<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I am just trying to see if there are any Harvard alumni or current students that could answer my question. For some reason I keep hearing that many undergraduate classes are taught by Teaching Assistants rather than professors. </p>
<p>a) What exactly is a Teaching Assistant?
b) Was it your experience that most of your classes was taught by teaching assistants?
c) Where does the professor get involved with teaching the class?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Propaganda. Disregard.</p>
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<p>many undergraduate classes are taught by Teaching Assistants </p>
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<p>Only three kinds of undergraduate courses are EVER taught by TAs at Harvard:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Introductory language courses. It is Harvard's policy to hire only native speakers to teach these courses.</p></li>
<li><p>Freshman writing. Some of the seminars will be led by published authors rather than faculty members.</p></li>
<li><p>High-school level math. If you need to catch up in math, grad students lead these courses in order to keep the section size under 12 students.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>And we don't call them TAs. We call them TFs (Teaching Fellows).</p>
<p>Just catching you up on the lingo.</p>
<p>Right. And at Harvard, we don't major--we concentrate. And upperclassmen don't live in dorms--we live in houses. </p>
<p>Because, obviously, the ways we say things sound so much better (or more pretentious...?)!</p>
<p>; -)</p>
<p>propoganda is a term that would more adequately describe the claim that for introductory language courses 'it is harvard's policy to hire only native speakers to teach these courses." </p>
<p>graduate students, many of them not native speakers, teach these courses. this is not a bad thing--it's sure good experience for the graduate students!--and is standard practice at most universities with grad programs.</p>
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<p>graduate students, many of them not native speakers, teach these courses.</p>
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<p>?? In what language have you seen a non-native speaker teaching first-year language at Harvard? (Besides, of course, Latin or Aramaic.) In Japanese, the teaching fellows are not graduate students -- they were just Japanese women who were incredible teachers. It would be very strange indeed if graduate students in Japanese at an American university had been brought up in Japan.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your posts, I found them very helpful. Of course you can not believe everything you hear but I thought that would be awkward to ask to an admissions officer. I really hope it is true what you say about the teaching fellows. It sounds like a very good policy. The reason why I was asking is because I am planning on transferring to Harvard and then applying to medical schools and I was nervous that if my teachers did not teach my classes or see me they would never write me any recommendations.</p>
<p>Oh yes and speaking about dorms/suites, care to describe a little more. What house do you live in? They only show like 1 sec of a suite in the video. I am a potential transfer so I am interested in the upper class housing.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>"Only three kinds of undergraduate courses are EVER taught by TAs at Harvard"</p>
<p>Teaching fellows are common as section leaders for many kinds of courses. You'll find some of Harvard's best pure teachers among them.</p>
<p>german, french, spanish.</p>
<p>Looking at this year's list in Romance languages, most of their names strongly suggest that they grew up in those languages. There are only a few English-sounding names (though who knows where they lived as children), and anyway, those individuals may be TF'ing non-introductory language courses or literature courses.</p>
<p>The following list of winners of Distinction in Teaching awards should give some indication of the pervasiveness of Teaching Fellows as section leaders at Harvard:</p>
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<p>the pervasiveness of Teaching Fellows</p>
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<p>Well, sure. They play a role in virtually every course over 35 students.</p>
<p>Hanna:</p>
<p>Any course with more than 28 students can have a TF. Sections are capped at 18. My S had a TF in a Freshman Seminar that had only 11 students.</p>
<p>It is great to see such a lively discussion about the teaching fellows at Harvard. I feel like I have gotten a good perspective on both sides of the story. I wish there was sometype of link on the admissions website to actual students that I could also ask what it is and what they think about it.</p>
<p>Thanks. (again)</p>
<p>TFs can be amazing (and I had some great ones my freshman year), but they can really suck too. There are definitely TFs (especially in the hard sciences) who struggle with English. I had a couple Chem lab TFs who were really hard to understand/communicate with.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there are also classes taught by professors with <15 students. There was a freshman seminar taught by a med school professor with just <em>three</em> students. Some professors in larger classes lead a section or two. All of the professors I've had (no matter the class size) have been eager to have students come to office hours, so it would definitely be easy to meet them + develop a relationship that way.</p>
<p>Thank you. Your post was helpful. If admitted, I would be interested in the hard sciences but I was told TFs usually do not teach the class but lead discussion sections, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
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<p>lead discussion sections, etc.</p>
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<p>In the sciences, they are usually also lead the labs.</p>
<p>When you got your schedule did it tell you who was teaching the lecture lab and discussion or did it just have the professor. What i mean is, is there a way when you are picking your class to see who the TA is going to be or is it just like a luck of the draw?</p>
<p>vcoleman:</p>
<p>In lab sciences, I believe the person who heads the lab is listed.</p>
<p>As for TF's, whom you get depends largely on your schedule. But I do not believe that the names of the TFs are listed at the time sections are set up.</p>