<p>Hi</p>
<p>My school is pretty small focusing mainly on teaching sciences/engineering to undergrads. Since all classes are small and taught by professors themselves, there's absolutely NO teaching position for me. Of course, there are some grading positions, but I hate them as all I will be doing is checking students' answers with solutions developed by the professors.</p>
<p>Can any one shed some light on this?</p>
<p>cheers</p>
<p>Your lack of teaching experience will not reflect poorly on you. </p>
<p>Few applicants coming directly from the undergraduate level will have teaching experience. In over a decade, I’ve seen two or three.</p>
<p>Professor X is right. teaching experience is NOT a factor for grad school application</p>
<p>even thou I TA’ed for the tuition waiver, but I knew it doesn’t help me in any way.</p>
<p>Unless of course, you are applying education related fields… that could be different story</p>
<p>Mr. Zoo is right. I think whether teaching experience matters is field-specific, in fields such as education, applied linguistics, and maybe to a certain extent sub-fields of psychology such as child psychology etc., teaching experience is going to be a contributing factor for admission.</p>
<p>Right… how about in the field of computer science, engineering, and applied math?</p>
<p>You don’t need it. It doesn’t matter. As far as I know, they don’t care. Also as far as I know, most people don’t have teaching experience. I sure don’t.</p>
<p>Slorg is right, ccpsux I don’t know where did you get the idea that teaching experience helps grad school admission (in engineering). It is for sure not the case.</p>
<p>You go to grad school to be a researcher (engineering), not a teacher. That being said, if you have extra time during your undergrad study, you should spend it in research labs, not teaching. The only reason you should be teaching is for the $$$, and grad school office does not value that.</p>
<p>Grad students TA is whole different issue, they teach because the department needs help, not because the department wants to train them to be teachers.</p>
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<p>Not entirely true. Most PhDs (including engineers) enter academic positions which involve significant teaching duties!</p>
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<p>Well, it’s not quite that simple. While academic positions do involve teaching duties, the importance of those duties, at least at the top research universities, is, frankly, minimal. You don’t really need to be a strong teacher to have a successful career in academia, and many research universities actually discourage you from doing so in favor of research publications. </p>
<p>Since engineering is the topic of discussion, let me talk about engineering-centric schools. One guy I know who has recently placed as an assistant professor at MIT was warned by his colleagues that while he shouldn’t be a terrible teacher, he should also strive not to earn top teaching marks, for otherwise his department will wonder why he’s spending so much effort on teaching rather than research. My brother went to Caltech and while he enjoyed the experience overall, he freely admits that the teaching was often times terrible - so much so that he and many of his classmates would not even bother to attend class at all but rather spend that time in their rooms reading the textbook, for that was a better pedagogical experience than attending the confused and incoherent lectures. His experience was corroborated by the Princeton Review which routinely names Caltech as having some of the worst teaching in the nation. </p>
<p>*Many important issues were raised at the colloquium about the relationship at MIT between research and education, but few were seriously acted upon, leaving the impression that only lip service is being paid to the concept of better teaching while the real emphasis remains on research. It is disturbing and foolish that many members of the faculty and administration have decided to relegate such a fundamental aspect of MIT as undergraduate and graduate education to a low priority…</p>
<p>…For junior faculty, however, working at MIT is still very much a “publish or perish” predicament. Untenured professors must spend a great deal of time on research, often at the expense of teaching classes. One notable example of this is Jeremy M. Wolfe PhD '81, a former associate professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Wolfe received the coveted Baker Foundation Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in 1989 and was highly regarded by students for his informative and exciting lectures. The next year, however, he was denied tenure by the Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology, apparently because his research was not up to the MIT standard.</p>
<p>…Wolfe’s love for teaching prevailed even over MIT’s rude and self-defeating treatment; he now continues to teach his popular Introduction to Psychology (9.00) course, as a visiting professor. The Baker Award, designed to promote undergraduate education, is now seen by many as the “kiss of death” – any professor recognized for his or her excellent teaching is suspected of shirking research responsibilities and might be denied tenure, as Wolfe was. This situation is detrimental both to students and to faculty, and must be rectified.</p>
