<p>Some kid in another forum said UNC has a rep of "leaving its undergrads out to dry" and basically saying that UVA was better because of the way students are treated...any comments? this post worried me a little bit- i'm not gonna lie...</p>
<p>well its a public research university, obviously u will have many classes taught by TA's, but like most colleges it is up to u to learn the material (reading textbooks and such), the professor can only do so much in an hour a day.</p>
<p>but I don't think its that bad</p>
<p>how many are taught by TAs???</p>
<p>What bunk! You will see more TA's at Harvard the first two years. My son has three HS classmates at Harvard and all have had more exposure to TA's than he has.</p>
<p>My son is now a junior and has not had one "class" taught by a TA. He has had several (1-3 total maybe) classes where TA's led discussion groups or ran labs in the hard sciences but zero classes actually taught by TA's. He is actually a TA this semester for a class he took sophomore year.</p>
<p>UNC caps enrollment in English classes at around 15-18 and in Math classes at around 50-60. His freshman year he was taking a Calculus class (his AP/BC Calculus score of 5 tested him through freshman calculus) with 50 students taught by a full professor that spoke English. His best friend from HS who is at U Penn, taking the same class had 300 people in the class, and it was taught by a grad student who barely spoke English. So much for the Ivy small class myth/mystique!</p>
<p>Intro level classes may be larger but understand they are larger EVERYWHERE except at small liberal arts colleges and all will have TAs running the discussion groups regardless of the school in question. On the whole, I don't think he's had more than 2 or 3 classes in two and a half years that were bigger than about 50 and most now are in the 12-20 range, if that.</p>
<p>I'm a freshman now and I've only had 1 class fully taught by a TA...</p>
<p>Recitations and possibly labs are usually taught by TAs, but not too many classes are. If the class is being taught by a TA, it's usually a small introductory class.</p>
<p>I don't know what your friend was saying. I've been to UVA and stayed with a friend that goes there, and what he was saying was the same, if not slightly worse.</p>
<p>I recently received my MS from UNC and was a TA both of my (great) years there. I did independently teach courses, but they were intro lab courses that acted as a stand-along course. UNC has now made it so the TA can no longer be named as the 'official' instructor of these stand-alone courses, but in my case, the professor 'teaching' the course only had to sit in on one 'lecture' and had no input regarding the syllabus, order of labs, or teaching methods. It was a great experience for me, but unfortunately some of my peers took their teaching responsibilities lightly and the classes ended up being easy A's for showing up. </p>
<p>The only negative I ran into at UNC was the horrible administration. Don't think about asking any questions to the cashier's office about weird stuff on your bills, they won't answer without a fight (I'm serious, I almost got in trouble once...). </p>
<p>That said, I really miss UNC, if not for the area (which is absolutely beautiful) but for the school spirit! Go Heels!</p>
<p>We have had an experience 180 degrees opposite of that of ophiolite with regard to adminstration/cashier etc. Maybe we have been lucky, got the "right" person to talk to, or are merely the exception but on numerous occasions from our paying for student health care expenses, or our son interacting with the cashier on his own, we have always found them to be quite accomodating and helpful.</p>
<p>In fact, we have been quite surprised that so far (knock on wood) every encounter with any administrative office has always been met promptly and courteously and we have been on record about the amount of "touch" that has been displayed for a public institution from day one.</p>
<p>I know this isn't always the case and have read horror stories about it happening at numerous other schools as well, even some of the "uh-hem ....more prestigious schools" so I wouldn't let it stand in the way of having the best undergraduate experience you could imagine.</p>
<p>ophiolite</p>
<p>If you were a TA in the hard sciences I guess my son had you at some time because he said the other sections of one his labs were pretty easy and his really worked them hard and gave almost no A's......so we should be happy with his A minus.........LOL!!!</p>
<p>Maybe it's because I wasn't a 'paying' student and rather under tuition remission due to my TAship. The main problems I had was trying to figure out what to do about a rogue library fine ($150!) and my mom had a problem trying to ask the simple question to some department (don't know who she called) to figure out what the dimensions of my degree would be so she could get me a frame (independently, not through the bookstore).</p>
<p>If you do a little google for my username, it's very easy to figure out what department I called home. I'm not familiar with the difficulty of the classes given in other departments, obviously, because I wasn't an undergraduate.</p>
<p>ophiolite</p>
<p>Ha ha....nope you certainly weren't the TA.....LOL....his was either in Physics or Honors Orgo.....can't remember.</p>
<p>We've heard of some cashier office stories regarding the sorting out of scholarship monies but thankfully that has never happened to us....in fact one semester when he had some confusion regarding scholarship monies accounting they actually offered to either refund in cash or put on account for the future, which he did. Guess it may just be luck of the draw and who you talk to.</p>
<p>Are you from Madison or now working/student at UW? I did my undergrad at Marquette and have fond memories of Madison and Wisconsin in general, though I certainly do NOT miss the cold weather.</p>
<p>I'm in Madison working on my PhD. Wish I could have stayed at UNC, but the department's research interest didn't mesh well with mine enough for a PhD.</p>
<p>My classes are taught by mainly by profs., i have one class taught by a T.A., but its a math class so you pretty much have to learn it on your own anyway. I wouldn't say in any way that I have been hung out to dry.</p>