Hello, is it bad to go to a university with lots of teacher assistants teaching classes,and how can you find out the percentage of classes taught by TA’s at a college?
I don’t know much about TA’s, honestly, but most of the talk I’ve heard is that it’s a waste of money to go to a college where you’re basically being taught by another student. Is this accurate?
The schools I’m wondering about in particular are George Washington, American, Tulane, UNC Chapel Hill, Princeton, and Wake Forest, if anyone has information on those schools regarding TA’s.
Thank you!
I was a TA. The professor taught the large lecture 3 days a week. We TAs did the labs and discussion sections and held office hours. Some TAs are excellent at answering questions or explaining the homework. We had several TAs per large lecture and you could go to any of the discussion sections or office hours for help.
Not all profs are good, not all TAs are bad.
In the chem department only first year and O Chem had TAs heavily involved. Upper division classes might have one TA helping grade or offering additional office hours. But the professor also had office hours.
You need to stop listening to "talk’, especially if it is coming from other 17 year olds.
Not all professors are good and not all TAs are bad … but it is reasonable to expect a combination of credentials and experience to count for something. A good lecture can be motivating and informative, but usually doesn’t add too much engagement compared to reading a book. Answering questions and explaining homework isn’t the same as having a mature professor mentor a small group in discussing primary source materials.
One way to ensure you consistently get that high level of classroom engagement and challenge is to choose a LAC, where few if any classes will be taught by TAs. Unfortunately, the Common Data Set files don’t track the percentage of classroom exposure to TAs at research universities. If you want to often get a LAC-like classroom experience at a research university, consider universities that maintain a relatively low percentage of classes with 50 or more students. US News shows this number in the “academic life” section of each school’s entry.
Universities where less than 10% of classes have 50 or more students include:
0.8% Wake Forest
1.1% American
5.7% UChicago
6.1% Duke
6.2% Tulane
6.8% Northwestern
6.9% Georgetown
7% Tufts
7.7% Rice
7.7% Dartmouth
8.9% Yale
9% William & Mary
9.1% Columbia
9.1% Vanderbilt
9.4% Emory
9.5% Brandeis
9.9% Harvard
9.9% George Washington
10% is a rather arbitrary cut-off. Even at some schools with higher percentages, it may be relatively easy to get small classes and high exposure to experienced professors in low-demand majors, advanced classes, or honors programs.
The Common Data Set files have more details about class size distributions.
According to your posting history you are not likely to be admitted to most of the colleges at the level that @tk21769 listed. Also many mid-tier LAC’s may not use TA’s but rather adjunct faculty. They ae part time faculty with or without doctoral degrees who have minimal commitment to the college.
The “talk” I’ve heard has come from relatives who are college professors, my school guidance counselor, and other adults who work in education. I am aware of what schools I cannot get into, but thank you. @TomSrOfBoston
@VickiSoCal and @tk21769 thank you for your input! I’ll definitely keep this in mind during my college search.
If you really want to know the class sizes, do not rely on CDS numbers. Instead, go to the college’s web site and see if the online class schedule lists class sizes, particularly those in your subjects of interest. Some other things can also be inferred:
- Class format. If the class has a lecture led by a faculty member with discussions led by TAs, that can be noticed, compared to classes that only have a lecture.
- Instructors. You may be able to look up instructor names to see if they are regular faculty, adjunct faculty, or PhD students (TAs).
Having a TA in addition to a faculty member teaching the class is not necessarily bad. Two instructors may teach slightly differently so that there is a greater chance of one of their methods fitting better with how you learn.
Agree with the lac suggestion…no grad students means usually no tas teaching, though some may help the professor in larger classes (run the PowerPoint or whatever). Friends’ kids at our flagship complain about foreign tas in particular, who they have trouble understanding.
Using TA’s is not “students teaching students”…as if everyone is an equal. This isn’t like high school seniors teaching high school seniors.
Someone in a grad program is usually more than adequate to teach a 1XX level class.
That said, often it’s profs doing the lectures, and TAs are running the labs, proctoring exams, grading homework.
TA’s typically do not teach courses. They lead smaller breakout sessions and lab sessions.
Schools w sizable STEM departments will have more TA’s.
My LAC had 0% TAs and I was fine with that; I wanted close work with profs. I ended up a TA myself for several years in Grad school (as an instructor leading the class, not a discussion leader) and I did my best, but I often had no idea what I was doing. Schools with TAs are not “bad” but I will discourage my own children from attending TA heavy schools.
Then why are you asking strangers here on CC?
Because I appreciate a diverse array of opinions. Not trying to argue here, just want to go to college 
But thank you for the information on adjunct professors, I wasn’t 100% clear on what they did. @TomSrOfBoston
Thank you everyone for your advice; Most of the schools I’m looking at are LAC’s but this is helpful to know for the larger universities.
Most LACs do not use TAs while most Us do.
Realistically you aren’t going to be discussing primary source material in Chem 1A. You want someone who can explain it to you if you have trouble. That might be a TA, it might be someone in the tutoring center, it might be the professor.
Big research schools have advantages and disadvantages. I went to a small LAC and then a big state school for grad school. The freshman intro class experience is wildly different.
All major research universities will have teacher assistants. They will use them to varying degrees, but as a rule, the larger the graduate student body (particularly in traditional disciplines and engineering), the more TAs you will have.
The University of Michigan provides a pretty good break-down of their instructor composition:
http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-michigan-ann-arbor/academic-life/faculty-composition/
Note that over 40% of all “instructional employees” are graduate assistants.
(“Ann Arbor has 1,856 instructional graduate assistants that teach or provide teaching-related duties. This could range from entirely teaching lower-level courses themselves, to assisting professors by developing teaching materials, preparing or giving exams and grading student work.”)
Your exposure to TAs may be especially high during your first two, foundational years.
Now, that’s Michigan (one of the best state universities in America, with a 12:1 student:faculty ratio). Imagine what you’ll get at an average large, public university in a state that doesn’t invest as heavily in education (and where the TAs may not be as good as the average grad student at Michigan).
These issues get a lot of debate on CC. Every applicant has a right to decide for oneself the importance of faculty composition and class sizes. IMO the OP is asking an important question (“how can you find out the percentage of classes taught by TAs at a college?”) Instead of only rehashing the broader debate (or trying to persuade us the question isn’t important) I wish we could identify good tools to answer it.
@ucbalumnus I taught foreign language classes at several levels.