How is it to be a teaching assistant in insti as an undergraduate student? Too much commitment or free money? Read this article to find out!
Most courses in insti have teaching assistants (TAs). TAs essentially aid the professor in ensuring the smooth administration of the course, by holding tutorial sessions and evaluating assignments. Usually, TAs are graduate students or scholars- but there also exist opportunities for undergraduates to become TAs.
How to apply to become a TA?
Most courses in insti are looking for TAs. TAs assigned to a course may be first-year masters’ students, who are themselves seeing insti (let alone the course contents) for the first time. Hence, most professors are glad to take up undergraduate TAs. By the time you start TAing, you already have a good grasp of how classes, evaluation, grading in courses, and insti in general work.
It helps if you’ve done the course you want to TA for and secured a good grade (getting an S or A is ideal, but this is not a hard-and-fast rule). It also helps if you have an ‘in’ with the professor – for instance, you could’ve done a project under them and exhibited your reliability and diligence. The standard practice is to send a mail to the professor expressing your interest in being a TA. Alternatively, If you’ve done exceptionally well in a course, the course coordinator might mail you asking if you want to be a TA.
If you want to be paid a stipend for TAing the course, it’s better to raise it upfront and negotiate it with the professor before you agree to be a TA.
What do TAs do?
TAs are an integral part of most courses with sufficient registrations. Here are some things you might have to do as part of your TAship:
Conducting Sessions: TAs are usually expected to conduct tutorial sessions for students. If there are enough TAs, you might have to explain a few problems every week. You also might have to conduct doubt-clearing sessions before quizzes which should be relatively easy if you’ve done the course before. In case the professor cannot take a class, they may also ask you to cover for them.
Taking attendance: You might be expected to go around taking attendance and uploading it into Digicampus (the app we use for attendance). If there are enough TAs, you might have to do this about once a week. Catch some proxies!
Evaluating Assignments, Quizzes, and Endsems: Once quizzes/midsems/endsems are over, you’re expected to prepare the answer key and evaluate answer scripts. If the course has weekly mini-quizzes or assignments, you might also be asked to set a few questions here and there.
Head TA: Large courses usually also have a head TA. In addition to the above duties, they also might have to take care of logistics: coordinating between faculty members and TAs, putting up Moodle messages, collating course marks, and so on. Usually (but not always), they are not undergrads.
TAing for NPTEL/OB courses: If you want to be a TA for an online course instead, things are slightly different. You’re usually expected to have done the on-campus version of the course. You have to make assignments (usually MCQs) nearly a month in advance and conduct hour-long doubt-clearing sessions weekly. You’ll get a certificate for TAship from NPTEL and you might get paid by the professor depending on the course budget.
Now might be a good time to note that you’re not obligated to help students outside of your office hours. Since the students who’re taking the course are likely to know you as a senior, you might receive DMs about this, so it’s advisable to have a doubts-through-email-only policy. The time commitment and mental energy required to be a TA is a good bit, so you should be prepared to take it up.
Why should you TA?
If you’re interested in academia or are still testing the waters, TAship gives you valuable insights into how courses work. It is a great experience – you get to interact with professors and students alike, teach classes, and act as a mentor to the next batch of students.
On a more concrete note, there’s a good chance that you get paid, and while you might get paid somewhat less than what masters’ students get paid by their HTTA allowance, it is money nevertheless. It’s also an excellent resume point if you’re applying for higher studies, as it shows you have the necessary grit and diligence to be a Teaching Assistant. You might also get a nice letter of recommendation from the professor.
Above all, it is also about making a difference. Not everyone has the same experience doing a course- it’s no secret that students can find courses boring and monotonous, and might not see enough motivation to do the course. You can step in here and change what might’ve been inadequate when you’d done the course. More lucid tutorial sessions, more insightful tutorials, and better correction all lie in your hands.
I’ve had a great run TAing courses until now. I was head TA for a course last semester- a course that about half the people in insti do. To prevent the course from seeming too unrelated to students not from the department, we TAs came together to give some practical laboratory demonstrations with actual circuits. Students seemed to enjoy it and I can only hope that the students derived some benefit from it. Apart from the honorarium I also received banana bajji on one occasion, so I’m happy about it overall.
I’m TAing another course now. I feel I did a bad job back when I did the course- mugging up tutorials and cramming the cheatsheet with miniscule formulae when I was a student in the course are all things I did that I’m not proud of. Indeed, this TAship is my chance at making amends- I’m trying to relearn the subject in an adequate manner and provide a good experience to the students.
In any case, I think it’s worth taking a shot at TAing a course. It may or may not be worth the effort, but you’ll never know if you never tried.
– Edited by Ishan Khurma
