Both seemed very good with unique benefits, so it was a really tough choice to make. I kept one after careful consideration.

Life may not be the same for everyone, but the right efforts at the right time can lead to the right destinations.

You can also lead the path by following the pointers below:

Key Elements to Include in Your Resume

Pro-Tip: Prioritize the sections as needed for the position that you’re applying for.

1. Contact Information

  • Full Name (Include pronouns if needed)
  • Location (City, State)
  • Phone Number
  • Email Address
  • LinkedIn Profile
  • GitHub Profile(If you’re applying for a tech role)
  • Personal Portfolio (Good to have)(e.g. Checkout tharunpolu.com)

2. Education

  • University Name, Location
  • Degree, Major (Expected Graduation Date)
  • Relevant Coursework or Academic Achievements
  • Previous University, Location
  • Degree, Major (Graduation Date)
  • Honors or Distinctions

3. Technical Skills

  • Programming Languages: Mention languages relevant to the job description that you have experience with. like Python, Java, or C++.
  • Frameworks: Notify the frameworks that you have worked with — Spring, Django, or even ReactJS.
  • Tools: Include tools and software you are experienced with (e.g., VS Code, Git, Docker)
  • Other Skills: Any other relevant technical skills (e.g., SQL, REST APIs)

4. Work Experience

  • Job Title, Company Name, Location
  • Duration: Start Date — End Date
  • Responsibilities and Achievements:
  • Use bullet points to list the key responsibilities and accomplishments.
  • Quantify as much as you can in past achievements through statements such as “Developed APIs that cut downtime by 30%.”.
  • Highlight teamwork, problem-solving, and leadership experiences.

5. Projects

  • Project Title, Location
  • Type of Project: (e.g., Personal Project, Undergraduate Project)
  • Duration: Start Date — End Date
  • Description:
  • Summarize the project’s purpose and outcome.
  • Emphasize technologies used and skills developed.
  • Mention any notable impacts or results.

6. Activities and Affiliations

  • Organization Name, Location
  • Role: (e.g., Team Member, Coordinator)
  • Duration: Start Date — End Date
  • Achievements:
  • Describe your role and contributions.
  • Include any metrics to demonstrate impact (e.g., “Increased event attendance by 27%”).

7. Achievements

  • Award or Recognition Title
  • Organization: The entity that granted the award or recognition.
  • Date: When the award or recognition was received.
  • Description:
  • In a few words, explain what the award is for and why you received it.
  • If the work contains some metrics or remarkable achievements, mention them, for example: “Received Dean’s List honor for maintaining a GPA of 3.9/4.0.”.

8. Coding Profile Links

  • Platform Name (e.g., GitHub, LeetCode, HackerRank)
  • Profile URL: Include a link to your coding profile.
  • Description:
  • Summarize your activity and achievements on the platform.
  • Mention any outstanding accomplishments, such as contest rankings, hackathons, challenges, or notable projects (e.g., “Solved over 1000 coding challenges, ranked in the top 1% globally on HackerRank/Leetcode”).

9. Technical Blogging Profile

  • Blog Platform Name (e.g., Medium, Dev.to)
  • Profile URL: Include a link to your blog profile.
  • Description:
  • Outline your blogging activity and focus areas.
  • Highlight popular posts, engagement metrics, or any series you have written (e.g., “Authored 20+ articles on software engineering best practices, with an average of 5,000 views per post”).

10. YouTube Channel

  • Channel Name
  • Channel URL: Include a link to your YouTube channel.
  • Description:
  • Describe what kind of content creation you do and what the channel is about.
  • Specify huge achievements with nouns like the number of subscribers or views and the popularity of videos: “Produced more than 50 tutorial videos on Python programming with 10,000+ subscribers and 1 million views.”.

An attention-grabbing resume is one talking about experiences, achievements, and skills, coupled with the value that one can come up with for the employer. Effectively structuring your resume in this light can impress a lot of those who get a chance to have a look at your resume: be it a prospective employer or an admission committee.

Below are the results(offers) that I received by following the above:

Graduate Assistantship Offer 1
Graduate Assistantship Offer 2

Bonus: I’ve attached an editable version of my resume template to help you get started: Download the digital resume template here.

Stay tuned for my upcoming blog posts where I’ll provide detailed advice on crafting a standout cover letter(which might be optional but important in this process).

Connect with me through linktr.ee to know more!

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Tharun Kumar Reddy Polu

A Software engineer documenting the personal tech experiences and exploring What, Why and How behind software engineering and large scale distributed systems.