tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post9083155318440830942..comments2024-03-24T21:12:27.165-07:00Comments on 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School: 53. Teaching assistantships.100 Reasonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655155303350793785noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-30183064591626694212022-02-10T03:40:18.522-08:002022-02-10T03:40:18.522-08:00It isn't condescending. It's entirely accu...It isn't condescending. It's entirely accurateIm Exilnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-40785157313205384832017-02-20T06:26:02.377-08:002017-02-20T06:26:02.377-08:00WOW that is condescending. I hope that you never m...WOW that is condescending. I hope that you never managed to achieve your master's because of the bad attitude that YOU exude. No wonder your undergraduate students seemed so sullen and uninterested - they realized they were talking to someone who simultaneously thought they were both better than them, and better than both their and your professor.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-29712442474114113032017-01-29T17:46:24.972-08:002017-01-29T17:46:24.972-08:00WARNING
BE CAREFUL WITH UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON MAT...WARNING<br /><br />BE CAREFUL WITH UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON MATH DEPARTMENT. <br /><br /><br />THAT DEPARTMENT IS VERY ABUSIVE WITH THEIR TAs. WHAT YOU SEE HERE IS MUCH LESS THAN WHAT IT IS AT UH MATH DEPARTMENT.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-20572229119873533232016-09-12T07:25:51.015-07:002016-09-12T07:25:51.015-07:00Why didn't you get into tutoring or internship...Why didn't you get into tutoring or internships?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03717521628678249561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-79957108379193253042016-09-12T07:24:13.249-07:002016-09-12T07:24:13.249-07:00When I was a graduate assistant we only made 9000 ...When I was a graduate assistant we only made 9000 a year and 2000 came out for health insurance... Not really a university though.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-17849749639837881182016-06-18T18:02:37.513-07:002016-06-18T18:02:37.513-07:00Thanks for calling us illiterate.Thanks for calling us illiterate.Wandererhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02258452963824099976noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-54265667384241958952015-11-12T09:41:02.496-08:002015-11-12T09:41:02.496-08:00Geez, I am really hoping that none of the complain...Geez, I am really hoping that none of the complainers went into teaching. If so, no wonder education sux. Lazy, complaining idiots that don't teach the kids a thing.... Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-20419392367725965902015-11-06T23:00:24.082-08:002015-11-06T23:00:24.082-08:00Working on my MA in political science and I've...Working on my MA in political science and I've been reading 10 words from the beginning, middle, and end of each paper and assigning a grade accordingly. 120 papers graded in 2 hours.<br /><br />The professor grades all the papers for his upper level classes so i don't have to worry about that shit. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-4999050087544331752015-09-22T13:51:56.100-07:002015-09-22T13:51:56.100-07:00Thanks, Michael Harrawood! I needed to read about...Thanks, Michael Harrawood! I needed to read about your strength and perseverance! Very encouraging since I'm taking my 6th class (accelerated courses) for my MA (when finished I will only have 18 credits). However, I desire to teach at a college or university level, but cannot find the door that says, "Entrance." I live in a rural area with one community college and two for-profit colleges (and two extension campus from two other universities at the community college). I have yet to see a TA position open to even apply. Strongly considering talking to Professors I know and see what they suggest. That has nothing to do with your post, but I at least can see what to realistically expect. I love to teach others and have a little experience as an adjunct instructor, but that was too long ago to put on my resume. Again, thanks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-38415300720525447322015-07-02T15:38:44.557-07:002015-07-02T15:38:44.557-07:00I'm pretty sure some enterprising TA has just ...I'm pretty sure some enterprising TA has just given up and assigned A's to everyone. Why not? It allows them to finish grading in a reasonable amount of time and it makes everyone happy. Undergrads, parents, professors, administrators; all of whom are valued more than the TA in the economic machine.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-67195217576496471282015-04-26T07:07:54.134-07:002015-04-26T07:07:54.134-07:00Not if you have the GI BillNot if you have the GI BillAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-25425679825104625082015-01-13T17:59:09.570-08:002015-01-13T17:59:09.570-08:00Be careful, you may get what you've asked for....Be careful, you may get what you've asked for.