<p>There was quite a long thread in the Parent Forum recently where a mom was complaining that her daughter had a foreign TA at Pitt that she could not understand. The prevailing opinion on the thread seemed to be that if you go to a state school you must expect that, esp in the sciences.</p>
<p>My question is, Is having TAs that you cannot understand a big problem at Pitt?</p>
<p>Sorry, I don’t know enough about TAs at Pitt–my son has only just completed his first week there–so my reply is going to be more of a side comment. Anyway, I noticed that you also started a thread about the computer science program at Pitt and I just wanted to say that if your son/daughter is considering a career in computer science, he/she might actually benefit from getting some early exposure to foreign accents. I know firsthand that all the major computer companies have, over the years, established large presences abroad. In fact, most of the new hires these days are outside the US. In turn, this means that I have to routinely collaborate not only with foreigners who have relocated to the US and speak English with an accent–of whom I, too, am one–but also increasingly with people who work for American companies but continue to live in their native countries and therefore have an even heavier accent and/or worse command of English as a result. This is a sign of the globalized economy that our sons and daughters will, like it or not, be a part of.</p>
<p>I will also say, as another side comment, that when reading the thread that you are referring to I noticed that some posters stated that they sent their kids to small LACs precisely to avoid a situation in which a foreign TA might be hard to understand and therefore negatively impact the quality of education. Ironically, I also found another recent thread on the Parent Forum where the parent of a kid who attends a small LAC complains that the kid’s assignments are graded by an undergraduate student who, in addition to not being very knowledgeable also acts as a gate keeper, limiting direct access to the professor and therefore negatively impacting the quality of education. So you’re right to be asking these questions during the college selection process, just know that there are pros and cons to each school and the best you can do is to make an informed decision. Good luck!</p>
<p>It’s not really a problem. In my experience you can tell some of the TAs are foreign because they have an accent but they are understandable.</p>
<p>My son is also a freshman (comp sci) and he has said his first 2 TAs are fine.</p>
<p>I have never had a problem, but honestly, in any job you enter, (and yes, especially the sciences) you are going to have to deal with people who have thick accents. </p>
<p>To jump off of what TomisMom was saying… This is the world today. Kids complain about how hard it is to understand their TAs, when in reality, they need to get used to it! I have had foreign teachers, foreign TAs, foreign researchers, and everything else in between. People need to learn how to listen to different accents, because there is no escaping it. So I think having foreign TAs is actually useful- it gets you used to hearing people in different accents and I think it prepares you for what the real world is like.</p>
<p>Though I understand it can be frustrating, especially when your grade is in question, students need to get over it!</p>
<p>
Particularly frustrating if you are paying to be taught instead of getting paid for “any job you enter”.</p>
<p>I understand, but it’s the real world. Maybe if your job isn’t related to the sciences, you won’t experience as many foreign co-workers (I dont know what other fields are like), but you certainly will in science. I’m on co-op and we have a lot of foreign workers here and we are making connections with people in China. My research was with an Indian professor. One of my advisors was from Nigeria. College isn’t just about learning the material, it is also about learning how to interact with different kinds of people which in my opinion is just as, if not more, important. Grades are important, but there is certainly more to be learned here than just textbook subjects. Trust me.</p>
<p>Yes- some TAs may be completely hard to understand. But sometimes I feel as though people give them unnecessary smack for not being able to speak perfect English. I’m an engineering student, and I’ve had foreign TAs (and teachers), and they’re not bad. However, a lot of people continue to complain about TAs because of the way they talk and I think it goes beyond what is really true. It’s really quite unfair. </p>
<p>And I’m not trying to blame anyone on this thread for being insensitive etc., I would just like to make a point.</p>
<p>But I digress- back to the poster’s main question. I agree with schrizto, it is not an issue to be worried about.</p>
<p>My daughter has taken physics, chem, calc, etc. No complaints about accents, but she has always been a GREAT listener and unfortunately, many young students today are not. Present company excepted of course.</p>
<p>Often there will be more than one TA in charge of recitation sections. If he/she is really impossible for a student to understand, I’m sure she can ask to change to one of the other sections. A different foreign TA may be easier to understand. By the way, TA’s get paid very little for teaching - their payment comes in the form of a graduate school tuition waiver.</p>
<p>
Of course any student can ASK to change sections. However there is no guarantee that either the professor will allow it or that there is any room in any of the other sections.</p>
<p>There are also teacher office hours and tutoring available on campus. For my courses, the teacher always gives us the contact information of ALL the other TAs for the course. You can easily ask another TA for help, go to tutoring, or hey- ask the professor yourself! Or other in your class! If you are simply relying on the TA for help, you aren’t using all your resources. You can easily find other ways to find someone who can teach you the material.</p>
<p>^^
Of course you can always find other ways to find someone who can teach you the material. Such as taking the course at a different college. Paying for tutoring (after paying for the course). The question isn’t “can you find other ways of learning the material”, but instead “why shouldn’t you expect to understand a TA’s English in an American college where you are paying tuition?”</p>
