<p>How much teaching do professors actually do? Is there a high percentage of TA's who teach? Or are TA's more of the paper-grading, office-hour type? I'm most concerned about social science departments (political science, sociology, psychology).</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I’d check with the department heads – when I was there it varied, depending on the major.</p>
<p>All lectures were taught by professors. Some courses (Math, Physics, Chemistry, Mechanics) had lectures and recitations – the lectures were taught by profs and the recitations were taught by grad assistants. Just about all labs (Physics, Chemistry, all my Metallurgy labs) were covered by grad assistants. All my non-lab engineering courses were taught by profs. My non-engineering electives that weren’t lecture-size were taught by profs. When I was in grad school I taught one lab; of course, we grad assistants were convinced that we did a better job than the profs would have. In some courses the grad assistants were virtually independent, including making up tests and grading them; the level of difficulty varied widely in the Mechanics department. So I’d check with the departments that you’re interested in.</p>