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-49312556856294779252015-01-13T17:57:49.832-08:002015-01-13T17:57:49.832-08:00"...Dude, 'Chinaman' is not the prefe..."...Dude, 'Chinaman' is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-52964564921014383122015-01-13T17:53:41.643-08:002015-01-13T17:53:41.643-08:00Takes too much time. Here is a time-saving heuris...Takes too much time. Here is a time-saving heuristic.<br /><br />Take all papers (more or less randomly distributed), and fling them all at once in one direction.<br /><br />Those papers that travel furthest, are awarded the highest grades. Those that travel the least, are awarded the lowest grades. Assign remainder of grades in relation to the remainder of papers' positions between these two.<br /><br />Done.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-61190623684359407212014-03-13T21:25:03.398-07:002014-03-13T21:25:03.398-07:00Im Exil. I'm not sure why you go to Jacques B...Im Exil. I'm not sure why you go to Jacques Barzun, but okay. If you find the balance off between the shit you have to take and the rewards you get at the end of the day, by all means quit and do something else. I came into the game late, after working as a circus performer in France, a cook and waiter, truck driver, and a few other things -- and I was pushing 50 when I got my Ph.D. I had to take shit in school, but after my years in the "real world" got very good at pushing back. You have to push back in any job. Right now, it's a hard market and the profession has done little to roll with the punches. We pretend it's business-as-usual, that grad school is about being 'smart,' and don't tell our grad students how hard it's going to be when they get out. There's too many people trying to get into the profession, so if you decide to get out. . . okay! I think the blogger and the early commenters relfect a sense that this profession is "higher minded" -- on account we're all so smart! -- and that if we take shit in grad school, something MUST be wrong. As I say above, this strikes me as the very narcissism and mandarinism to which you object.<br /><br />I had to push back in school, like everybody else. Maybe harder because I'm not a high-school graduate and had to fight my way in. But I love my job and am glad I'm a college professor -- and I try hard not to be the kind of asshole y'all describe here. And I promise there are people in grad programs right now who will tell you in ten years they love their jobs.<br /><br />In friendship,<br /><br />Michael HarrawoodMichael Harrawoodhttp://michaelharrawood.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-87637707995442759312014-03-13T07:48:39.280-07:002014-03-13T07:48:39.280-07:00Michael: It is certainly true in every job, one mu...Michael: It is certainly true in every job, one must take guff. The key issues, therefore, are: a) precisely what kind of guff, and b) whether it's proportional to the rewards. I contend that the guff we encounter the the conventional graduate school experience is of a sort vastly more objectionable to what one encounters on most jobs. In most of the corporate and business world, value is placed on avoiding controversy and teamwork, in order to keep personal rivalries and friction at a minimum and to get the job done as efficaciously as possible. (I don't claim that they always achieve this goals, but that is the general policy.) In academia, egotism abounds, and, as has been amply explicated elsewhere on this blogs, one is surrounded by inordinately dysfunctional types who cannot cut in the real world or have no desire to do so. Secondly, given the abysmal financial picture inherent in graduate school--the shameful poverty, the death of jobs, the phenomenon of good tenure-track jobs being systematically replaced with benefit-free adjunct positions, etc.--I would argue that the rewards are not commensurate with the guff factor. Capping it all is the abuse and humiliation one must endure from undergraduates and society at large. The irony is that many of us rush to academia to escape having to pull up our socks and face the 9-5 workaday grind, hoping foolishly that we'll find solace and refuge in "school" and the Life of the Mind, only to discover that we have actually landed in a work environment that is far, far worse than any cubicle job. <br /><br />Oh, and on a final note, I do not claim that I am more intelligent or gifted than all of the people I knew in graduate school. If I have left such an impression, please believe me that I did not intend to do so. I do believe that I was substantially more capabl than many, including many posturing, phony, preening strutting fools who were adroit and PC enough to worm their way into getting more than their fair share of the benefits, but I will readily concede that there were also a substantial number of genuinely capable, gifted people. All the same, however, our Blogger is eminently correct when he says that by and large the truly creative, bright, and driven people these days are to be found elsewhere. The portrait of Jacques Barzun speaks volumes. You will very, very seldom find anyone remotely of his caliber in humanites or social science graduate programs nowadays. There is no need for them to bother.Im Exilnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-84539640381144383652013-10-25T13:59:46.510-07:002013-10-25T13:59:46.510-07:00servet naber lan?servet naber lan?