The only TAs my D had in engineering at Purdue were for breakout recitations of large lectures. The lectures were all taught by professors.
She did have a grad student teaching an elective leadership course outside CoE but that was it.
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My H graduated from Penn State in 1991 I believe and he still complains about how horrible the TA’s were for his upper level math classes.
I wanted to follow up on your comments, especially now that my daughter has made a choice. Yes there is a world where a student could apply and be accepted to both Cornell and a Penn State Branch campus. That is exactly what happened to my daughter. Personally, I know she is smart enough that she could have handled the rigor of Cornell if she wanted to (although the aura of the Ivy League student did scare her) She was waitlisted at University Park, so the branch would have been her only option. Would it have been too easy? That I don’t know about. There was some comfort in knowing all the classes were small and it would have been like high school . She didn’t apply for honors at the branch campus, because if she would have attended, she only planned to be there for one year. Plus, to be honest, she didn’t want to have to take the English classes over again, which would have been a requirement for the honors program. Using her dual enrollment credits is how she plans to have room for a minor or double major.
In the end my daughter had acceptances at Cornell, Virginia Tech, Penn State (starting at Altoona), St Francis and Iowa State. Those were the only schools she applied to. She committed to Iowa State. Penn State was just too close to home with too many people she knew and the more she thought about it, the less she wanted to do one year at Altoona and then switch and be a new student all over again at University Park. This really turned her off. Plus, Altoona just felt super small and dead. The waitlist to University Park really did nothing to encourage her to like Penn State. Virginia Tech was too expensive and Cornell didn’t feel like the right fit when we toured (plus the financial aid application with our farm was turning out to be a nightmare to compete). Iowa wanted her, she connected with the students and the price was affordable and they seem really willing to help her try fo double major. Not as cheap as commuting to Penn State Altoona, but we can manage it.
As to Penn State, look to see them continue to increase out of state tuition. They know students want to come to Penn State from all over and are willing to pay full freight. I believe they are going to try to benefit from that. Unfortunately, that will continue to hurt our lower paying in state students. I fear we will see them try to push more and more of them to branch campuses so that they can make room for those full price students. This is just my opinion as a Pennsylvania resident. Plus, they need to start showing value at those branch campuses to keep them running. At some point, Penn State is going to have to determine what they want their future to look like. I’d love to see them take a campus like Altoona and actually grow it back to what it was 15 years ago.
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