<p>Well it seems like most people who choose private colleges say that in privates, all the classes are taught by the professors themselves not graduate students, or teach assistants as found in public schools.</p>
<p>Is this true in public schools (talking about good ones here, Berkeley, UCLA, Mich, etc) and is that a negative point?</p>
<p>I’m at University of Washington which is a pretty big public school and it really depended on the class. </p>
<p>For large lecture classes such as chemistry, they were taught by professors and there was an additional required “section” which was a class of 30ish which was taught by a TA. The TAs could pretty much do whatever they wanted during this class whether that was going over homework or reinforcing ideas taught in lecture. </p>
<p>My English composition class was taught completely by a TA and I thought the class was going to be awful but the TA was a better teacher than my chem professor</p>
<p>Use of TAs is probably more prevalent at public universities, but it is still a common practice at private research universities, too—primarily for discussion sections or labs. It’s much less common at liberal arts colleges due to smaller size and lack of graduate programs.</p>
<p>My experience at umich is similar to LousyDonut’s.</p>
<p>When I attended a private university I had more classes taught by TA/grad students than I do now at a large state university. I actually haven’t had a TA teach anything at my large state university, other than a lab and an optional supplemental discussion class.</p>
<p>I think it really comes down to how short staffed the university is, or how lazy the professor supervising the grad student is. I had a professor basically dump off an entire class on a (horrible, first semester) grad student because the professor was pregnant and didn’t feel like showing up anymore. $30,000 per year for that…yuck!</p>
<p>I’m a senior at UNC and I’ve never had a class taught by a TA. Even the big ones have always been taught by professors in lectures twice or three times a week, with TA’s controlling smaller groups of 20 or so students in weekly recitation sections.</p>
<p>It depends on the university and, in many cases, on the individual department. When I was in graduate school at a very large public university, TAs in my department could grade and lead discussion/review sessions, and fill in for the occasional lecture if the professor could not be in class (attending a conference, for example). We were not allowed to teach classes during the day until we had completed the doctorate, and we could not teach evening classes until we had passed our comprehensive exams. Other departments had different policies.</p>
<p>I’ve only done one semester, but only one day of the entire semester did a TA teach a class. I go to one of the biggest publics in state. Actually, only one of my classes had a TA. Math had a grader, but so does the majority of the math classes.</p>
<p>It probably just depends on your university…I go to a public university and the only classes that I have that are taught by TA’s are labs (which is more just like “here are the instructions, go figure it out” than actual teaching) and then of course they lead recitation as a supplementary thing to your regular class. </p>
<p>Anyways, I love having TA’s lead the labs instead of actual instructors because (usually…) they are less uptight than the professors. Once in my genetics lab my lab instructor actually came in and it felt like she spent the entire time breathing over my shoulder yelling at me that I was contaminating the toothpicks whereas my TA’s were far more chill and nice. Then, of course, TA’s are also excellent resources to go and get help from. I felt far more comfortable bugging my TA’s for help than going to my actual professor. </p>
<p>And just remember, just because a course is taught by a professor in no way guarantees that the professor is good at teaching. In my math class I always skipped lecture and went to recitation b/c the TA was better at teaching than th professor. So, give the TA’s a chance.</p>
<p>I go to one of the UCs and never ever had a TA teach my class
My friends usually have TA who “teach” during discussion sections to supplement the main lecture.
I’m 100% sure that all the main lectures at UCs are taught by professors</p>
<p>All of my classes have had 3 or 4 hours per week of lecture by a professor, plus 1 hour of “discussion” in smaller sections led by a TA (grad student). (this is at UCLA)</p>
<p>I can only remember having one class that was taught by a GA and that was a nutrition class. I had a couple of labs that were led by a GA as well, but almost all of my classes were taught by professors or a few instructors who have Masters Degrees…</p>
<p>As pointed out previously, its common at larger publics for the main lecture (with 75-500 students) to be taught by a prof and then you meet once a week in a so-called discussion section with a TA. For introductory lower-division courses that they want to be small, such as English Comp, those will typically be taught by a TA.</p>
<p>One thing you didn’t ask, probably because most HS students aren’t aware of it, is “How many classes are taught by tenured<a href=“or%20tenure%20track”>/u</a> faculty?” These are the full-time profs that make up the reputation of the departments; when they say “History at X is one of the best in the country” they’re talking about the published research and influence of the faculty. But to cut costs universities, including many prominent publics and privates, have relied more and more on adjunct (eg. temporary) profs to teach their classes. See [Higher</a> Education Takes a Hit | The Nation](<a href=“http://www.thenation.com/article/higher-education-takes-hit]Higher”>http://www.thenation.com/article/higher-education-takes-hit) or <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/education/20adjunct.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/education/20adjunct.html</a> </p>
<p>There are a bunch of ways this impacts students. If your prof has to juggle teaching at 2 or 3 area schools to earn enough money they aren’t going to be around campus much. Someone who works semester to semester has less time (and interest) in mentoring students, helping them choose grad programs, etc. They aren’t tied into the research that’s made the department prominent because they’re hired just to instruct undergrads. And so on.</p>
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<p>People like to make things up to justify their decisions.</p>
<p>It really does all depend. My U has over 40k students and I’ve never been in a class taught by a TA. </p>
<p>It does help that I am in a small residential college- where we don’t have any assistants. However, even for my other degree (anthropology), I’ve never had a TA teach a class.</p>
<p>TA’s aren’t always worse than professors. Some of them are younger and can relate better with students.</p>
<p>Depends on the school and the major.</p>
<p>Where I went (Western Washington University), almost no classes were taught by TAs.</p>
<p>You need to look at the “best for undergraduates” ratings.</p>
<p>It’s mainly for the introductory courses. Upper level courses are usually taught by the professors themselves, but it’s different for each public school. Chemistry, Biology, and Theater are taught by the professors themselves. The rest of my classes are taught by assistants. </p>
<p>Why would you have a distinguished math teacher teaching calculus? It makes no sense. They have high school teachers teaching introductory calculus…</p>
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And why have live people teaching a class that is given in lecture format? Why not just mail out DVD’s for the classes you are enrolled in? </p>
<p>And I say that only half in jest. With distance learning its just about like this except you can press a button and ask a question (and even that’s not always true). How to teach is an age-old debate that will never be settled to everyone’s satisfaction.</p>
<p>At my school, every class I’ve taken (as a freshman) was taught by a professor. TA’s usually lead discussion sections, though.</p>
<p>The TA’s (or as we call them, AI’s) I’ve had for discussion sections and dealt with have all been just as good if not better than the professors as far as clarity and fairness… most of them are graduate students so they can relate to most of our issues in one way or another.</p>