How are graduate assistantship assignments allocated to particular graduate students?
The department chair assesses what assignments are available (grading and holding office hours for a professor, teaching a class, doing research for a particular professor or for the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, etc.), and assesses the degree of experience and expertise of each of the graduate students who have assistantships. He then matches students to job assignments, also taking into account to the extent possible any preferences which have been expressed to him either by faculty or by students. If you have any preferences in this regard, tell them to the department chair sooner rather than later.
