Summer 2025
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Summer Session is Stanford’s 4th quarter. We typically offer 150 courses from 40+ departments, and over half of our lead instructors are Stanford graduate students. Summer Session serves 2,500 students each summer—half are Stanford students, and half are visiting students from more than 50 countries around the world. All of these students take Stanford courses for Stanford credit. Summer quarter presents a unique opportunity for graduate students to gain experience as lead instructors—a rarity in other quarters. It also presents the opportunity to TA.
Summer Teaching Assistantships offer both salary and teaching allowance (TAL). For details about compensation, contact your department.
If you’re interested in teaching an existing course or TA-ing this upcoming summer, here are the steps!
Professional Development
Develop your teaching skills, to better stand out in the academic job market
Leadership Experience
Serve as the lead instructor for a course, a rare opportunity during other quarters
Real-time Support
Work on your teaching materials before and while teaching, with support from CTL
Foundational Teaching
Teach introductory and survey courses with wide appeal, that prepare you for the type of courses you’ll likely teach as an early-career academic
Connection
Connect with a cohort of graduate student instructors across disciplines and build your community
Diversity
Teach a diverse population of summer students that includes international students from more than 45 countries, community college students, and FLI students
Compensation
Get paid to teach, as well as tuition allowance
Certification
Apply your teaching experience to the CIRTL@Stanford teaching certificate
Instructors for summer are a mix of faculty, lecturers, and graduate students, and vary from year-to-year. The following departments had graduate students as lead instructors in Summer 2023:
Some departments review new courses developed by graduate students. Check with your department to confirm their process.