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A history major from Davidson is going to have more opportunities than a history major at UCLA. An engineering student from Case Western is going to have more opportunities than an engineering student at UCLA....compare apples to apples....
Apples to apples:
If a student wants to excel at a large state university, they can do so.
If a student wants to suck at a large state university, they can do so.
If a student wants to excel at a tiny, private, well-funded university, they can do so.
If a student wants to suck at a tiny, private, well-funded university, they can do so.
There's nothing magical about a small school, and for many students it's not always the best option.
This is the case no matter how much you'd like it to be different.
I can't see how anyone would prefer a college with huge classes of over a hundred students sitting in a large lecture hall where some foreign TA is lecturing with such a strong accent no one can understand him!
I've never, ever heard of that.
TA's don't teach lectures.
Where the TA is from doesn't matter. They are smart enough to be pursuing an advanced degree at the instution said person is an undergrad at.
What about foreign born, ESL professors?
Huge classes of over a hundred students are always taught by "real" faculty. They could be anywhere from a lecturer to a full professor, which is not a reflection of their skills either. I've had great teachers who were lecturers. They could also be foreign born with a heavy accent. I had a professor in grad school who had a heavy Korean accent. He said some words VERY oddly. He was still a great professor.
Where you'd run into TAs (they haven't been called TAs for at least a decade, I was a "Graduate Assistant" in grad school) is in labs. The professor would run the lecture of 100+, then grad students would handle the 10 person lab/discussions/etc.
The only time I ran into a TA teaching a full class was freshman English, when the college has to staff dozens and dozens of classes of 15-20 freshmen. Many colleges will use English grad students to teach these small, intro classes.
Where the TA is from doesn't matter. They are smart enough to be pursuing an advanced degree at the instution said person is an undergrad at.
What about foreign born, ESL professors?
Huge classes of over a hundred students are always taught by "real" faculty. They could be anywhere from a lecturer to a full professor, which is not a reflection of their skills either. I've had great teachers who were lecturers. They could also be foreign born with a heavy accent. I had a professor in grad school who had a heavy Korean accent. He said some words VERY oddly. He was still a great professor.
Where you'd run into TAs (they haven't been called TAs for at least a decade, I was a "Graduate Assistant" in grad school) is in labs. The professor would run the lecture of 100+, then grad students would handle the 10 person lab/discussions/etc.
The only time I ran into a TA teaching a full class was freshman English, when the college has to staff dozens and dozens of classes of 15-20 freshmen. Many colleges will use English grad students to teach these small, intro classes.
Yes, TA's lecture all the time---most of the time in fact at large U's. What matters if they are foreign born is their limited English speaking ability..it's impossible to understand many of the TA's with heavy, thick accents. No doubt they are smart enough, but that still doesn't help the accent. Same issue with ESL profs.
Yes, TA's lecture all the time---most of the time in fact at large U's. What matters if they are foreign born is their limited English speaking ability..it's impossible to understand many of the TA's with heavy, thick accents. No doubt they are smart enough, but that still doesn't help the accent. Same issue with ESL profs.
Sorry. But this has not been the case at all for my son. Every lecture class has always been the professor.
Yes, TA's lecture all the time---most of the time in fact at large U's. What matters if they are foreign born is their limited English speaking ability..it's impossible to understand many of the TA's with heavy, thick accents. No doubt they are smart enough, but that still doesn't help the accent. Same issue with ESL profs.
I also took intro classes with hundreds of people - never once have I seen a TA lecture.
And this is at one of the biggest schools in the country.
And honestly, wouldn't it be all about who is a better teacher?
My physics courses (2 of them) were taught by these award-winning, Nobel team physics guys.
I had no earthly clue what the heck they were talking about 90% of the time.
They would scribble proofs all over the boards and mutter...inevitably ending with "...and it should be intuitively obvious..." while we all looked on dumbfounded.
If you google smaller classes +college there are tons of articles saying studies have shown that students learn more in these smaller classes.
I believe that school is private and quite expensive. It's also in Richmond, so you would want to make sure he is comfortable with southern culture. Richmond is not the deep south, but if you're from the northeast it feels pretty darn southern. Also, for the price it's not a top school in the country or anything, so I wouldn't spend all that money if there were a much cheaper alternative, regardless of class size.
Then he is lucky because that is not the norm at big U's.
It was the norm at all of my big U's (three or four). Professor lectured once or twice a week, then there were two or three other classes a week with a TA. Occasionally TA's did teach whole courses, but if they did then it was because they were PhD candidates or post-docs who were just about done and on the professor job market anyway. The problem was that the parts of courses taught by regular TA's (master's students mostly) were often not very good. Then the lecturing professor wasn't available or interested because he/she was too busy with research and publishing, which is the real job at a university (not teaching).
Where the TA is from doesn't matter. They are smart enough to be pursuing an advanced degree at the instution said person is an undergrad at.
What about foreign born, ESL professors?
I mostly agree with you, except that TA's can sometimes lectures. Most of the time no one would even know. They don't exactly advertise it. I can imagine that this might be abused at some schools and TA's could in fact be doing a lot of lecturing. There's no rule against it.
However, I teach esl and there are not many foreign-born esl teachers. Those who are have perfect English, not heavy accents.
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