<p>WTIDAD: Also, I would like to add that in several departments, the approach to teaching is totally personal at JHU. For example, writing seminars, one of the foremost national writing programs, has small classes with personal interaction. Hopkins' film program is also very personal, as are the drama/directing classes which are led by John Astin. Hopkins has different approaches for different areas, so it is probably best not to paint it with a broad brush, and certainly not compare it to what happened 30 or more years ago.</p>
<p>"so ,how do the people who dislike Graduate student TA's being in the oh -so -expensive classroom feel about Undergrads doing the same?"</p>
<p>The question was not about which kind of school is "better", but the real deal on TAs. Again, if the colleges thought that the TAs were a selling point, it would be all over their propaganda. THEY obviously don't think they are a good thing, and it is clear that most parents and students have no clue as to the extent of the use of TAs when going in.</p>
<p>This even shows up in the USNWR data, where (as I remember) there is a question regarding percentage of faculty with a terminal degree, but no question about the percentage of classroom time in which those without such training supervise/teach students.</p>
<p>(Even with the death of Saul Bellow, and the impending retirements of Chinua Achebe, John Ashberry, and William Weaver, I doubt that any of these schools - student for student - can touch the writing/literature program at Bard.)</p>
<p>Actually I (the OP) think in some cases that teaching assistants can be a feature rather than a bug, but I was just asking an informational question about how prevalently they are encountered in various kinds of courses at various kinds of colleges.</p>
<p>This has been a great thread but I think someone needs to synthesize it a bit more. Right now it tends to be comments about specific places without much comparison. I am not going to do the synthesis myself, but just make some broad comments. I do so as someone who both attended and has taught at some of the universities being mentioned.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There are substantial differences in policy and tradition between universities. For example, though all research universities have some big classes with TAs, there is quite a difference between them with regard to how much of the teaching is done this way. Tradition is more than just the size (or graduate focus) of the university, though size (and graduate focus) is important. Traditions change slowly so that a place you may have been at 20 years ago probably has changed but also has some consistency.</p></li>
<li><p>Some universities put more pressure on senior professors to teach more for the undergraduates. Others are fairly unconcerned about this, and some senior faculty teach only a few very narrow undergrad classes at most. </p></li>
<li><p>Small freshman seminars have become common even at the big research universities. But this does not change the fact that the main part of teaching may be different.</p></li>
<li><p>Students can find it hard to choose between a brilliant scholar who is perhaps not so involved as a teacher, and a really good teacher who is perhaps not so brilliant.</p></li>
<li><p>The idea that a great researcher is a great teacher is the biggest piece of nonsense of university presidents.</p></li>
<li><p>Upper class courses are almost always small. A student who opts quickly out of the low level courses can find intimate experiences at any university, as long as there is not a problem of getting into the small classes. At some universities, undergrads can also get into grad classes as early as their sophmore year. They can find themselves in the same class as their TA! In this respect, graduate program can be an asset (though I am not sure about how comfortable it would be to take a class with your TA in a different class).</p></li>
<li><p>If parents and students pressure administrations, the administrations will respond. Undergrads help pay for the university unlike grad students. Use this power!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>ivyalumni: amen especially to points 5 and 6 which are quite true!
I took available graduate level courses as an undergraduate (Columbia, 30 years ago). When DS arrived at JHU last fall he enrolled in two upper level courses first semester to assure himself of small classes.</p>
<p>So many posts by undergrad TAs at Ivy schools arguing FOR TAs - Sounds a bit pretentious to me.</p>
<p>I too was an Ivy undergrad TA (Cornell), with no experience and no training on how to be a teacher. Do we really think we were "as good" or "better" than the professors? Doubtful. </p>
<p>My experience:
Psych - 1000 students, never met the professor, undergrad TAs.
