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<p>Even if you’re sticking to pure research, you will need to write grant proposals and collaborate with other scientists. If you can’t write well you won’t get funded, and if you can’t communicate well you just won’t get much done.</p>
<p>I didn’t really have any problems with the essays, and once the 250 word limit was taken off the optional essay I was able to add the about 130 more words that I felt I needed.</p>
<p>On the thing about TA/Prof teaching classes:</p>
<p>Of all the lecture classes I’ve seen, every single one of them has been led by a professor, and most often experienced/reknowned ones.</p>
<p>Recitations, on the other hand, are led mostly by grad students/postdocs (I’d say 50/50, for my classes). However, it seems that recitations in certain physics classes are almost exclusively led by professors too, which was quite a nice surprise.</p>
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<p>Oh really? You don’t care if the engineer can explain his or her design to the people who are actually building the bridge? You don’t care whether the most technically knowledgeable engineer on the design team could communicate well enough to convince their supervisor that his or her ideas should be incorporated into the design?</p>
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<p>No, that is absolutely not true, I have no idea *** anyone who says that about MIT is thinking. It is true, or so I’ve heard, at some research universities, but not MIT. Every single one of my classes over four years was taught by faculty. Big classes, small classes, required classes, electives. Mind you, some of the faculty were assisted by TAs for larger classes - so the professor would teach the class, and the TAs would lead the recitations.</p>
<p>Maybe if LAC partisans are going to go around bashing specific research universities, they should learn what the heck they are talking about before they open their mouths.</p>
<p>Also, there are a lot of <em>good</em> TAs. Some of the best teaching I saw was from TAs during recitations, lab sessions, and office hours (and I don’t mean “The professors were bad teachers so for the TAs, being better than them was a low bar,” I mean the TAs were actually really good teachers).</p>
<p>McGreggor Crowley? You came to Ames High School in Iowa once upon a time right?</p>
<p>…I don’t get your first name… did you change it because it sounds cool?</p>
<p>I didn’t change my first name! I use my middle name since my dad and I have the same first name. McGreggor comes from Beatrix Potter by way of South Texas.</p>
<p>I did go to Ames! It was my first time in Corn Country, and it was pretty awesome.</p>
<p>-McG</p>