The TA Chronicles: Being volunteered as tribute
Coming to terms with my TA assignment
There exists a poignant event in the career of all PhD students that truly tests their mettle… Come to think of it, there are actually many of these – but there’s one in particular that fills me with a little extra anxiety. I’m talking about none other than the dreaded teaching assistant (TA) assignment.
Depending on the future goals of a given PhD student, there tend to be two major reactions to serving as a TA. Students who are looking for a career that involves teaching in some capacity are excited by the opportunity to gain some real-world experience in a classroom setting. Other students tend to dread the thought of committing 20 or more hours a week to a task that distracts from their other professional interests. I fall firmly into this second bucket, which means I’ve been pretty worried about the fall semester of 2024 for a while.
In Course 10 (chemical engineering), there are three types of classes that students can be assigned to TA. The first type is an undergraduate class. This is advantageous because the content tends to be a little easier, but can still be tricky since you’ve never seen the material before. The second type is the holy grail: a graduate elective related to your research. It’s likely you’ve already taken this class, and the content is very familiar to you. The third is whatever the opposite of the holy grail is (the satanic chalice?): a graduate core course. These courses push students to their academic limits and will forever haunt my nightmares. Not only are they academically rigorous, they are enormous time commitments, meaning that TAs can lose out on an entire semester of research. Students get to declare their top 5 class preferences before classes are assigned. In my experience, there’s a pretty universal ranking for these classes that goes:
- Graduate elective
- Any undergraduate class
- Graduate core course
in which you can pretty much just insert any of the 12 labors of Hercules into 3 and 4. Is this hyperbole? Likely. Do I want to TA the classes that are notoriously difficult and have already experienced? Please, anything but that.
I was stumbling out of my candidate exam this last Thanksgiving when I entered my plea to the department to spare me the proceeding fall semester. Although we get to declare our class preferences, the final say is held by the student office, meaning they assign us to whatever class they want (a scary proposition to be sure).
It was an unassuming Tuesday earlier this summer, and there were rumblings that we were to receive our destiny in the coming hours. Since I had declared my preferences over 6 months prior, the selection process hadn’t been top of mind for a while. Suddenly, 6 months of subconscious worrying became 2 and a half hours of very conscious sweating and email checking.
Finally, an email from the student office arrived.
“You’ve been assigned to graduate thermodynamics and statistical mechanics”
Oh no.
My initial response was dramatic to say the least. “Why me? Why have I been forsaken by the cruel mistress of fate? Why must destiny continually smite my unfortunate soul?” A flurry of text messages from friends provided me with the necessary pity to feed my reaction. “Wow I’m sorry, that sucks. Oooof, RIP your fall semester. Glad I’m not you!” My research productivity cratered as I metaphorically (and literally for a little bit) wrung my hands in anxiety. A rough afternoon followed, so I cut my losses and packed up early.
Once my inner thespian stopped soliloquizing about my woes later that evening, I was able to sit with my thoughts on the situation and develop a slightly more mature response. Although I wasn’t thrilled with the assignment, it was the core course I was most willing to TA, and statistical mechanics is a content area that interests me that I don’t get to engage with on a regular basis. As rigorous and time-consuming as the class was when I took it, I was engaged by the lecturers and felt like I was able to develop a relatively deep understanding of the concepts. Teaching in an academic setting is not in my future plans, but I have always found the understanding associated with being able to effectively teach a topic particularly satisfying. On top of all this, I will be able to build relationships with the first year students I’m teaching (since I will get to spend a lot of time with them). All good things!
I’ve ultimately decided to approach the semester with this more hesitantly positive outlook. Am I excited to lose this semester to being a TA? Still no. Am I ready to learn and become a better version of myself? I think I can handle that. Maybe through the lectures, recitations, office hours, exams, Piazza questions, Canvas bugs, etc., I can grow a bit (or maybe I’ll go crazy, who knows!). Part of this journey will be continuing to tell this story and hopefully providing some valuable insight to anyone interested. So keep an eye out for more editions of the TA Chronicles if you’d like to watch me fumble my way through this semester!
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