Guest wrote:Has anyone ever heard of a participant not finishing their degree but still going to work for their SF doing the same job?
To answer the question you asked - with my SF, I haven't heard of anybody leaving their degree early. Best case scenario, you finish your program and continue your contract as you planned. Worst case scenario, you are in a situation where you need to leave your program, and then run into some kind of issue with the program office and/or with your SF.
In order to prevent that worst case scenario, you will want to start a fantastic paper trail - track every payment from the program since the beginning, and every correspondence. I will touch on both graduate student and undergraduate student specifics below, because there are some differences in what resources are most useful. No matter where you are in your degree, assuming you absolutely must leave your degree early, being in good standing with your SF would be valuable. If you have a point of contact there, you could ask them what the hiring process will look like for you (if you're not sure already). If you've already had an internship, what is the degree make-up of the team, and have you attained at least the baseline for hiring? If not, what skillset would be useful for you in getting hired? It sounds like you want to go work for your SF more than being in school, so a good start professionally would be to let them know you enjoyed working there and are curious about what the early professional hiring process will look like. Be brief, professional, and to the point - I'm sure you're stressed by school stuff right now, but SMART and your SF are not good avenues for seeking academic support.
If you are a graduate student - I will tell you that people either master out or leave programs early fairly often, and for a variety of practical reasons. The reddit community for graduate students, r/gradschool, is a supportive community if you are encountering any issues in your program that are making you feel like you need to quit at this time. The SMART Scholarship service amendment form has a variety of options for degree changes (extensions, absences) that you can pursue if that would work for your situation. For your own sake, I'd play it safe and put in the appropriate request, whatever you end up doing. There is another thread in this forum about delayed response to these, so you will probably not get a reply very fast. It does start a paper trail, and shows that you've made an effort to communicate. If you are a PhD student, your adviser is your best resource for navigating this. If you are having issues with your adviser, or do not have an adviser at this time, a dean of students might be an appropriate choice. They have almost certainly dealt with this situation before. If you have no idea who to talk to, a senior student in your department can probably direct you to an appropriate point of contact.
If you are an undergraduate student, I'd speculate that leaving a program entirely to work is unusual. However, transferring institutions or taking a leave of absence is accounted for in the SMART rules (or was, when I applied). A professor in your department or an academic adviser are great people to talk to in this situation, and they can help you find the best solution for you. Most STEM workplaces will expect a Bachelor's degree, and I believe that is the minimum degree SMART will fund, so I would aim to achieve that. There have been a few questions here about summer school and summer funding, so if you need to stretch out your degree progress to finish, requesting the extension for your fellowship program is a reasonable choice.
