Hello everyone,
The question of whether GRA (NOC 4122) counts as work experience seems to be a recurring topic, so I thought I'd give my input on this
A friend of mine is a graduate student with some research and teaching assistant responsibilities, and she has been approved for PR through the CEC stream. She is receiving some graduate stipends (T4A) as well as salary for her TAship (T4). Since her employment is on campus, she only needs a study permit. In addition, there is no hard guideline of how many hours she works per week (since graduate research positions are more self-directed), so when she filled her application form, she simply put down 40 hours in the form, and then she asked her supervisor to back that up in the letter of employment. She applied around March 2010 and landed just last month (July 2011).
I am also in a similar situation where I am working as a research assistant for my graduate study, and I applied for PR - CEC in May 2010. My application is at the last stage where I am waiting for my passport to be returned from Buffalo. Similar to my friend, I am receiving some graduate stipends (T4A) as well as salary for my TAship (T4). I should also mention that both my friend and I did our bachelor's degree in Canada, so we only need one year of work experience.
Now how is it possible to qualify for CEC through GRA? Well,
in my own opinion only, attending graduate school is kind of like having a full-time job because:
- You are receiving a payment (scholarship/stipend/salary) to do research work which benefits mostly the professor/researcher you are working for. A lot of times, your stipend comes out of their pocket/research grant, so you can almost think of yourself as working for them.
- As I mentioned earlier, when doing graduate research, the work is more self-directed so there are usually no set hours of how many hours per week you should do. Those things are up to you and must be agreed upon with your own supervisor, who will then put it in his/her letter of employment.
- Oftentimes, graduate students are required to perform teaching assistantship duties, and these things definitely count as employment.
I must stress to everyone who is not familiar with graduate study that graduate study is very different from a bachelor's study which is very course-based. Typically, master's students have a very light course load, and most of the study is concentrated in doing research work for their thesis. Depending on the project, a master's student might have to come in to the laboratory everyday early in the morning until late evenings, and oftentimes we must work on weekends too! As a result, graduate studies are becoming more like a full-time job which requires a lot of dedication and energy. So in the end, I believe that if you want to use your GRA as work experience, you have to position yourself well in your PR application and make sure to thoroughly convince the immigration officer of your duties and responsibilities, and that this is more like a job rather than just a study.
I must conclude by including a disclaimer that I am, by no means, an expert on the subject of PR/immigration. I just wanted to share some examples and my experience which I think could help clarify this matter and help a number of us who are also in the same situation.
Good luck everyone!
