TF's teaching at H

[ws59]

<p>JMMom:</p>

<p>Yes, S is a member of Bach Soch (as well as a number of other extracurricular activities) and performed in the orchestra at Sunday night’s concert with Robert Levin.</p>

<p>To try to answer the questions from your post, S said he finds Q guide to be helpful as are the actual course descriptions and syllabi.</p>

<p>Perhaps more importantly, he likes Harvard’s “shopping period” in the opening days of each semester where he sat in and got a feel for several classes before submitting his final course schedule. </p>

<p>In addition, at the beginning of the freshman year he was assigned a proctor, a peer advisor, and academic advisor who were all very helpful in navigating the course curriculum early on, thinking about the sequencing of classes in his “intended” area of concentration, and meeting the General Education requirements. </p>

<p>Next year (sophomore year), he will have other advisors in his upper class house in addition to concentration advisors as well as resident tutors (e.g., math, physics, history).</p>

<p>So as you can see, there are substantial advising resources (outside of professors and their classes) for those that that are interested.</p>

<p>As far as the courses S attended at prefrosh weekend last year, I think he told me he went to a math class and a freshman seminar with his host and then and to a physics course or two that he was interested in sitting in on. </p>

<p>He said he liked all that he saw and found the class time helpful, since he picked roughly the same courses at competing schools the previous 2 weekends.</p>

<p>Bottom line, he is quite happy with all of his courses and professors (some are spectacular he says) thus far and finds Harvard’s resources and methods to be very useful in the course selection process.</p>

<p>If you have more questions, just let me know.</p>

[natsherman]

<p>It probably amounts to a good lesson in life, as your experience here at H will be some function of your effort plus a little bit of luck. I am an econ major, which is generally one of the two largest majors here, and my experience has been all over the place. Harvard’s econ dept is packed with academic stars and a lot of bad teaching. My largest course had 800+ students (even divided into two rooms with close circuit access in one of the rooms for part of the semester) and a scad of TF’s. The TF for the section that fit with my schedule was just dreadful – bad command of English, disorganized. Not all grad students at Harvard are top knotch, at least when it come to teaching. The smallest course so far (a junior) has been around 25 students. Most of my courses have been OK/so-so in my major. I anticipate taking some very good courses next year. Some things rub me the wrong way here: Greg Mankiw, a leading economist, holds a yearly cocktail party for kids who take his Introductory Economics class (the large one I told you about). Only those who got As get invited, at least my year. Though I was invited, I found it a little obnoxious. And he’s not that great a lecturer IMHO.</p>

[just_forget_me]

<p>Econ is by far the worst Harvard department for student/faculty interaction and small class sizes. Thanks for sharing the other side of the coin.</p>

[twinmom]

<p>Yes, the physics section classes are taught by TFs. That’s what I meant. At least for non-majors, much of the information is taught by the TFs - some better than others.</p>

[Admiral]

<p>

Yes, the physics section classes are taught by TFs. That’s what I meant. At least for non-majors, much of the information is taught by the TFs - some better than others.

</p>

<p>I think this is a misleading way of phrasing it. While it’s true that sections are taught by TFs, sections</p>

<p>a) Take only half the time per week that professor’s lectures do
b) Are often optional (especially in physics classes)
c) Are often focused on practical problem solving and discussion rather than teaching new information. I skip most of my optional sections in physics, statistics, and related fields, and do well- the lectures provide everything you “need” to know (though sections can be a very helpful way of working on weak areas).</p>

<p>It is worth differentiating a course that has professor’s lectures with supplementary TF sections with a course that is “taught by TFs.” Some courses, such as Social Analysis 10 (Ec 10) and Math 21a/b, are taught mainly by individual sections from TFs, with only a few lectures over the course of the semester. This is not the case in physics, and it is generally a rare phenomenon. To give my own experience as an example:</p>

<p>

To give an idea of this distribution- of the 32 classes I took as an undergraduate, 27 were taught by a professor (including all lectures), 2 were taught by non-tenured lecturers, 2 (Math 21a and 21b) were divided up and taught by TFs, and 1, Ec 10, was lectured partly by a professor and then partly divided into individually taught sections. So it’s a complete myth that professors are distant aliens who never show up in undergraduate life.