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-90444293690742283742013-10-25T13:52:05.230-07:002013-10-25T13:52:05.230-07:00TA's and professors need to communicate more e...TA's and professors need to communicate more effectively with one another. Some chinaman TA's can be real cock suckers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-5773294355936365522013-10-23T15:36:27.752-07:002013-10-23T15:36:27.752-07:00Are you me by any chance? .. Well if not that is a...Are you me by any chance? .. Well if not that is a pretty damn accurate description of my situation at the moment.<br /><br />Problem in the class I'm TA'ing is that the professor who teaches and TA #2 doesn't answer most of the students questions. They tell them to ask each other instead, and when that doesn't work they ask me (which is the next natural step). I know for a fact! That they do this because they can't actually answer their questions and it is not hard questions, it is not beyond the material or anything in the course-description. Now imagine this, you're a student 2. semester, the only reason you got this job is because you got an A at the exam which was multiple-choice (~15% got A at the exam.) The people you're trying to TA are 1. semester students. Just imagine the "respect" they show you, especially if you can't answer a question (with 18 hours of TA'ing this has happened 3-4 times). I don't know what to do! I want to help these guys and I am really trying! A lot of the way I can answer their questions and they seem to appreciate that. But as soon as I can't answer a question or say "I'm just going to look that up for you and return back ok?" I'm just the "bad" TA who knows nothing. I don't know if this is what they are thinking, but I fear they do. The biggest problem I have are the guys who have a lot of experience in programming and know all the ins and outs before they start at the University. It seems like if I don't know more or just as much as they do, then I must be a bad students and TA and of course this is highly unproffesional of the University and what not.<br /><br />I could really use some help. Is it ok to leave the job mid-semester, I can't imagine that it is..Servethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08653342117051787142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-52579260625707935082013-10-20T23:54:59.542-07:002013-10-20T23:54:59.542-07:00Michael has some valid points.
There is shit and...Michael has some valid points. <br /><br />There is shit and humiliation in every job. I am an MA student in my first semester as a TA and the class that I picked. Problem is, the title and the vague description vs. the reality were very different. This is outside of my field, despite its listing, and the other TA is in his last year of PhD study and is an expert in this field who has TA'd for the prof before. I don't want to say anything else on the details as I do not want to "out" myself.<br /><br />I constantly feel humiliated every time I am in the class. The prof was asking me questions that I did not know, though to his credit, he later apologized, he can be a bit over the top, but he is a good soul. It is clear to the class that I do not know this stuff. If I had to pick this class all over again, I would not. <br /><br />Folks, this is humiliation. But took it really hard the first few weeks, but it is getting better. I have been able to help my students during office hours, (though the majority go to the expert TA, though some students come to me because hey feel intimidated by him too, and I guess I am more approachable) and I have been giving good feedback on their papers when I grade them, and the prof does check them over because he wants to see how the students are doing and will change my grades if he feels the need (fine with me). And if any student challenges me on the grade, I tell them that they have the right to petition the prof, and he said that he will settle any disputes. <br /><br />Anyway, as bad as this is, it could be worse. We don't make much, but we also only work 10/hrs week and have health benefits. There is shit in every job. <br /><br />I do not come from a middle class background in any way. No one in my family went to college, I worked a lot of shit jobs and suffered pretty severe humiliation before I started college later in life. Compared to that, this is not bad.