Chem and Bio - both over 600 students, Grad TAs for lab who hated it - just a requirement for them. Never met profs there either.</p>
<p>In comparison, my D is at a LAC, largest class 30 (intro to econ), all taught by professors, and is loving it.</p>
<p>Professors don't have training in how to be teachers either. Unless they were TAs:)</p>
<p>A smaller class doesn't mean that it's not a lecture class. Some people are great lecturers, others are not.</p>
<p>But I really wanted to get back to the OP about creative writing classes. I don't know anything about Brown, but I do know about writing and writing workshops, and I would pick the university that opens many more workshops to students even if they are led by TAs. How many students at Harvard submit a portfolio to Seamus Heaney as freshman, get rejected, are crushed, and assume they have no talent? LACs may be great places for learning writing but they suffer another drawback, which is that with a small faculty, what if that writer's aesthetic is dramatically different from a student's? Nowhere to go then with your writing, if the two poets on faculty hate your stuff.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the OP's S at Brown has gotten the best of all worlds, in that he went some place that allowed him to try out physics, plus gave him access to writing workshops. Then, as he progressed, gave him access to writing workshops with some pros. This, of course, leaves aside the question of who makes a good workshop leader -- which in my experience has little to do with how long someone has been writing, or how much you like their work or respect their name.</p>
<p>Perhaps the question about class size, or LAC vs university, is at heart one about mentoring. How available are professors to students in terms of offering advice, discussing work, guiding them to the next step? Students don't necessarily need personal relationships with everyone who teaches them. They do need at least a couple of professors who will make themselves available in office hours.</p>
<p>Agree, and this is utterly OT, but when I was an undergrad in a summer lit program in Ireland/England, I once babysat for Seamus Heaney's kids.</p>
<p>Okay, trivia break over now.:)</p>
<p>FWIW, SarahsDad, Cornell, while being an Ivy, is so different in terms of size that it is difficult/unfair to compare the Cornell experience to other Ivies in this regard.</p>
<p>And mini, I disagree. Some places do not view TAs as a bad thing. In fact, our Computer Science department, which has a robust system of undergraduate TAs (the only department here I know of that employees seriously large number of undergraduates) advertises this fact as a point of pride. Being that Brown is one of the best school to study computer science, I think they feel that that system is working well for them and love to tell people about our extensive programs.</p>
<p>Now, undergraduate TAs at Brown are never used as instructors, and 90% of the time are there to help in a "problem session" type atmosphere. For instance, while labs are led by graduate student TAs in introductory chem, we do have "roaming" undergraduate TAs who walk amongst all of the labs each day to add some experienced lab hands around for teaching technique and to catch mistakes, etc.</p>
<p>Sac, btw, hit the nail on the head-- that's the important set of questions people aren't asking but should be. Are professors accessible and capable as mentors, and are they accessible as people to present ideas regarding the material and concerns? This is what matters.</p>
<p>SAC:</p>
<p>Your comments are really welcome.
[quote]
Students don't necessarily need personal relationships with everyone who teaches them. They do need at least a couple of professors who will make themselves available in office hours.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think that's so true! We all remember one or two profs (or in some cases TAs) who really inspired and motivated us.</p>
<p>My experience mirrors SarahsDad's. Ok I wasn't a TA.</p>
<p>That was a long time ago, and hopefully the situation has improved.
But LACs sounded a lot more appealing to my kids.</p>
<p>I heard similar things from others who attended school at that time though. Princeton is held up as a model of undergraduate focus, yet I have an acquaintance who left there after freshman year, telling his family that they were basically wasting their money.</p>
<p>And nobody is ever reporting great, warm fuzzies from Harvard.</p>
<p>We've heard not that great things , third hand, from a recent Yale graduate, not only about teaching methds but also the overly stressful environement being actually academically limiting. This corresponds to my own experience.</p>
<p>I sat at an alumni function a year ago,and the person across the table basically echoed my views. The problem was not just the huge classes and the TAs, it was that the school was too tough to really enjoy the ride. You got through it, came out exceptionally well trained, but not many touchy-feely good vibes in the end. Both of us were in the sciences, maybe that's relevant.</p>
<p>I thought this was particular to my school, but during D1s college hunt it seemed like a number of the selective schools we visited had elements of academic pressure cookers, with many stressed and unhappy students just getting through. Personally I think this is the bigger concern.</p>
<p>When it gets to the point that you steer away from some courses you'd otherwise like to take because its work demands might be too great, or the students in that class might be too competitive in it, or they curve it to deliberately give low grades as a "weeder".etc, then maybe you'd be better off someplace else where you can stretch your wings a bit more freely.</p>
<p>From what I can tell, the product D1 is getting from her LAC is vastly superior to what I got. D2, still too early to say.</p>
<p>SarahsDad...speaking for myself, I am not advocating for TAs. I agree with SAC about mentoring. I don't think this is a university vs. LAC issue. I do think LACs are great. But you mention that your D is in a LAC where all the classes total under 30. I can tell you at my own university and at the ones that both my kids attend, most of their classes are also under thirty. Some are much smaller than that. At my D's Ivy, every professor teaches undergraduates. Her school has an open curriculum so if you care about class size, you can pick and choose.</p>
