College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Entomology

In order to be accepted, the MSU Department of Entomology requires our incoming graduate students to have a faculty member who agrees to be their major professor, and to have sufficient funding identified. See “Identifying a major professor & funding.”

Michigan State University has recruiting fellowships to encourage students with high academic achievement to pursue graduate studies with MSU. Entomology students have been successful in these university-wide programs. Students cannot apply for these fellowships directly. Highly qualified applications received by the December 1 deadline are automatically considered for nomination by the Entomology Department. Only U.S. citizens are eligible to be nominated. More information about fellowships is available at the MSU Graduate School’s website.

Success in these competitive funding sources typically requires strong GREs and overall academic excellence, a compelling reason for attending MSU to study entomology, a faculty member who supports your application and departmental support reflected in a letter from the department chairperson. Generally, the student’s application is put into the pool for these recruiting fellowships in December and January by Entomology’s graduate program director.

For further information on MSU fellowship funding opportunities, please visit the Graduate School funding page and the MSU Financial Aid website. 

External fellowships

• National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship
• US Department of Agriculture Pre-doctoral Fellowship

Teaching assistantships

A limited number of teaching assistantships (TA) are potentially available for faculty to support graduate students to teach in MSU’s Integrative Studies in General Science (ISB) program, teaching science to non-science majors. This is an excellent way to build your teaching portfolio and gain real-world experience in the classroom. The TA typically lasts for two years, providing repeated student evaluation and feedback on our teaching. The Graduate School also has a Certification in College Teaching (CCT) program that can provide excellent training if teaching is part of your career goals.

Excited to join us at MSU?

Then, please apply – we are ready to answer your questions about the process!