Northwestern vs. Rice vs. CMU vs. UMich

College Search & Selection
41

<p>keefer/alexandre,
The TA data is not "anti-Michigan garbage" (though I can understand why you would want to suppress it). The information that I have presented on the frequency of use of TAs is taken directly from USWNR. I am not making this stuff up. If you think that the 14% number that they provide is inaccurate, then I suggest you take it up with them. </p>

<p>Re your comment on student status of the TA, I have not claimed that they are undergraduate students (I think that it was ucb who implied they should be considered as peers). </p>

<p>As for the quality of TAs, I often hear comments such as those of gd016 above (# 35) and which unambiguously express a preference for an educational system without TAs. I support the view that most students would greatly prefer to have a professor rather than a TA as their instructor. If you would prefer a TA, then go for it. I think you are in a rather small minority. </p>

<p>If you object to my use of TA data as being a clue on what a student will experience in the classroom at these colleges, perhaps you will permit a few other data points that illustrate the classroom environment and reinforces the conclusions suggested by the TA data:</p>

<p>Student/Faculty Ratio</p>

<p>5/1 Rice
7/1 Northwestern
11/1 Carnegie Mellon
15/1 U Michigan</p>

<p>% of classes with fewer than 20 students</p>

<p>75% Northwestern
68% Rice
65% Carnegie Mellon
44% U Michigan</p>

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<p>
[quote]
% of classes taught by TAs</p>

<p>0% Rice
0% Carnegie Mellon
14% U Michigan
na Northwestern

[/quote]

Claims like the above raise a number of questions: 1) do they have TA's at Rice and CMU? 2) if so, what are the roles and responsibities of these TA's?</p>

<p>I did some quick research through the CMU website and this is what I found:</p>

<p>CMU does employ TA's and in fact, deploy them en masse. For example, the Department of Chemistry requires that every PhD students to teach for two semesters as a Teaching Assistant, either as a recitation TA, laboratory TA, or a grader/course assistant as part of their PhD requirements. "The duties of a Teaching Assistant require approximately 15–20 hours per week. Note that TA duties are one of the primary sources of financial support..." Btw, TA's are not limited to PhD students, Master and even undergraduate TA's are not uncommon.</p>

<p>So what are the roles and responsibilities of the CMU TA's? The Philosophy Dept defines them as follows: (Ref:Teaching Assistant Handbook)</p>

<p>"Teaching assistants (TAs) and graders in the Carnegie Mellon Philosophy Department are an integral part of undergraduate education. In this role, you will assist the faculty in the instruction, advising, and evaluation of students...</p>

<p>TAs. In addition to attending classes, grading assignments, maintaining grade records, and holding office hours, TAs run recitation sections for the course... In general, the TAs are expected to direct a discussion about the material in the course during these recitations, and are not expected to introduce the students to new material..."</p>

<p>This sounds very similar to the roles TA's play at schools like Michigan.</p>

<p>But are ALL courses taught by professors? To answer this question, I did a quick scan of the Fall 2008 course schedule. I didn't have to look very far ... just the usual suspects. Here's what I found:</p>

<p>82131 Elementary Chinese I - TA's are fully responsible for 4/8 sections (A-Shuai Li; B-Yun Zhao; C-Wenhao Diao; G-Dongho Zhang)</p>

<p>82171 Elementary Japanese I - TA's are fully responsible for 2/8 sections (A-Ponjo Reddy; C-Eric Wallace)</p>

<p>TA's are also widely used to take full responsibilities of the two First-Year English courses:</p>

<p>76-100 Reading and Writing for an Academic Context - TA's are fully responsible for 2/6 sections (A-Rosa Bahamondes Rivera; D-Ashley Karlin)</p>

<p>76-101 Interpretation and Argument - TA's are fully responsible for at least 3 sections (A-Kari Lundgren; AA-Eric Vazquez; CC-Eric Hanbury; etc.)</p>

<p>80100 Introduction to Philosophy - David Gray, a graduate TA, is fully responsible for one of the three lectures (Lec 3)</p>