<p>I personally think what is of issue is the contact with mentors and professors. I know that both of my kids have very close contact with many faculty members, like you indicate at your D's LAC. At Brown, my D has done independent studies one on one with faculty. My kids are in email contact with faculty and meet one on one with them if they so desire. For my kid at NYU, one faculty person has been mentoring her outside the classroom and paying her to do professional work for her in this field and giving her great opportunities outside of school. My D goes to her place of residence frequently. Even in study abroad through another university, my kid who goes to the Ivy school, had 2/3's of her coursework with ONE professor and just six kids...the bulk of her academic component abroad, including weekend trips with the professor. My D at Brown can meet anytime with the head of the department and she has. So, I don't see this as much as U vs. LAC or size of class....but about personal contact with faculty in whatever setting and in whatever capacity. </p>
<p>As far as Writing Workshops at Brown, a poster indicated that it was hard to get into (must be based on a form of being accepted into) the more advanced workshops with faculty (apparently TAs taught the lower level workshops). However, SOME DO get in (so the lower level writing workshops worked for some students). I think what you will find in a very selective school (I see this at both my kids' schools) is that the talent pool is strong and so it isn't so easy to get chosen for this or that, when a lot of people there are very strong at whatever it is.</p>
<p>My own child never chose her school because it was an Ivy. She had criteria she wanted in a college and her list had some schools that happened to be Ivies, some other very selective Us or LACs. She just went for particular criteria she wanted in the experience. However, in this thread, which speaks of "ivies", there is a grouping of them all in one lump and all Ivies are different. All U's are different, and so on.</p>
<p>D is a junior at Harvard. This year she has her JR tutorial (Hist and Lit) one on one, professor of choice. Soph tutorial was 5 on 2. Her largest class, Justice (if she gets in) is capped at 1000. 1500 showed up for shopping period (very popular). The vast majority of her classes have been less than 15, some with "name" professors like Harvey Mansfield (class of 30) and Jamaica Kincaid (class of 10).</p>
<p>One thing every parent should do is encourage their children at college to make an effort to see their professors during office hours. You would be amazed at how few undergrads come to office hours, and when they do it is usually just to ask for an extension etc. Faculty are impressed by students who are actually interested in the material. They can become cynical by the many students who appear to care more filling requirements, getting good grades and moving on to a professional career. Of course, any student should use normal common sense. There are sleezy professors out there, as well as mean or unpleasant ones. But there are always good faculty who believe in the role of teaching and mentoring in a very positive way.</p>
<p>I believe that the initiative of students can be even more important than the particular college they are attending. College students may have been at high schools where the teachers do 6 classes a day which certainly makes it hard to make time for students outside of class. College teachers may be teaching just 4-6 hours a week and also often are really enthusiastic with their area of research and teaching.</p>
<p>(this comes from an experienced college teacher)</p>
<p>I can report some warm fuzzies from Harvard. Seminar in Chinese landscape painting with five students sitting around a table. A design class where the prof sat at your table for critiques every day. (Always prefaced by "would you like a breathmint?") I also took several lecture courses with a guy with a stong Austrian accent, who turned out not to be hard to understand once you got used to him. There was a TA who helped out, but that prof insisted on discussing paper topics with every student and went over the papers in person afterwards. I ended up writing a senior thesis with him. </p>
<p>As for writing a friend of mine took a creative writing course - she wrote children's books unlike most of her classmates. That prof introduced her to the editor at Little Brown and she had her first book published before she graduated and the second shortly afterwards.</p>
<p>One nice thing about the extended shopping period at Harvard is that you don't have to take courses with lousy professors unless they are required by your major.</p>
<p>I do think however that the professors who end up teaching at LACs are - in general and especially in the sciences - more interested in teaching than in research.</p>
<p>When my son visited Harvard, the friend he was staying with took him to her Nobel-laureate-taught, 15-student freshman seminar and her cast-of-thousands Gen Chem lecture. He was bowled over at how great both were.</p>
<p>I agree completely with ivyalumni, by the way. I had wonderful personal relationships with a number of professors at my university, but it definitely started by walking into their offices, prepared.</p>
<p>My feeling at the time was the profs basically didn't want to see me during office hours. (As an undergrad; when I was a grad there everything was quite different). They had TAs to help me with all my "little" problems, and it was more or less expected that we would bother the TAs, and not the profs. That's part of what the TAs were there for.</p>
<p>But that was just one person's experience, a long time ago.</p>
<p>Profs vary enormously. There was a world famous prof at Harvard who insisted that his graduate students make an appointment in writing two weeks in advance if they wanted to see him (he had no undergraduates); but he was notorious.
My S has been lucky with his profs--after he finally plucked the courage to go and talk to them. He sent an email to one during the summer, asking for some advice and was invited to drop by the prof's office to discuss his interests. Another volunteered to guide him in his readings, again over the summer. Neither was his advisor, who has also been quite helpful. As a freshman, however, he was much more reticent and reluctant to go to profs' offices except to have his study card signed. Even though some of his classes were quite small, he did not really cultivate a close rapport with the instructors. I expect much of the responsibility lies with him.</p>
<p>There was an old prof in the English dept at Brown whose office hours were 9-5 daily, except when teaching. He was amazing; brought his students to tears during lectures. When I called home to my Mom to rave about him and mentioned his name she gasped: she'd had him at Berkeley and loved him--he was not given tenure at UCB because he didn't publish enough.</p>