Many departments within the Thornton School offer teaching assistantships to qualified master's and doctoral students pursuing degrees within the Thornton School. Teaching Assistantship (TA) positions are offered in a variety of areas including:

• Choral Music
• Classical Guitar
• Early Music
• Group Piano
• Jazz Studies
• Keyboard Collaborative Arts
• Musicology
• Music Education
• Music Theory
• Music Industry
• Opera Accompanying
• Percussion
• Studio/Jazz Guitar
• Trumpet
• Vocal Arts
• Wind Ensemble

Most Thornton Teaching Assistantships are 1-year appointments and can be re-assigned to new students each year. However, it is possible for students who are awarded TA positions to keep their position for more than one year while they complete either a masters or doctoral degree.

TA duties can include teaching private lessons to non-music majors, teaching class-piano or class-voice, assisting faculty with lecture courses, leading discussion sessions, teaching sight-singing, preparing scores and handling logistics for ensemble rehearsals, and accompanying (opera, choral ensembles, vocal students, auditions).

Compensation for most TA positions includes a tuition waiver, health and dental benefits and a stipend of roughly $9,000 - $10,000 per year. Specific benefits and award amounts vary from year to year.

Most Thornton departments require applicants to submit a complete teaching assistantship application. The TA application must be submitted directly to the appropriate department within the Thornton School in order to be considered. TA Applications submitted to the Thornton Admission office or to the USC Admission office will not be considered.

Deadlines:

The deadline for fall applicants is December 1.

Typically, teaching assistantships are one-year appointments that begin in the fall semester, but in the rare case that a student would apply for a teaching assistantship beginning in the spring semester, the application deadline would be October 1.

The teaching assistantship application and detailed instructions are available via the link below.

Thornton TA Application (PDF)