<p>Many of the lower courses are taught by lecturers and teaching professors (non-tenure track) just like other big research universities.</p>

<p>I'm sure there are more if I keep digging at the other intro course, but you get the picture. So when you look at these kinda quantitative data from USNWR, take it with a very large grain of salt.</p>

43

<p>^ But "The facts are:"...:rolleyes:</p>

44

<p>
[quote]
I think that TAs are a very poor replacement for a full-time faculty member who has a lot of experience teaching.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And as far as I can tell, only YOU are alleging that Graduate Student Instructors are "REPLACING" professors. Students on several campuses have informed you that TAs/GSIs are typically used for discussion sessions that come as an accompaniment to the professor-taught lecture. </p>

<p>I think it's ALSO clear that institutions use different definitions for a "course" or "class" as far as TA's are concerned. CMU doesn't, apparently, count those discussion sections, whereas U-M does. Frankly, it suggests to me that differences in reporting are a credible explanation for the differences in numbers. Yet you claim they reflect an actual difference in student experience. How can you know that for sure? </p>

<p>I think GoBlue is right about the fact that USNews numbers can be interpreted in misleading ways. "Take it up with USNews" isn't enough of an answer, IMO--does it not also fall to us, the adults who are attempting to guide young people as they inquire about colleges, to NOT perpetuate misinterpretation?</p>

45

<p>Northwestern University Wildcats because they have a great political science department and an awesome wrestling team.</p>

<p>However the Rice University Owls are a close second, as they have a great theater department.</p>

46

<p>Um... Rice doesn't have a theatre department, though student theatre among the residential colleges is quite popular - 4 theatre productions are debuting tomorrow alone among the different residential colleges.</p>

<p>Your attempt at humor is grossly lacking. ;) Does NU even have a wrestling team?</p>

47

<p>
[quote]
Michigan is an extrodinary graduate school and attracts the top students to its grad programs. These TAs are among the best young apprentices of their fields. I don't see why this is a negative.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm current attending a school that's got some pretty top students as grad students, but I'd say most of my friends here would be pretty bad as TAs. It's actually amazing how with classes where there's a ton of recitations some sections are barely attended due to how poor the TAs are at teaching, and others will be completely packed because there's only 2-3 out of 10 TAs that are worth trying to learn from.</p>

<p>I'd definitely say the recitations and TA sessions here have been less helpful than the ones at CMU. Also, at CMU I can only think of two classes I had that might have been taught by graduate students. My intro philosophy class (class size of around 60 or so) was co-taught by two senior grad students and supervised by a professor, and there were discussion sections of around 15-20 led by each TA. I think my freshman English class was also taught by a senior graduate student, but I imagine that's probably because CMU's English department isn't even big enough to teach all of the Interp & Argument sections that are available (class size is capped at 15 or 20 students in each class, so that's a LOT of teachers required for the ~1300 students a year taking it).</p>

<p>Also, I think undergrad TAs are actually a good thing. Unlike grad students, they'll actually have taken the same version of the class they're TAing, so they'll have a much better idea of what's going on in the class, what's interesting, and what's important to know for later classes in the major.</p>

48

<p>Of course Northwestern has a wrestling team.... It is a part of the famous Big 10 athletic conference....
I believe Northwestern wrestling is ranked within top ten nationally. :-P</p>

<p>EDIT: Hawkette: Michigan Wolverines vs. Northwestern Mildcats game Nov. 15 (TOMORROW 12:00PM) :D </p>

<p>E.S.P.N. = Everyone Scores Points on Northwestern! hahaha. I love ESPN sports. See you after the game Hawkette!</p>

49

<p>
[quote]
I'm current attending a school that's got some pretty top students as grad students, but I'd say most of my friends here would be pretty bad as TAs.

