<p>Most items sold in the US have a label that states their country of manufacture. The colleges using outsorced TAs should have some sort of a disclosure clearly stated on their websites so the consumer could make an informed choice. (When I pay for a US-made shirt, I expect to be buying a US-made product.)</p>
<p>We strongly discouraged both of our kids from attending anywhere they would be taught by any TA’s. Grading by foreign TA’s would have been an absolute no-go from the start. Fortunately, they both listened and both subsequently prospered. </p>
<p>I very much do not like the very idea of the traditional TA, so I think this situation to be an special abomination and indicative of school administration willing to burn their good-will and hard earned reputation for the sake of short term savings. It is as stupid as it is sad.</p>
<p>This is why we strongly encouraged our kids to attend smaller LACs where the professors are the ones actually doing the teaching…and the grading.</p>
<p>With the $50,000+ sticker price for private colleges, one could expect them to hire enough professors to not only grade students’ papers, but meet with them to discuss the papers in conference.</p>
<p>Maybe this is something USNEWS should factor into their rankings?</p>
<p>I think what’s baffling is that on the one hand, you have schools resorting to this kind of practice because they can’t make ends meet, and on the other, you have parents understandably irate because they are paying $50K or more per year for this kind of thing. It’s like consumers paying BMW prices and getting a Kia–while the car maker is scrambling to break even making a Kia for a BMW price. Something about this situation seems unsustainable.</p>
<p>This thread is certainly making me feel good about the fact that my son is about to attend a small LAC.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Judging by the number of tour guides who bat their eyes and say, “Oh no, Mrs. Cleaver, here at Acme University, we don’t have any TAs.”, I would say that there is quite a widespread problem with the definition of TA.</p>
<p>I would strongly encourage everyone to ask their students to directly ask their professors, outright, “will you be the one grading this? or did you grade this?” You would not believe how much that is never told or revealed (and how much a professor can successfully avoid the issue). I don’t mean to make people paranoid but I think students should at least know WHO did their grading and often it’s never made clear. There is rarely incentive to do so, students don’t ask, makes the profs life easier. Even a school without graduate students can outsource grading in some fashion.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is exactly what devalued or at least is causing stagnant starting salaries for mechanical engineers over the past five years. The work can be done much less expensively in India and even if some of of it needs to be redone it’s still in the long run less expensive than in the U.S. It is touching every industry and every segment of business and not just engineering…I don’t know why I’m not more shocked (and believe me I am as I would have thought the last thing that could be offshored would be education).</p>
<p>Having had kids at a LAC and one at a mid-sized university, I am a fan of TAs. S1 who went to a LAC was in a class of 40+. The prof did grade all the papers and exams, but there was no real opportunity for discussion, and I’m sure the nature of the assignments differed from those in smaller classes. S1 was also shut out of classes he needed to fulfill his requirements on several occasions because the prof wanted to keep the class small and manageable. While that was a worthwhile goal and certainly benefited those students who’d managed to register early (don’t get me started on that registration system), it forced S to take another course in which he had no interest and for which he was ill-prepared. It did not make for enjoyable experiences.</p>
<p>S2 had plenty of TAs throughout his college careers. Many of the courses he selected had high enrollments; he was not turned away from any, and he had the opportunity of being in sections capped at 18. He got to know his TAs as well as the profs, and generally had a good experience.</p>
<p>In my first year of grad school, I was a grader in a course whose materials I was already familiar with (I was not allowed to be a TA because I had not yet passed my Generals); I was expected to attend all the lectures.</p>
<p>My dad is an engineering prof who told me recently that he expects before long, he won’t have any graders - there won’t be enough funding to pay them. I think he’s glad he’s nearing retirement.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t hold your breath waiting for that…The wrong people would lose and USNWR would not allow that.</p>
<p>
