<p>As a PhD in CSE, I think I have been doing way too much TA than a normal PhD should. </p>
<p>This is my fourth year and I have been doing TA at almost EVERY quarter since my second year. I was funded by the department in the first year. Officially, starting from the second year it is the advisor's responsibility to fund his student as RA, but my advisor (tenured) has not been able to obtain any external funding since then. The only way I can get financial support is to do TA. We are in a three-quarter system, and I have already done 6 times TA up to now and I still have to do it this coming quarter. I must say most professors I TA'ed for were reasonable and the workload was not crazy. I definitely will not complain if I just did it once or twice, but having to get distracted from research in a consistent quarter-by-quarter manner is taking its toll on my research progress. As I am a foreign student, there are not many external fellowships I can apply for. Those I can apply have high requirements on academic outcomes which I lack because of too much TAing. This is becoming a vicious cycle, and I see no way out.</p>
<p>It is not just me. All three mates in my lab have to do the same. Even a guy at his seventh year still have to do TA. I wonder if it is normal for a professor to put his students in such TA limbo. How many times in your experience does an average PhD student TA during his degree?</p>
<p>There is nothing easy about grad school. If you are funded by a grant, you could be doing work and research that does not advance you to graduate or has no research value whatsoever.</p>
<p>What outcomes are you specifically missing…papers, grades in courses or both?</p>
<p>Getting papers out is often a matter of just going it alone. Do something ask for forgiveness later. By the time you adviser figures out that you went and did something on your own, you have some piece of publishable work that can be used to help you graduate.</p>
<p>With all that being said, 2 years of TAing is too much…especially in CSE. Your adviser should be able to find funding. Consider looking for a different adviser. If you’ve passed your prelim/qualification test, this is this the time to look for another adviser. If you look before, your adviser could use it against you and prevent you from passing this test.</p>
<p>This is not unusual in certain disciplines or in cases where the funding for graduate students is insufficient. I agree with @jack63, if you are not pleased with this situation and do not see it improving in the near future, you have to look at other options in the department. You are still early enough in your graduate research that you won’t lose too much time by switching advisors if you decide it is the best thing for you. Make sure that you find someone with a stable funding profile though and if you decide to change, don’t make an enemy of your current advisor, just tell him/her that you have decided that you are interested in a different area of research and make sure to finish off any publications you have pending with the old advisor.</p>
<p>Agree on this. For my PhD, about 90% of what I did that will allow me to graduate was in my last 2 to 2.5 years in the program.</p>
<p>The thing is if you are unhappy now, it will only get worse. My first year or two with my advisor was a honeymoon period, so to speak. After the first year or two and once my classes were finished, my adviser had considerably higher expectations. </p>
<p>Consider finding another adviser. I agree, keep your old adviser as happy as possible. Even if you main concern is having to TA always, tell your adviser that you main concern is your disinterest in the research. Profs get very touchy when it comes to complaints about funding.</p>
<p>There is no “average,” really. I mean, there probably is one, but it’s meaningless. In my secondary department, students are required to TA one semester per year. In my primary department, we’re not required to TA at all and if we do, we get paid for it. In some departments students TA every semester until they’re ABD, and then they teach their own classes. It’s just varied.</p>
<p>Whether or not you are TAing too much is a personal question. Are you unable to do work to advance you towards your PhD? Are you unable to publish when you need to? It seems like you are.</p>
<p>You have a few options:</p>
<p>1) Keep TAing and learn to manage your time in a way that you don’t get distracted. I’m not saying that TAing is not distracting and that it doesn’t take time away from research (I’ve done it, and it does.) Remember, however, that you are angling for positions in which people routinely sole teach 2-3 classes a semester and are still expected to put out quality research.</p>
<p>2) Find your own external funding.</p>
<p>3) Change to another advisor who has funding.</p>
<p>Your advisor doesn’t have any money, and he can’t just pull it out of a hat.</p>
<p>As long as the number of hours dedicated to TA work (including prep, grading, tutoring, etc.) per week isn’t too significant, it’s not something that’s out of the ordinary. It may even give you a little edge on your CV when you fluff up your “teaching experience.”</p>