<p>During the 1991 colloquium, former Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis noticed that, "A great researcher, a mediocre teacher – probably will get tenure. A mediocre researcher, a great teacher – doesn’t get tenure.*</p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Teaching at Institute Must Be Emphasized - The Tech](<a href=“http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N54/stevenson.54o.html]Undergraduate”>http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N54/stevenson.54o.html)</p>
<p>Faculty who bring in large grants are more highly valued than faculty who teach well. Teaching excellence is so often undervalued that the late Ernest Boyer, vice president for Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, quipped that, “Winning the campus teaching award is the kiss of death when it comes to tenure.”</p>
<p>[Walter</a> E. Williams : Is College Worth It? - Townhall.com](<a href=“http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/27/is_college_worth_it]Walter”>http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/27/is_college_worth_it)</p>
<p>*Winning the “teacher of the year” award at a research university will carry very little weight when time comes to have one’s contract renewed or to be voted on for tenure. In 1987, a Harvard professor whose credentials included such an award was notified that his contract would not be renewed. I personally know three other professors at three different institutions who were notified that their contracts would not be renewed after they had won “teacher of the year” awards. One referred to the award as “travel money.” The issue of teaching versus research has been debated innumerable times and is unlikely to be settled any time soon. What is important to someone seeking good teaching is to find out where it is most likely to be found. At a top research university, where the professor knows that “publish or perish” are his career choices, it is unrealistic to expect that most will make teaching their top priority. To some, teaching is purely incidental. *</p>
<p>[Sowell:</a> Choosing a College Chapter 2](<a href=“http://www.leaderu.com/alumni/sowell-choosing/chpter02.html#TEACHING%20VERSUS%20RESEARCH]Sowell:”>http://www.leaderu.com/alumni/sowell-choosing/chpter02.html#TEACHING%20VERSUS%20RESEARCH)</p>
<p>A professor recently complimented me for being “clearly comfortable in a teaching role.”</p>
<p>Should I be fearful for my academic future? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>sakky: Academics these days can’t afford to be picky and only accept top R1s. The market, except for maybe accounting, is a bloodbath.</p>
<p>sakky said what I was going to say about teaching…</p>
<p>Maybe it is a misfortune, but nowadays (at least in engineering) teaching is not an area people care about. Just look at the successful faculty members of each department, almost all of them carry big names in the field of their research—versus how well they teach their students. </p>
<p>A professor can’t become the department chair based on how well he teaches, nor can he join national Academy of engineering/science based on his teaching ratings… it is always always always about the research work.</p>
<p>Based on the above and goes back to the topic of this thread, it becomes much more clear why teaching experience is not a factor in grad school admission process. </p>
<p>Lastly to psych_, I highly doubt “most PhDs enter academic position” upon graduation. I do not have any numbers in mind but most of the phd students I know they enter industry. Maybe someone with more life experience or with statistical numbers can comment on this.</p>
<p>The emphasis on teaching varies from university to university; however, research and publications are highly valued at all.</p>
<p>For those intending to go into academia, the above should give you a hint that the academic life is not as easy as many portray it. Professors in the humanities have heavier course loads (just wait until you have to read all those undergraduate papers), but professors in the sciences are pressured to bring in grant money (most proposals are rejected) to lighten theirs. Most universities will not grant tenure without at least a modicum of proficiency in the classroom; some universities will require much better classroom performance than that – those student evaluations do count. </p>
<p>Teaching is a sink-or-swim situation when you teach at the undergraduate and higher level. No one tells you what to do – you have to structure the course yourself, usually from scratch. You have to use your intuition on how best to reach the students. Some are naturals. Some learn to improve rapidly. And still others never grasp it. At the college level, you are awarded a teaching position not because of your talent for lecturing but because of your expertise. So yes, you’re going to get some awful teachers. Junior faculty especially struggle because they are also adapting to the demands of the job beyond the classroom – setting up research, attending committee and faculty meetings, writing proposals, learning how the bureaucracy works, etc.</p>
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<p>Continuing the story of my colleague who’s now an assistant prof at MIT, the fact is, he’s actually a quite charismatic and eloquent public speaker, so he was contemplating (jokingly) deliberately sabotaging his own teaching performance so that his teaching evaluations wouldn’t be ‘too high’. Therefore he might deliberately not prepare for class, or deliberately make confusing and contradictory statements. He also seriously considered acting like a complete jerk to his students, but that might be difficult for him as he’s a naturally nice guy. </p>
