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IDK how it is now, but when I was in college, the courses where I’d actually need the help basically had office hours with a TA and not the actual professor. I would guess this isn’t that uncommon since people tend to struggle most when they are taking general ed courses not in their major that may be in large lecture formats. In courses I had where having a TA was the most successful, it was usually when they incorporated a regular TA small group session as part of a lecture. Instead of having a 100-person lecture, you’d have 33 or so in a smaller group and people would feel more comfortable asking questions. I had other courses that had these, but they were voluntary and typically on Friday afternoons, when people often didn’t want to be in a class.
Does the college give you a discount on tuition if you are taught and/or counseled by Teaching Assistants? I'm going to guess "no" on that. May I suggest that instead of fleecing the taxpayer for your (not you the poster but students in general) student debt, you protest the school for not giving you what you paid for when you signed up for the class. And don't let the professors give you some bs "because it's always been like that." That doesn't make it right.
Does the college give you a discount on tuition if you are taught and/or counseled by Teaching Assistants? I'm going to guess "no" on that. May I suggest that instead of fleecing the taxpayer for your (not you the poster but students in general) student debt, you protest the school for not giving you what you paid for when you signed up for the class. And don't let the professors give you some bs "because it's always been like that." That doesn't make it right.
That's a tempest in a teapot.
Literally everyone who pays attention to college level studies understands that TAs often teach undergraduates.
In most cases, college professors were useless when it came to teaching, so office hours were a waste of time. And, even if office hours were officially offered, they clearly wanted students to just leave them alone. If you had to make an appointment, they would usually fail to show up to the appointment without ever canceling.
As for TA’s: not only were they usually useless, but it’s unlikely that you and the TA both spoke the same language.
There are probably lots of reasons. They might have a schedule conflict that prevents them from utilizing the professor's office hours. It's easier to send an email to the professor or try to catch them right before or after class.
I had a class where basically the entire class had another class that conflicted with the professor’s office hours. To be fair, he was an adjunct who had a full time job, so it wasn’t really his fault. The class didn’t even have a TA who could provide office hours.
Does the college give you a discount on tuition if you are taught and/or counseled by Teaching Assistants? I'm going to guess "no" on that. May I suggest that instead of fleecing the taxpayer for your (not you the poster but students in general) student debt, you protest the school for not giving you what you paid for when you signed up for the class. And don't let the professors give you some bs "because it's always been like that." That doesn't make it right.
Exactly. Kind of like how nowadays when we are sick, we pay full price to see a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant.
My guess is that colleges would just say that they never promised that every class would be taught by a full professor. And perhaps there was some fine print saying that classes can be taught by a TA.
I’m sure next one of the EDU defenders who dominates this forum will say that professors are paid to do “research”, rather than to teach. And I will say that for the tuition that we pay, we deserve professors who put their all into their teaching duties, even if it’s not their only duty. And the next one of the EDU defenders will say that I’m speaking with a customer mindset and that makes me unqualified to have an opinion. And then they wonder why people like myself don’t respect educators.
Exactly. Kind of like how nowadays when we are sick, we pay full price to see a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant.
My guess is that colleges would just say that they never promised that every class would be taught by a full professor. And perhaps there was some fine print saying that classes can be taught by a TA.
I’m sure next one of the EDU defenders who dominates this forum will say that professors are paid to do “research”, rather than to teach. And I will say that for the tuition that we pay, we deserve professors who put their all into their teaching duties, even if it’s not their only duty. And the next one of the EDU defenders will say that I’m speaking with a customer mindset and that makes me unqualified to have an opinion. And then they wonder why people like myself don’t respect educators.
You've made at least a 1,000 posts over the years that demonstrate more educational cynicism and less legitimate criticism.
Per undergrad everyone knows going in what the price is and they know classes will be taught by TAs ergo there can be no reasonable claim of bait and switch or other malfeasance. Given all that demanding lower tuition after the fact is silly.
TexasLawyer2000 makes a good point, if one requires undergrad classes mostly taught by profs. you'll need to both qualify for and pony up for Rice, Harvey Mudd, Princeton etc. or one of the many boutique schools across the country in which profs. teach a strong majority of classes.
Then there is the argument that knowledge and content from professors filtered through TAs is often better than direct interaction between say a tenured/published/field expert and freshmen/sophomores half of whom either don't belong at all or have no idea what they want to do.
This hasn't generated a lot of discussion so I'll now state what was in the article that precipitated these thoughts.
Interestingly, so far no one has chosen the reason given in that article -- it's embarrassing. The article was directed at professors and was making the case that students don't attend office hours because they are embarrassed to do so and gave ways professors could be less embarrassing. Since my experience didn't line up with that explanation, I thought I'd see what others experienced.
While this is not a scientific poll, it does seem that this is another area where professors' beliefs don't align with students'.
I would say the article is right, however, it's not just embarrassing, it's admitting to the professor that you're struggling and probably deserve a lower grade. The only thing a professor could say is that "this won't affect your grade"- but who would believe it?
Would you go to your boss and say "I need a lot more help doing this job because I just don't get it"? He'd be likely to either fire or demote you.
This hasn't generated a lot of discussion so I'll now state what was in the article that precipitated these thoughts.
Interestingly, so far no one has chosen the reason given in that article -- it's embarrassing. The article was directed at professors and was making the case that students don't attend office hours because they are embarrassed to do so and gave ways professors could be less embarrassing. Since my experience didn't line up with that explanation, I thought I'd see what others experienced.
While this is not a scientific poll, it does seem that this is another area where professors' beliefs don't align with students'.
That's an interesting point. I bet students are more comfortable approaching teaching assistants than the professors in charge of a course, though there may not have been any studies looking at that comparison.
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