</p>

<p>Looking at physics: I took Physics 15a and 15b, which had a full 3 hours of lecture (taught by a professor), with only 1.5 hours of section. It is my understanding that Physics 16, 11a/11b, 15c, and PS1, PS2 and PS3 are all taught the same way, with ~3 hour lectures from professors and ~1.5 hour sections from TFs.</p>

<p>Some people might say that even having the sections taught by TFs is sacrificing some kind of professor/student relationship, since other schools don’t use TFs. This strikes me as a silly attitude- sections are an <em>extra</em> component to the class, and allow (in the sciences) time to discuss problem sets and do practical exercises with someone who is very educated in the field. If the course still has 3 hours of lecture taught each week by the professor, how can sections possibly make things worse?</p>

[ws59]

<p>An excellent and detailed physics post Admiral–well said!</p>

[Lirazel]

<p>I think it really matters what you want to major in. Economics? Professorial contact is important to you? WILLIAMS. Not even close. At pre-frosh weekend, though, I visited four departmental open houses at Harvard. Thoughts:</p>

<p>East Asian Studies: Very many people are involved in its Chinese track, many in its Japanese track. (I’m interested in Korean, which is much smaller.) They don’t have that many students who major in it, though, so the professors know their concentrators pretty well. I was very impressed that something like 6 professors came to talk to the pre-frosh, and ended up talking in depth to two of them at the same time because that’s how the seating worked out. Lots of personal attention! They were pretty interested in me because I am a white girl who is interested in Korean pottery, and they were like “even if you don’t major in this, we have lots of courses in Korean art history, and an expert on pottery runs our East Asian Studies museum, so you have to come by!”</p>

<p>Folklore and mythology: The department heads had tea and cookies with the seven or so of us who came by (at various points). It was all very informal and conversational, and they were very nice.</p>

<p>Classics: The department prefrosh manager was out to lunch when I dropped by, so they were just like “Hey! We have a graduate student for you! He was here for college, too. He will answer your questions!” We talked for about twenty minutes, and then he had to go teach a class. I would not worry about the quality of graduate students at Harvard, based on that. He was very smart. We ended up talking a lot about Latin literature, the classics department professors and students, and Egypt. (Egypt is cool.)</p>

<p>History: Either the largest or the second largest department that I visited, with 60-80 concentrators a year. There was less professorial contact here for most of the pre-frosh. I, however, accidentally walked in on a meeting 5 minutes before the open house was due to start (everything else started 10 minutes early, I swear!) and was glared at by an older man. I was like whatever, at least that informed me I was in the wrong place without me having to say anything, which is what I wanted to know. Coming back for their actual open house, I learned that he was one of their Big Names (which I now forget), and he was apologized profusely (not in that order). The head of undergraduate teaching, a professor, was very eager for us to talk to him about the department.</p>

<p>Perhaps because I am seriously considering no concentration of more than 100 students a year, I never felt brushed off or like I was unimportant. All of the faculty (from department heads to the TFs) was very considerate and interested in helping undergraduates. I feel like if I want to talk to any of them, in class or out, I can go do that (and I will! They were so nice and so smart, even the graduate students.). I think the one major difference in my fields, though, was that one /could/ avoid talking to the professors. At the liberal arts colleges, I’ve always gotten the feeling that it’s hard to be left alone if you feel like it, which seems suffocating to me. At Harvard, everyone was very accessible, but not going to be clingingly parental, ever.</p>

[TemperTantrum]

<p>On harvard’s course list, is there some way of finding out if a class is taught by tf’s? or do you just approximate by class size?</p>

[just_forget_me]

<p>The only classes taught by TFs are:

• Intro calculus classes (23 and above are taught by profs)
• Intro Economics</p>

<p>Other classes are taught by lecturers/preceptors (expository writing + intro language classes). </p>

<p>Beyond that, the head of the class will be a professor!.</p>

[just_forget_me]

<p>

I think the one major difference in my fields, though, was that one /could/ avoid talking to the professors. At the liberal arts colleges, I’ve always gotten the feeling that it’s hard to be left alone if you feel like it, which seems suffocating to me. At Harvard, everyone was very accessible, but not going to be clingingly parental, ever.

</p>

<p>This is a spot-on observation! Lirazel, if you’re that proactive + observant when you get to school (no matter where you end up), you’ll be incredibly successful.</p>