<p>My sophomore son has had 1 TA teacher so far and the rest professors. The course with the TA was a popular course with several small sections; 2 sections was taught by a professor and the other 2 by TAs. The TA was a very good teacher. It was an introductory level course.</p>
<p>thanks. momyel. @DanAdmiss@Tufts - can you comment more on the TA/prof question? what pct of classes are taught by TAs in the Arts and Sciences college?</p>
<p>My son is a sophomore. All his classes have been taught by professors, even the intro ones. The recitation sections and labs are taught by TAs</p>
<p>Very very minimal TA classes</p>
bumping this useful information
My daughter is just finishing up her first semester at Tufts. She is from west Los Angeles, and she is very happy there. She went through the random match for a roommate and that has worked out very well. She was able to get into every class she wanted, is active in the campus radio station, and generally integrated into campus life seamlessly. I think a great deal of this is due to the unpretentious dynamic at Tufts overall, and the care taken to make sure students feel part of campus life immediately. As she put it, the students are smart, interesting and multidimensional, but not showy about it. She is in a more upper division English class which is challenging, but very fulfilling, and she’s now thinking about English as a major. So, so far the English department has been satisfactory. She is making friends from all over, and doesn’t seem to have been affected by any east coast insularity or attitude. She goes to frat parties on the weekends, has no interest in going Greek, and is enjoying the social aspects and has not mentioned any sense of not being accepted or included. It seems that there is some fluidity at the school in terms of social activity, and that kids hang out with whom they like, and easily have friends from different “cliques,” if any actually exist in the negative sense.
We are not wealthy, she is on a monthly budget and she hasn’t said that it’s hampered her in any way socially or otherwise. There are definitely wealthy kids at Tufts, as there are at every private east coast college/university, but she seems to have made friends across the spectrum. She went to a private high school (where she was quite accustomed to being among the least affluent of the class), and her closest friends at Tufts hail from both public and private school backgrounds.
As far as safety, she does like to run in the later afternoon or evening, alone. We’ve talked about this, and she says she feels completely safe. There are generally students out and about at all hours. We visited campus twice this year, and do feel that walking across campus at night seems very safe, as does taking the half mile walk to Davis.
Just as a side note, one reason I think my daughter feels comfortable at night in the area, is due to her having taken a semester long self-defense class at her all girls’ high school. This has made us also more relaxed about it. The company was extremely reputable and taught the girls all sorts of skills for dealing with verbal, as well as physical intrusions. I highly recommend such a class for every girl going off to college, and not just a 3 hour class. Young women and girls have to deal with some obnoxious (and perhaps worse) impositions on their space, and the verbal tools are particularly important. Learning how how to firmly but safely establish boundaries with male peers or others is essential.
good Luck!
I couldn’t agree more with the above post. My son is in his first year and likes it very much, with very similar feelings about the school though with different majors. And as the father of a daughter in college in Chicago, I couldn’t agree more with the other issues he brought up.