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<p>Actually, I would expand that to say that the entire job market for business academia, and arguably also economics, is quite strong, and certainly is far from being a bloodbath. If you graduate with a PhD in business or economics from a top 25 program, you will surely obtain an academic placement if you want one - perhaps not at a top school, but placement somewhere. {Of course many of those students won’t take academic jobs at all, instead opting for jobs in management consulting or finance, but that’s an entirely different issue.} </p>
<p>But to your point, I wholeheartedly agree that academics cannot afford to be picky: but that makes research productivity more important than ever before. As Momwaitingfornew pointed out, all universities care about research, yet only a subset care about teaching ability, and, frankly, that subset tends to consist of the less prestigious and lower paying schools. {Many faculty members from no-name schools, or even top LAC’s, would like to switch to Harvard or MIT, but few faculty members at Harvard or MIT would want to switch to a no-name school or even a top LAC.}</p>
<p>By that same logic, research productivity is the most ‘portable’ or academic skills. Even if you do place at a school where teaching is highly emphasized, what happens if you aren’t promoted (and hence are effectively terminated)? Unless you leave academia entirely, you’ll then need to make a lateral move to another school, and that other school is likely to place a premium on research as most schools do. Hence, from a careerist standpoint, the dominant strategy is always to emphasize research to the neglect of teaching. Sad but true.</p>
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<p>I know Princeton and Dartmouth pride themselves on requiring their professors to be excellent undergraduate teachers. And I doubt Stanford will keep an ineffective teacher – unless the teaching slacks off after tenure, something that is unlikely to happen at the highest level.</p>
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Did he ever carry that through? Because I feel like I might have taken a class with him. :)</p>
<p>Doesn’t undergraduate teaching experience help to become a TA in grad school? This will allow you to apply for both a RA and TA in grad school won’t it? If you do get rejected as a RA, you may be selected as a TA, right? Or are all students in grad school RA’s and some of them TA’s?</p>
<p>No. Why would one want to be a TA anyways? </p>
<p>Yes in some schools TAs get paid slightly higher, but at same time you are spending hours dealing with undergraduate students, grading homework/quiz/exams, replying the complaining emails from students, sometimes even have to study a whole new course just to hold the office hour and work out the homework solutions. Personally I hate the time commitment part of being a TA, although sometimes it could be rewarding.</p>
<p>WHILE doing all the TA duty, you are still doing research work for your advisor, so essentially you are being TA plus RA … So, pure RA is a much better bet. Another way to look at this is: teaching does not help you in your dissertation in any way, only the lab work does. So it’s at your best advantage to spend as much time in lab as possible… to graduate faster.</p>
<p>However most programs will make you do both, like mom said it differs from school to school. But usually a PhD student do not get to graduate without teaching for a few terms.</p>
<p>Back to Brahmin’s question… admission committee won’t let you in because you have some teaching experience. But among the admitted students, IF one has some teaching background, they may put you as TA instead of RA more frequently (which is really a bad thing). All in all… back to the topic of this thread… teaching experience does not matter.</p>
<p>Mr.Zoo, are you already a graduate student?</p>
<p>Because many graduate students I’ve spoken to have told me that, to their surprise, working as a teaching assistant can come as a welcome change to round-the-clock, research-only pursuits.</p>
<p>I, for one, am pretty upset I wasn’t able to squeeze in a TA-ship into my schedule this past fall (though not because I think it would have helped with grad school admissions or anything).</p>
<p>Yes I’m in a PhD program right now, and I’ve worked as a TA for my master’s degree for tuition waiver purpose, so I’ve TA’ed for maybe 3-4 terms so far.</p>
<p>In my previous post I have said working as TA “although sometimes it could be rewarding.” </p>
<p>So yes it will surely change the boring lab-office routine of your PhD lifestyle for a while, but to me it is a waste of time. Simply because the hours I put on teaching could be used to run more experiments and to fasten my graduation. Personally I will NOT go into academia after graduation, so I don’t have the passion for teaching. But if you are not in hurry to finish your phd in 3 years, then sure there is no harm and it’s nice experience to have.</p>
<p>Speaking of the ups—you get to chat with the current undergrad students, just to see what’s new and remind you of the old days. Also by teaching a course, it really solidify your understanding of that material, assuming you have to hold office hours answering students questions.</p>