<p>I am beginning to get the impression that important undergrad math/physics classes are taught by TAs. This is somewhat disturbing. My son who is currently visiting UChicago tells me that he attended two classes - a honors level calculus and quantum mechanics. Apparently, both of them were taught by TAs. He didn't complain about it but I am wondering if this is common in undergrad classes.</p>
<p>Many introductory math classes (including Calculus classes) are taught by current grad students (PhD candidates for example). I don’t think quantum mechanics is currently taught by a grad student. It is very rare at the University for science classes to be taught by grad students. I have taken 12 courses at this university and one of them was taught by a PhD candidate. It was actually really good!</p>
<p>And honestly also - though I know that one might be under the impression that classes being taught by TAs are the devil - having a bright, young TA whose research is on the cutting edge of whatever field you’re learning is not a bad thing at all. </p>
<p>As you make your way to more advanced classes, you’ll rarely, if ever, be taught by TAs. Introductory level classes are more likely (Honors Calc is tough stuff, but it’s still a first year course).</p>
<p>In what way then UChicago is different from large public universities where Profs have a tendency to delegate mundane undergrad teaching task to grad students?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Because it only happens in a few introductory courses, and in very-small-group sections of those courses.</p></li>
<li><p>Because, unless you are talking about Berkeley or Michigan, on average the grad students in your classroom at Chicago are going to be much better grad students. (There are other state universities where they will be equivalent or better in one field, but not likely in all of them.) Chicago is one of the top math departments in the world; your math TA is a star.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Also, most state universities have first-year grad students, or even undergrads, teaching as TAs, whereas at Chicago (and other peers) only more advanced grad students are teaching.</p>
<p>Also, how many places do actual math professors teach basic Calculus? It’s like foreign language – it would be an incredible waste of resources to have a professor of French literature teach French I.</p>
<p>I will say that I think most of the Honors Calculus sections at Chicago are taught by actual faculty (including some post-docs), and all of the inquiry-based sections and alternative higher first math courses.</p>
<p>Thanks JHS, UChicagoGrad and Dvine Comedy for your answers. I have a better picture now.</p>
<p>ARD - a quick story from many moons ago. the postdoc who was meant to teach our first year math class was replaced by a colleague at the last minute. the first postdoc is a full professor and was until recently the chair of the math department at some unaccredited institution in new haven CT. the fill-in second post doc is now the president of the university of chicago, having had an entire field of mathematics named for him along the way. Echoing JHS, these folks aren’t exactly chopped liver…</p>
<p>Grad students are usually NOT allowed to teach honors classes and quantum mechanics. Let us look at the current time schedules for evidence of this:</p>
<p>[University</a> of Chicago Time Schedules](<a href=“http://timeschedules.uchicago.edu/view.php?dept=PHYS&term=81]University”>University of Chicago Time Schedules)</p>
<p>This quarter, quantum mechanics is taught by Melvyn Shochet, a distinguished service professor (i.e., one of the most respected professors at the university). </p>
<p>[University</a> of Chicago Time Schedules](<a href=“http://timeschedules.uchicago.edu/view.php?dept=MATH&term=81]University”>University of Chicago Time Schedules)</p>
<p>All 8 Honors Calculus courses except 1 are taught by L.E. Dickson instructors (as you can check here: [Department</a> of Mathematics: Faculty](<a href=“http://www.math.uchicago.edu/people/]Department”>People | Department of Mathematics | The University of Chicago)). The other is taught by an advanced graduate student who’s about to get his PhD, but even this is usually extraordinary rare. If one does not feel comfortable being taught by an advanced graduate student, they are always free to move to one of the other seven sections.</p>
<p>phuriku, is it possible that in Quantum Mechanics the occasional Friday lecture might be given on a guest basis by one of the grad-student TAs who would ordinarily be leading a discussion section, or by some other grad student? That certainly happened when I was in college, in another part of the country and in another part of the curriculum. My Introduction to Philosophy course, for example, was taught by an Associate Professor, but when we were doing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, one of the classes was taught by a grad student who had just completed a thesis on the concept of friendship in Book IV (a relatively obscure piece of Aristotle) and was waiting to defend it. It was a sensational class; obviously, the guy was completely engaged with the text we were studying. (Clearly a great lecture: I remember it 35 years later!)</p>
<p>I just want to add that my son loved UChicago even though the two classes he attended were taught by TAs.</p>
<p>JHS: I haven’t really heard of that before, at least in the physics and mathematics departments. It is a tradition to let graduate student graders lecture for one class period a quarter, usually near the end of the given quarter. However, graduate students also fill in to lecture occasionally when professors leave for a week or so to lecture at or attend a math/physics conference. For instance, our TA for Honors Analysis taught for an entire week when Paul Sally had to go to the East Coast for a lecture. Given the prominence of the professor of quantum physics this quarter, I would say that this is the more likely scenario. Naturally, prominent professors attend/give lectures in higher frequency than those of less prominence.</p>
<p>I forgot, however, that quantum mechanics DOES have a discussion section every week. I think this is somewhat akin to a problem session, and although I haven’t taken the course myself (even though I specialize in the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics), I’m fairly sure that the graduate student assistant teaches this section. Of course, professors/lecturers never teach problem sessions, so this is only natural.</p>