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Teaching Assistants
What are your opinions on them?
Do you find they do their job well in general, or not.
I say no, they do not do their job well.
I have maybe met two TA's who actually knew what they were talking about.
I am very disappointed, especially this semester, cuz they are the ones that mark our assignments, and sometimes they don't even have the same marking criteria as the prof does. So ridiculous.
Any thoughts?
Do you find they do their job well in general, or not.
I say no, they do not do their job well.
I have maybe met two TA's who actually knew what they were talking about.
I am very disappointed, especially this semester, cuz they are the ones that mark our assignments, and sometimes they don't even have the same marking criteria as the prof does. So ridiculous.
Any thoughts?
Comments
Theres been times where I thought an answer was right and thought if the prof marked it theyd understand the body of knowledge more, than a TA with a marking key
And the other day I saw a TA who looked no older than like 20...I dont know if that makes sense, I couldnt imagine respecting a TA who looks like a teenager
if i ever became TA i'd probably look 20 by then, haha
i think ive had about 2 or 3 good TA's total
Some examples of TA's from my past classes:
1) Did not teach us anything from lecture or textbook....instead, he had us get in teams to see which team could build the highest tower out of cards :/
2) TA maked everything so hard....did not like transition sentences in papers....if you wrote a paper that disagreed with what his opinion on the matter was, he would write nasty little comments in the margin telling you how stupid you were and how he could write the paper so much better....sat in tutorial and complained about his 4 month old child....went on random rants and ended every tutorial saying, "Oh, i guess we got off-topic again."
3) TA could not answer any questions we had from lecture and from the textbook....would just say, "ummmm, im not sure....you'd better email the prof about that"....when we had a HUGE assignment due, she told us to do certain things on it and then it turned out that the prof didnt like those things when he marked it and gave us a lower grade because of it.
4) TA did not speak english....could not write it....could not read it....could definitely not speak it....enough said.
5) TA thought he was the smartest thing to ever walk the planet and when he would ask you a question and you got it wrong, he would laugh and tell you how stupid you were....this resulted in the students not even volunteering to answer questions at all, and then he would pick on students and make fun of them.
Those are just some examples. I have plenty more too!
I haven't had too much trouble with my TAs....except for the fact that they cannot speak/read/write English to save their lives =_=
1) TAs are grad students.
2) Grad students are poor.
3) Grad students who are smart and/or hard working get scholarships.
4) International students don't get many scholarships
5) Grad students who don't get scholarships resort to TAing for money.
Therefore, your TA is very likely to
- be stupid
- be lazy
- not speak english
Q.E.D.
Anyway, as I can't speak ill of my fellow TAs I will confine myself to saying that it is unfortunate that, in particular with respect to the arts, that it is not easy to develop objective marking criteria in every circumstance.
they just like us, but with a degree.
they need money, probably are stressed like hell (i know i am about money)
not everyone can know everything
i don't remember stuff from 100 level crim classes, im sure if i got degree and went to be TA i wouldn't know some simple questions.
i think in terms of marking guidelines, etc, they follow whatever the prof tells them to so profs tend to mark easier b/c they're setting the rules, not following them.
The majority of them seem to be pretty dumb imo. They are just wannabe profs (which they prolly will never be).