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Student Assistant Pool

The Student Assistant Pool provides USC undergraduate and master's students to support research and teaching for full-time Marshall faculty and doctoral students in every department. The lab handles recruiting, onboarding, and payroll. You decide how involved you want to be.

 

Two ways to get support

Self-service

Browse student profiles and hire students yourself. Best when you need 1–2 students, know the skills you need, and want to manage the work directly. Most students can start within 24 hours.

Browse Profiles

Full-service

Tell us what you need and we'll staff it. Best when you need 2 or more students, need a study run or a dataset built, or want the lab to manage everything. Most requests are answered within 2–3 business days.

Request a Team

Self-service

Browse student profiles and hire students yourself. Best when you need 1–2 students, know the skills you need, and want to manage the work directly. Most students can start within 24 hours.

Browse Profiles

Full-service

Tell us what you need and we'll staff it. Best when you need 2 or more students, need a study run or a dataset built, or want the lab to manage everything. Most requests are answered within 2–3 business days.

Request a Team

The full-service request form takes about 10 minutes. You can also email behaviorallab@marshall.usc.edu. Each new project or task needs its own request.

 

At a glance

  • $20/hour for undergraduates and $25/hour for master's students, charged to your STARS
  • Up to 20 hours per week per student
  • Requests accepted year-round
  • In AY 2025–26, the pool supported 16 faculty-led projects and about 28 researchers across 6 departments, with 1,800+ hours of support (up 69% from the year before)
What Students Can Do

Research: running in-person and online studies, survey programming, data collection, data analysis, qualitative research, and literature reviews.

Courses: grading and feedback, exam proctoring, course materials, and office hours.

 

Skills and tools

  • Survey platforms: Qualtrics, Prolific, MTurk, Connect
  • Data work: data cleaning, data annotation, web scraping, video coding, Power BI, interviews and ethnography
  • Analysis and coding: Excel, Python, R and RStudio, Stata, SPSS, SAS, MATLAB, SQL, JavaScript, HTML/CSS
  • Lab technology: Tobii eye tracking, BIOPAC psychophysiology, VR, AI tools, facial coding

For highly specialized or technical tasks, email the lab first so we can confirm the right fit.

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About Our Students

Students go through a competitive selection process with rubric-based application scoring, interviews, and reference checks. This fall, 8 of 131 applicants were hired, for 21 active students in total.

Every student completes CITI training and signs the lab's confidentiality policies. The lab handles hiring paperwork, payroll, and weekly check-ins. You can view the profiles of assigned students on assistants.marshall.usc.edu.

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Pay and Hours
  • Rates: $20/hour for undergraduates and $25/hour for master's students, charged to your STARS.
  • Hours: students may work up to 20 hours per week.
  • Academic breaks: during official university recesses, hours worked by students who aren't enrolled carry a 33.5% university overhead charge.
  • Summer: students can work over the summer. Summer hiring starts in April and May, so reach out early.
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Common Questions

Who can use the pool?

Full-time faculty and doctoral students in every Marshall department (ACCT, BAEP, BUCO, DSO, FBE, MKT, MOR), as well as Marshall's institutes and centers.

 

Can I bring on a specific student?

Yes. Email the lab, and we'll bring them on at any time of year.

 

Are there limits on the projects students can support?

Students can support a broad range of research and teaching work. Highly specialized or technical tasks should be discussed with the lab first.

 

Are international students eligible?

Yes, as long as they meet the university's eligibility requirements for international student employment. Email the lab with specific questions.

 

What if my project changes?

Each new project or task needs its own request. Work that wasn't in your original request should be submitted separately.

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Questions?

Email behaviorallab@marshall.usc.edu or call 213-821-9746. 

Students interested in joining the pool can apply here.

Keep in Touch

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