All about TA -ing.

[currentstudent]

I am new to the TAing business. Are there recommendations you could make about TAing? For example, I have heard that sometimes which courses you have TAed may make a difference on the job market so you don't want to do all intro classes and nothing but. How about intermediate courses? How do you personally decide which courses you want to TA? What is TAing like at your school -- do TAs have to attend lecture? I am curious.

[Lokayot]

I have never been a T.A but as far as I know you are supposed to attend lectures.

[econorama]

Admittedly I haven't started TAing yet. I imagine that at least for the first year you don't get much say on which courses you TA for. It'll almost definitely be intro courses. At the University of Texas I've been told that some professors want you to sit in on lectures and some don't care.

[TruDog]

At Wisconsin, you get to express your preference for courses, but this goes based on seniority. However, you still have to say if your schedule allows you to TA for the intro classes. I don't know any first-year students who have TAed for anything but introductory courses (I TAed principles of micro both semesters this year.)

Whether you need to attend lecture or not depends entirely on the professor; one professor I worked with posted all the notes online so I never went and the other wanted us to go every once in a while. It depends on your experience with the material. Additionally, you have to do two days of mandatory TA training during your first year and your professor will evaluate you after a few weeks of your first semester.

[Golden Rule]

Originally Posted by currentstudent

For example, I have heard that sometimes which courses you have TAed may make a difference on the job market so you don't want to do all intro classes and nothing but.

My impression is this is more common in other disciplines that value teaching more than economics. Teaching is much less important for the economics job market, though the quality of your evaluations certainly matters more for LACs and to a lesser extent business schools. (See THE HIRING OF AN ECONOMIST: A CASE STUDY by Colander-Holmes for details on the LAC case).

I would generally not recommend TAing a first-year grad course, for instance, if it takes up so much time that it detracts from your research. There are other reasons for wanted to TA these courses, but expecting to be rewarded on the market is probably not one of them given the opportunity cost. Research is absolutely first-order, teaching is not, and even LACs won't hire someone with an outstanding, creative teaching record and mundane research.

How about intermediate courses?

The marginal difference here is almost certainly negligible. I would be absolutely shocked if teaching an intro vs. an intermediate course ever made the slightest difference on the margin in a job market outcome.

How do you personally decide which courses you want to TA?

At my school, we rank prefs among the intermediate/intro courses, and undergrad electives separately. Then someone in the dept. decides. You more or less get drafted into grad course TA roles if you do well. If you have established a relationship with a particular prof. you can convince that prof to take you as a TA.

I'll only have to teach two semester my fourth year. So at that point I would probably target an elective that most closely related to what I might want to teach as an academic eventually, and I imagine I would have established a relationship with the prof. teaching that course, so it would be a sure thing I'd get that position and not be randomly assigned to intro. As Colander-Holmes say, the best candidates enthusiastically describe teaching courses that weren't currently offered at Middlebury, so I'd try to target something like that.

What is TAing like at your school -- do TAs have to attend lecture? I am curious.

Totally depends on the prof, the course, etc. I think intro/intermediate you're more likely to get away with skipping. Officially, the dept. wants all TAs at lectures.

[cooper]

At Iowa, first years typically TA principles courses. However, some will be graders for advanced undergrad courses but will not lead discussions or interact with students. Then students past the first year will either TA grad courses, teach their own course or TA principles courses again. Of course, there are opportunities for RA work as well. The program requires each student to teach their own course at some point before going on the job market. I am not sure how they decide how to allocate TA jobs, but I think the grad TA jobs go to the best students. They do not ask your preference, but I think if you tell someone that you prefer to TA Micro as opposed to Macro, then they will try to accommodate you but I have no evidence of this.

The TA jobs for principles courses assign 3 sections to each TA. Each section has 30 students. The TA is responsible for leading discussion once a week for each section, holding office hours and grading homeworks and exams. Personally, the first semester I attended lectures regularly since I needed to brush up on my principles anyway. In the second semester I attended only occasionally. Some Profs encourage their TA's to attend at least once a week while others do not care.

As far as intermediate courses, as I mentioned, there are no real TA's per se, but just graders. Usually these are given to students whose english is not proficient enough to lead discussion so they do not interact with students and will be assigned three upper level undergrad courses for which they are responsible for grading. Those class sizes range anywhere from 20 to 60 students each.

[Canuckonomist]

At Queen's, Master's students do all the UG TAing, and there are TAs for about every course. They let you request the course you want to TA, and for someone who did a Queen's UG, this is bonus points for wanting to take courses you've taken and done well in -for those, you almost never have to go to the lectures.

I'll be TAing a couple third year courses this year, or perhaps a third and fourth-year course.

Tips for Master's students TAing: TA a course for a LOR writer if you have one. It's nice to have someone to say some good things about your teaching ability. This is good for schools like cornell.

[tangsiuje]

Originally Posted by Canuckonomist

I'll be TAing a couple third year courses this year, or perhaps a third and fourth-year course.

...TA a course for a LOR writer if you have one. It's nice to have someone to say some good things about your teaching ability. This is good for schools like cornell.

I fail to see how these two statements are consistent.

I was under the impression that as a TA for 3rd year courses, you wouldn't actually teach anything, just mark assignments. At least that was the case for the 5 or so 3rd year economics courses I took at Queen's... I never saw any of my TAs (a few of which were PhD students anyway - I looked them up on the website). So that can't possible be optimal from a teaching point of view?

Or are you just not planning on applying to Cornell?

[Tex Jansen]

The best thing to do is get an assignment with as little work as possible. Teaching discussion sections tends to be less work than grading.

TAing will not help at all on the market. Teaching your own class, however, is crucial if you end up in the running for an assistantship at a LAC or other school that cares about teaching. Research schools will only consider your teaching on the margin (At my current program, the teaching ability of prospective job market candidates was never once mentioned during the meetings to discuss thehiring process).

[Canuckonomist]

Originally Posted by tangsiuje

I fail to see how these two statements are consistent.

I was under the impression that as a TA for 3rd year courses, you wouldn't actually teach anything, just mark assignments. At least that was the case for the 5 or so 3rd year economics courses I took at Queen's... I never saw any of my TAs (a few of which were PhD students anyway - I looked them up on the website). So that can't possible be optimal from a teaching point of view?

Or are you just not planning on applying to Cornell?

The statements are only inconsistent with your somewhat erroneous preconception of what all our third and 4th year courses are like. For the courses I'll be running, there are tutorial sections, commonly. Also, for some of the topics being taught, I may even be allowed to do some guest lecturing when my prof is away. So it will be a good leg up into teaching.

And yes, I'm applying to Cornell.