Teaching Assistant
From GradBook
A Teaching Assistant (TA) is a graduate student who assists professors in teaching and managing their subjects. All PhD students in EECS are required to teach for at least one term.
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Benefits and restrictions
EECS students who hold a TA appointment have their full tuition covered and are paid a TA stipend, which is usually slightly higher than the RA stipend. TAs cannot be registered for more than 27 units beyond 6.981.
Application
Applications for being a TA in EECS are due on or near October 31 for the following spring term and March 31 for the following fall term. In addition to typical information such as a transcript and faculty recommendation, applicants list rank subjects in the order of preference. Lecturers in charge of their subjects also submit to the department lists of prospective TAs that they'd like to be on their staffs, which is generally determined after intervewing applicants. Prof. George Verghese, the EECS Education Officer, then takes faculty and student preferences and departmental resources into account and makes the assignments. The process is essentially rolling and some assignments are made earlier than others.
Administration
Lisa Bella is the administrator responsible for TAs in EECS. She assigns the TA offices and tutorial rooms, schedules rooms for subject purposes, and informs TAs about policies and deadlines.
Organization and Workload
TA duties vary depending on the subject and the professor in charge. Most TAs teach recitation (for graduate subjects) or tutorials (for undergraduate subjects), hold office hours, man the lab, prepare problem sets and solutions, manage the course website, and may grade problem sets when there are no graders. The number of hours per week TAs spend also varies depending on the subject. Major core subjects and lab subjects may take well over the 25 hours generally expected, and small seminar-style subjects are more laid-back.
Large subjects with more than four TAs may have one designated as the Head TA. He or she is responsible for coordinating work with the other TAs and may have additional tasks, such as enforcing course policies and interfacing with graders and lab assistants.
Support
The EECS Graduate Students Association organized a TA Workshop in IAP 2005 and is planning to hold them twice a year. The EECS GSA is also currently compiling a website of helpful tips for TAs.
