I’m currently a TA for a 400 (senior)-level college biochemistry course at a large state university this summer. I just wanted to know, how common/prestigious is it for a high schooler to TA for a college class as an EC for college applications?
What does your TAship involve? TA is a Teaching Assistant. Are you teaching a discussion session of this class?
The class I’m teaching doesn’t have discussion sessions. There are 4 instructors and 2 TAs: all of the instructors and TAs except me are college students or professional scientists. In the lecture component of the course I teach one 1.5 hour lecture per week, usually on the theory underlying the experimental component of the course. I am assigned to a group of 5 students in the course. When these students have questions or concerns relating to course material or grades, I am usually the person they contact for answers. I usually also grade the papers of those 5 students. In the experimental component I set up laboratory equipment for the students and assist students with lab protocols.
Definitely not common.
I graded homework for a professor and tutored physics at the college tutoring service my senior year of high school but I was also taking all my classes on that college campus so I was pretty much a college student.
Wow. Not common to be teaching a senior level college class as a high school student
Uncommon and AWESOME
You should definitely get a recommendation letter from the lead instructor in that course as validation.
@TomSrOfBoston Yes, I will get the recommendation letter. The lead instructor is the professor, and I’ve already brought it up with him in a roundabout way (we were joking that he would write terrible things in my recommendation letter if I asked him for one).
To everyone else, thank you for your input! I’ll be sure to highlight this through my Common App/essays when I apply to colleges this year.
Why are you even going to college?
This is great, how did this end up happening out of curiosity?
@VickiSoCal haha I don’t think it’s that impressive either, I just really like biochem and things happened to work out for me.
@shawnspencer I took the class the summer before because my teacher recommended me to the professor and I got a 102 as my final grade. This summer I had nothing to do for a month and a half before my research so I decided to ask if I could help out with the course this year (he invited me back at the end of last year and I had been in contact with him throughout the school year). Surprisingly, the professor said yes, and when I asked him what my title would be he said I could be a TA. Since then I just assumed most of the responsibilities that entailed.
That’s pretty sweet, that is wonderful that you were able to do that.
It’s not that @molbiohemonco1 it is that you took a 400 chemistry level class before you started your junior year of high school and are TAing before your senior.year year. At my college to do that before that class you would have had to take, in college:
A full year of g. chem
A full year of college biology
A full year of college physics
A full year of o chem
At least one or 2 semestwrs.of bio chem.
Al the chem in sequence.
So.did you start college science courses in 7th grade? If so, you are kind of done already. That’s why I asked why you are going to college.
@VickiSoCal at my college it is very easy to bypass the requirements with a special permission number. I self-studied for AP Chemistry, AP Physics C (teaching myself the requisite calculus), and a significant portion of a typical undergrad biology curriculum because I participate in the USA Biology Olympiad. Because my teacher recommended me to the professor I spoke to him personally in the summer before junior year. He agreed to support my petition for a permission number after testing me in some prerequisite knowledge, and the college granted me the permission number.
The course is mostly lab-based and focuses on protein purification, which is a rather simple experimental technique. I did need to know some biochemistry, which I managed to pick up from the class relatively quickly. I was just lucky enough to do very well in the course with what I managed to pick up, and this summer the professor let me come back to help him out as a TA.
I still haven’t taken most of the necessary science courses that I would have needed without the permission number. It’s just that with the permission number I was allowed to skip some of the intermediate courses.
@shawnspencer Thank you for your kind words! I agree, I’ve been really lucky that it worked out this way!
I would think a university would face significant accreditation issues if 1.5 hours of the lecture in a 400 level class each week was delivered by a high school junior.
I never had 400 level courses delivered by anyone other than a professor with a PhD. There were no TA’s in those sorts of courses. And as a full fledged PhD candidate TA the highest level course I ever lectured for was 300 level and that was by special permission.
@VickiSoCal I agree with you about this being very nonstandard. My regional university will not even allow a high school student in a lab, unless part of a special summer program . I can’t think that any chairperson would approve this due to liability issues, at the very least .
I don’t know much about Rutgers. At the college where I work TAs have to be college students, not high school juniors. Grading work as an undergrad wouldn’t be permitted. Of course, ours are Work Study jobs. OP wouldn’t be eligible unless he matriculated in our school and qualified for WS.
With all due respect to everyone commenting I’m not sure how I can possibly convince anyone here. All I know is that the professor allowed me to help him out without pay in the class he’s teaching, and he’s calling me a TA. (Perhaps the confusion is about whether I get paid as part of a work-study program, similar to what @austinmshauri described in #17. I’m not getting paid at all.) So that’s what I’m going to put on my college application.
I’m sorry if my story doesn’t sound believable - if anything that confirms my suspicion that this isn’t a common phenomenon, and that’s what I wanted to know. I’m happy to answer questions about my position and how I got the position, but if my answers aren’t satisfying the questioners I’m not sure what else to tell you.