I completely agree. That is how things are done here as well, and my supervising professor reads through everything I grade to make sure it is fair and accurate. I have an office on campus with regular office hours, and I am virtually always accessible through email and tend to respond within minutes (oh, the wonders of an iPhone!). I’m required to attend every class - partly to help hand out papers and partly to make sure what is covered in class matches up with what’s discussed in papers and exams.</p>
<p>Before grading any assignment, my professor sits down with me and reads the same five or so sample papers. After we each give them preliminary grades, we compare notes and make sure we’re on the same page. </p>
<p>
I agree with this as well.</p>
<p>My job title is technically a GA - grading assistant. My university also offers TA positions, but those go well beyond grading and involve independently teaching your own class. Anywhere else they would be called graduate instructors. I suspect the administration, as well as parents, would be rather less comfortable using that term.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Would you mind disclosing the name of your University?</p>
<p>Toblin - I PMed you.</p>
<p>Boy, this whole thread has really crystallized the essential reasons my daughter is looking only at small LACs, and the reasons that is the only college education I will pay for. TAs, GAs, whatever you want to call them … there’s no way I’d spend my hard-earned cash or her hard-earned scholarships to be taught/graded/discussion-led by someone who’s just a couple years and classes down the pike. Fortunately, there are enough excellent small LACs with outstanding, seasoned profs (who are hired on criteria that include their ability to teach, by the way, not only their ability to do research and write books) that we won’t have to make that compromise. And no, these schools are not all upwards of 50K. Many are in the 25-40 range, incl R+B with generous scholarship dollars available.</p>
<p>
I do not agree. The fundamental difference here is not that it is a non-professor grading but rather that the student cannot communicate with the grader.</p>
<p>warblersrule:</p>
<p>TAs teaching their own classes? hmmmm… I would hope only very advanced and experienced graduate students would be allowed to do so.</p>
<p>At college, one of the best courses I took was taught by a grad student who was intelligent, funny, VERY well-versed in the material, a good lecture, and very accessible. My office mate is a grad student instructor, and I’ve literally seen her sit with a student for over an hour to recap course material. As an instructor/TA myself, I make myself available to students via email and appointment (my schedule is very flexible this semester, so that’s easier to do than office hours), and one of my students commented that I gave them far more feedback on their essays than they got an a normal course. I’m not a perfect instructor by any means (who is?), but I’m gotten pretty to very positive evals, and I take the negative feedback into consideration as well and try to improve in following semesters.</p>
<p>Also, TAships fund many/most PhD students–without that funding, a PhD would not be economically feasible for a vast majority of students.</p>
<p>Although I am in an adminsitrative position now, I taught for more than 15 years. I always did my own grading, and I cannot understand how anyone can claim to be a good teacher or even interested in improving his/her teaching and not grade most of the students’ work. How do you know whether they understand the material? How do you know where the problems are? How do you know when your tests/assignments are unclear or faulty in some way? I taught at a liberal arts college where classes ranged in size from 15-30 max. with an average of about 50-60 total students per semester. </p>
<p>Obviously, if a professor is teaching a huge lecture class with hundreds of students, it would not be possible to grade all those papers oneself. H occasionally teaches such large classes but he always takes time to look over some of the work in order to prepare guidelines/troubleshoot for the TAs who will be doing the grading. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, it is a trend throughout education. Science/math books often publish answer keys for some or all of the problems (mostly so the students can check their work without the prof having to grade it). Many textbook series provide objective pre-written tests to relieve the prof of the task of writing tests and to shorten the time needed to grade.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That would be the expectation.
</p>
<p>I have a friend who is at a famous LAC. His courses are very popular; he attracts over 100 students spread among two classes each semester. He sometimes sounds overwhelmed by the amount of work he has to do on his own. He is going to be up for tenure soon and is under tremendous pressure to publish. Another friend who taught at a LAC was a very popular teacher but failed to publish enough to get tenure. </p>
<p>It is not as if LACs are all about teaching and universities are all about research.</p>