<p>agagles, it’s extremely unlikely that a TA for a class is so unintelligible that a student is forced to go elsewhere for help, so rest assured your concerns are a little unwarranted. If something like that even happened, there would be enough pressure from the complaints that the school would do something about it.</p>
<p>agagles :</p>
<p>Tutoring at Pitt is FREE. Pitt has TONS AND TONS of resources besides TAs. We have hundreds of students/graduate student tutors, there is the Academic Resource Center, the Chemistry tutoring center (The “Fishbowl”), the Physics Resource Center, the Writing Assistance Center, the Physics Assistant center, there is tutoring given by sororities, fraternities, different academic departments, student organizations… the list goes on, and I have barely scratched the surface.</p>
<p>If you are having with a TA and you still can’t find help somewhere… you’re just not looking. Pitt is a big school with big resources, one of it’s major advantages.</p>
<p>You have to expect many/mostly foreign-born TAs at any school, not just a public school. There aren’t enough native-born graduate students, and that’s the “fault” of those living here. In addition, our graduate schools are still attractive to students from overseas, even though they can’t stay here and work as easily as they used to. </p>
<p>The schools and the individual professors need graduate students. In the same vein, you shouldn’t expect the school to address a TA language/teaching problem unless it’s truly bad. The graduate student is there to conduct research and finish a thesis. There is little to no emphasis on training good teachers. Same as for professors; some are good teachers but the first priority is always research and publication. That’s just how it is. I was a TA at Pitt many years ago and received no instruction from school or department related to teaching or interacting with undergraduates. My purpose was to take some load off the professor. Just so you know.</p>
<p>The most helpful thing is for an undergraduate student to change mindset. It’s his/her responsibility to learn. Not the school/professor/TA responsibility to make sure they learn. As other posters have suggested, when there is a really bad language problem, find some other avenues for help. In most cases, though, you can get past the language issues with a proper mindset.</p>
<p>
I’ll agree 100% with this.
I think it is the the school/professor/TA responsibility to teach. You seem to think that a US school that charges $30K per year has no responsibility for the quality of teaching, teachers or their English language skills. Regardless of why there are not enough TAs or why they are willing to work for so little, I believe they should be expected to be fluent in English if teaching in a US college.</p>
<p>I didn’t get the sense from your original post that your daughter’s TA isn’t fluent in English, only that she has a thick accent. But in any case, what you’re describing above is an ideal scenario, while, sadly, so many things are far from ideal in our lives these days that I won’t even attempt to enumerate them. So one can engage in a philosophical debate about the state of higher education in the US, or one can accept the realilty for what it is and try to adapt to and even learn from it. What students and parents alike have been trying to say is that 1) the problem is not new, 2) the problem is not limited to Pitt or even to public universities and 3) the problem is neither insurmountable, nor widespread. It isn’t an easy thing to adjust to for an 18-year old, especially if she comes from a sheltered background and hasn’t had a lot of exposure to foreign accents, but like countless others before her she’ll manage in time. Good luck!</p>
<p>
Evidently parents and students and I agree that it is a problem.
Hopefully we can agree to disagree with your interpretation of whether expecting TAs and professors to speak fluent English while teaching in a US college as being an “idea situation”. I prefer to consider this expectation reasonable, regardless of how long it has been a problem and which schools other than Pitt have this problem.</p>
<p>TAs and professors do have the responsibility to teach, but I think it’s a different kind of responsibility than the kind expected of say, high school teachers. Professors and TAs are there to relay the information to the students and structure the class in a way that allows people to absorb the information or concepts well. And tabs are kept on things like these, at many schools (Pitt included) students are asked to fill out evaluation sheets on the TA and professor at the end of the semester, and among what we are asked to evaluate and comment on is their communication and teaching ability. </p>
<p>No one said that fluency in English should not be expected, of course it should be (and is). Foreign born TAs should have had a passable score on the TOEFL, their plan of study means they have to be able to write a thesis, communicate with colleagues and professors, and be able to get by in the Pittsburgh area, all in English. So if someone has enough proficiency to do the latter things, it shouldn’t be a stretch for them to have the proficiency to TA a class in English. Maybe they are not going to be the most eloquent and might have an accent or make occasional grammatical mistakes, but that shouldn’t be a big concern of yours if you understand what they are trying to communicate in class to you. </p>
<p>It looks like the general consensus on here by the students is that foreign TAs are not a big problem at Pitt, so agagles needs to calm down. All of the people who are saying it is a problem are parents who are at most speculating, since they’re not the ones sitting in the classrooms.</p>
<p>@aglages</p>
<p>Ideally, professors wouldn’t need to worry about funding their positions through grants and research and could concentrate solely on teaching. Ideally, there would be such an ample supply of professors and graduate students in the sciences that universities would have the luxury to pick and choose who they hire. This is what I meant by “ideal situation.” Yet that’s clearly not the case and, frankly, hasn’t been the case for the last 20-30 years, so it can’t have come as a surprise to you. How big of a “problem” you make this to be–or how you decide to go about it–is entirely up to you. I personally don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to Pitt, but others who do have stated that in their opinion this is not a big issue.</p>