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-40237105532133366322013-09-28T17:41:28.649-07:002013-09-28T17:41:28.649-07:00Well. This is a very deeply embittered list of gr...Well. This is a very deeply embittered list of grievances. I also worked many (most) of the same jobs, and did not find my graduate experience to be as pointless and degrading as you did. Maybe it is for the best that you got out. I like my job. But there's a bigger point here, with which I'm sure you'll agree on the basis of your broad work range. You take shit on every job. Most of the reflections on this site carry a sense of shock that graduate students, and by extension, tenured professors, have to take shit, get debased, degraded and humiliated. I find a sense of entitlement in these comments that seems to assume the job ought to be different. When you talk about dim bulb answers or the party line du jour, you're suggesting you're smarter than the prof for whom you work, too smart, in fact, to have to do this particular work. This may be so. But it speaks about you and not the profession.<br /><br />With respect,<br />Michael HarrawoodMichaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10614946615051503707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-17407417164632282142013-09-27T06:00:49.338-07:002013-09-27T06:00:49.338-07:00Like everything else in grad, being a teaching ass...Like everything else in grad, being a teaching assistant was boring, disappointing, frustrating, degrading, unrewarding, and an enormous time sink. One professor for whom I worked wanted us to draft purely regurgative "study questions" that he could compile into a question bank to use for future exams. The lack of respect from students, well, that hardly merits a further mention. <br /><br />The worst part of it, I think, was having to parrot the professor's party line de jour, so if he was foisting his witless, boring, outdated monograph on the undergraduates, I had to feign interest in the bloody thing and figure out some way to stretch it to cover six of the fifteen weeks in the semester. A total travesty. Another professor for whom I TA'd gave a midterm exam with two essay questions to choose...out of exactly two. After reading forty or fifty of the same dim-bulb answers, quoting or misquoting the same passages in the same scanty volume, I nearly lost my sanity. On top of it, he insisted on an extremely specific answer; even those students who had actually read the book and evinced a measure of understanding--a distinct minority--were to be penalised if they didn't state precisely what he had in mind. And what he had in mind was by no means the sole plausible interpretation, nor could it necessarily be gleaned from the texts or even his lectures; it was essentially an exercise in mind-reading. Utterly absurd.<br /><br />Over the years, I've been in the military, I've worked in a bookshop, I've sailed around the world on merchant vessels, I've worked on a tugboat, as a handyman, a common labourer--digging ditches, quite literally--and as a dishwasher (yes, a la Orwell), and nothing, absolutely nothing, could possibly rival the graduate school TA experience for sheer misery, pointlessness, and degradation. Im Exilnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-81978125903612090432012-08-05T12:01:13.359-07:002012-08-05T12:01:13.359-07:00As an undergrad I work 25 to 30 hours a week washi...As an undergrad I work 25 to 30 hours a week washing dishes and get no health insurance. I make $7.45 and hour. And I am studying Chemical Engineering. I am a Junior now. I don't know, but that TA job doesn't look so bad from where I'm standing.Wendynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-6524204733275085382012-01-29T23:50:36.719-08:002012-01-29T23:50:36.719-08:00Not sure how you figure it's the ones who'...Not sure how you figure it's the ones who've never worked outside academia that find TAships to be a swell deal. I think the real problem is grad students tend to be from socioeconomic backgrounds that foster a sense of entitlement (not unlike the one we accuse our undergrads of displaying), in which walking into a job that pays $20/hr for sitting at a desk comes with health insurance and a bounty of underlings who think you're smart is something any old BA can expect. If I thought little old me could land this kind of deal anywhere other than grad school, I'd be there. Lucky for me, I read the paper and I've heard a couple things about the American health insurance crisis...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4276812992911002375.post-92023899794838647572011-11-03T22:28:18.346-07:002011-11-03T22:28:18.346-07:00I didn't appreciate my TA job until I lost ALL...I didn't appreciate my TA job until I lost ALL my funding. Miraculously the grad advisor got the TA-ship back for me for one semester - now it pays my tuition and rent, and I couldn't have managed without it. I agree that it's a lot of work, but it is useful for my career development - I get to re-learn intermediate-level material in my area, and practice teaching a section. I understand that students in other departments/universities are not quite so lucky, but its intended purpose is to help us...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com