<p>To all Juniors and Seniors in Eng Dept - what percentage of classes are being taught by a professor vs TA ? Are profs really interested in doing research and seldom teach the classes on their own ?</p>
<p>I’m a first year AE student, but I can answer this question. All classes in engineering departments are taught by professors. TAs typically only teach recitations, which are like a mandatory study group you take with a class. The only classes I’ve heard TAs teach are circuits (2 hours course most engineering majors are required to take; offered by the ECE department) and a calc 3 class in the summer semester.</p>
<p>In every class this year, professors have always taught lectures. The one time I had a TA teach, it was because the professor had to go out of town. Most professors are pretty average at Tech. I’ve had maybe 3 or 4 this year that are truly excellent and teach pretty well.</p>
<p>If you had 3 or 4 excellent professors in your first year, I think GT is doing pretty well.</p>
<p>rawr7777 and Moreover - thank you for your input.</p>
<p>My son is thinking about BME major and we are visiting this weekend. We will get better idea after the visit.</p>
<p>You’ll occasionally see PhD students teaching in the engineering department. These usually happy in the very early survey classes for other majors, for example “Introduction to Biomedical Engineering for non-Biomedical Engineering majors”, which would be a 1000 level course.</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that these aren’t any grad students that teach the courses, they are ABD PhD Candidates, so they are PhD students who have 4+ years in the PhD program, and have passed all of these classes and comprehensive examinations. The only difference between an ABD student and an assistant professor (pre-tenure) is defense of a dissertation, which is not really something that affects the ability to teach an intro class.</p>
<p>for computer science upper level classes (4000s), all of my classes were taught by professors, usually in their specialization. These classes were usually much more interesting as a result since the professors had a strong insight into the current research/trends. </p>
<p>Review sessions were usually done by TAs</p>
<p>Sounds good… Really hope I get accepted. My current top choice from where I’ve been admitted is UT Austin but GA Tech ranks number 1 in my book. </p>
<p>I hope to hear back soon as they’ve been evaluating my courses for transfer for the last two months now, lol. But only three courses left to be evaluated, after which I hope I am invited to continue my studies their as GA Tech is at the top of my list.</p>