[/quote]

Racin, Caltech is full of introverted engineers so I'm not surprised. Would you say that the TAs are worse than the profs?</p>

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<p>^I have become more introverted since I moved to Los Angeles where everybody else seems to care more about Paris Hilton... :rolleyes:</p>

51

<p>
[quote]

CMU does employ TA's and in fact, deploy them en masse. For example, the Department of Chemistry requires that every PhD students to teach for two semesters as a Teaching Assistant, either as a recitation TA, laboratory TA, or a grader/course assistant as part of their PhD requirements.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>MIT (EECS) also has a similar requirement, as does UC Berkeley and indeed CMU's ECE (electrical and computer engineering) department. I don't recall any CMU ECE course though that was taught solely/led by TA's. Ditto for Math and Physics classes (including Calculus I). </p>

<p>Incidentally, a 4th-year PhD student serving as a TA in a top 10 department may be in many cases more knowledgeable than a LAC professor who got his/her PhD 10 or 15 years ago and hasn't done any further original scientific research since graduation.</p>

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<p>Hawkette,
Those schools are all research universities. I know of no research university that doesn't employ TAs. Teaching experience is considered an important part of graduate education. TA-ship was expected for all grad students at my grad school (unless you came in with gobs of outside money or something.) And I went to school at a smallish, private U with quite a bit of laymen's recognition, which is supposed to be "undergrad focused" according to what I'm reading on this board. As teachers some TAs were good while others were not, just like professors.
I am curious though. You don't seem to be fond of LACs. Classes are small and there are zero TAs there. Aren't LAC students getting a better education?</p>

53

<p>hotasice I am getting recruited by them for wrestling. It is one of the top 10 programs in the nation. Thanks for being offensive.</p>

54

<p>Diverting away from the faculty and educational debate, Carnegie Mellon is a totally different atmosphere with a focus on pre-professional majors and the job market. Along with a top design and theatre/drama school, CMU boasts as high or higher median/avg salaries as any Top 10 university for majors ranging from Engineering to Business to CS. </p>

<p>Even with the financial crises, top Wall St. firms like Merill Lynch, Goldman, NY Bank, UBS, and Deloitte still list CMU as a core recruit school and the salaries as well as postgrad emplyment surveys prove this. </p>

<p>From the technical side, CMU is among schools like Stanford/Berkeley/MIT for Engineering and CS jobs and salaries, with huge partnerships with Google and Microsoft (Gates Center is almost completed). </p>

<p>Relatively higher cost and less strong liberal arts are among CMU's weaknesses but I strongly recommend Carnegie Mellon to anyone who believes in the work hard-play hard mentality as your efforts will be rewarded upon graduation.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Racin, Caltech is full of introverted engineers so I'm not surprised. Would you say that the TAs are worse than the profs?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's like asking if I'd rather have you shoot me in my right or left foot.</p>

<p>I'd say that TAs are generally slightly better since they tend to emphasize the applications of the material over the massive derivations behind it. Learning why I'm learning something is always one of the best ways for me to actually care about learning it.</p>

56

<p>Are you at Caltech? You can afford to humor yourself there. lol
At my State U the choice was between an old prof who ignored the assigned textbook and just read from a notebook as old as he, or a TA who got stuck on a hard problem and was still staring at the blackboard in total embarrassment when the class was dismissed.</p>

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<p>Both of those have happened to me here at Caltech. ;)</p>

<p>(And at CMU. I think it's just one of those universal things.)</p>

58

<p>"Um... Rice doesn't have a theatre department, though student theatre among the residential colleges is quite popular - 4 theatre productions are debuting tomorrow alone among the different residential colleges."</p>

<p>We have a department of visual and dramatic arts... note the dramatic part.</p>

59

<p>Phead, I thought it might be worth mentioning that Michigan lost to us last weekend 21-14 :)
Everybody scores points on Northwestern? Tell that to Michigan and the 7 other teams that have lost to us this season!
Don't be a sore loser just because Northwestern trumps your school in every kind of ranking ;)</p>

60

<p>Phead,
You clearly haven't followed FB closely. So far, the Wildcats have blanked opponents four times in the second half this season.</p>