wittywonka

Could anyone tell me the percent of classes that are taught by TAs at Emory College? I'd appreciate an actual percent (with a source) rather than experiences of students there.

Thanks in advance

Colleges00701

I don't think any of the classes are taught by ONLY TA's.....I have heard that some of the basic pre-med classes have 100-200 kids in them....so I think there is 1 professor teaching them, with TA's leading smaller breakout sessions....

Blaze991

While pre-med classes won't be taught only by grad students, lots of other classes are taught only by grad students. These are lower-level classes. The required English class for Freshman, for example, is taught only by grad students. Many other classes, such as Intro to Philosophy and Into to Macro, can be taught only by grad students.

The downside of grad students teaching classes by themselves is that they don't have as much knowledge as professors from which they can draw upon to teach the class and answer student questions. On the plus side, classes sizes are small, which allows for lots of student-teacher interaction, both inside and outside of the classroom.

But to the OP: I don't know the statistic, nor where one could get a hold of that statistic.

bernie2012

I don't know the accuracy, but Princeton review cited Emory as having about 10% TAs teaching. This would probably include the post-docs teaching lab for the intro. science courses. And as said, the grad. students teaching freshmen English courses. But it's not that bad for English as the grad. student specializes in the lit topic they are teaching. My grad. student was extremely knowledgeable. My freshman English course was on TransAtlantic Romanticism.

dgebll

About 10% of classes are taught by non-faculty (grad students or post-docs). I'm fairly certain that you can find the statistic in the hand-outs available for download on the admission web site. You can also email the office to verify that.

I'll just second what many of the above posters have said: most classes taught by grad students are labs and breakout sessions, as well as Eng 101 (freshmen English) and the introduction language classes in the departments with graduate programs. Occasionally, upper-level classes will be taught by graduate students during the last year of their PhD, but you can avoid those fairly easily. However, you may find that some of the best classes are taught by those grad students. They're younger, more in-tune with what you want (they actually remember being an undergrad), and can be more interesting. Of course, the opposite could be true as well, but I wouldn't avoid a class just because a grad student is teaching it, especially if the topic looks interesting.

PS - as for class size, very few classes are over 100 students. I looked at the course catalogue briefly, and Intro to chem and bio classes are more like 60-90. Some lecture sections are as small as 25. Intro to Psych is 125 and Health can be over 200. It's really, really easy, though.

Colleges00701

^^^^ Wow, I am paying 52k a year to have my classes taught by grad students(I am an economics major, so that means English/Micro will probably be taught by only grad students)....Lets say I have trouble in one of my intro courses, that is taught by ONLY a grad student, who would I go to for help....Most professors have office hours, but I am sure that grad students don't have office hours...? Are there lots of private tutors(former college professors who have lots of experience teaching college kids) around Emory?

dgebll

Yes, grad students who teach a class would have office hours. Oftentimes in an office. You can go to them for help. Remember, if they're teaching the class by themselves, they're usually (if not always) in the final year of their PhD. Basically, that means they're less than one year away from being an assistant professor somewhere. Also, micro (like most classes) is typically taught by faculty, not grad students. Some of the sections are taught by full professors even. Check the course catalog with the faculty listing on the department website if you don't know who someone is.

The TAs will be in the language classes and labs most often. It's really not as big a deal as people make of it; I promise.

The ratio of TAs at Emory is comparable to (and oftentimes better than) peer institutions. If you really expect ZERO TAs, then apply to a liberal arts school without a graduate school. Part of graduate education is learning how to teach, so you'll have them no matter where you go. Even at Harvard you'll have TAs. Anecdotally, based on friends' accounts, more often than at Emory it seems.

amadani

Don't worry about being taught by many graduate students. It just doesn't happen that often. In response to the prospective econ major, I'm not in the department but I had a full professor for my econ 101 course. I think that's fairly typical even at the lower level. In my three years as an English and Philosophy double major I have had only one graduate student teach a course. She was fantastic and taught a GER in the IDS department. Like others have said, graduate students are really only used for the english 101/181 frosh english course (because there are so many people who are required to take it that it would be impossible for the faculty to manage) and breakaway sections for larger classes that are taught by professors.