I have questions for current or former Cal students about the roles of TAs and professors: who grades students’ tests, projects, midterms, and finals and who gives the final grades for the courses?
Depends on each classes. Some classes are taught entirely by the TA so you can guess who grades everything.
In general, for long exams, the professor and the TA’s would split up the grading (i.e. professor grading first 2 pages, TA grading the next 2 pages, etc.). For projects, it varies. Some professors would like to grade by him/herself while for the class I was TA’ing myself, I co-graded with the professor.
As for giving the final grade though, that is almost always determined by the professor only.
What matters is that whoever grades your work, it’s done fairly. I’m not saying it’s generous grading by the professor or by the TA, but it’s done fairly.
@UpMagic
Thank you very much for your explanation.
For the large lecture courses (think physics 7A etc), the grade curve is set by the university… professors are required to give something like 15% A, 35% B (it’s been a while now, I don’t remember exactly). The TAs will grade the weekly hw and labs and input those into the spreadsheets. The prof often grades the exam and then gives the final grades. There’s a little wiggle room at the edges… if you are right on the border between A-/B+ for example, and the prof knows who you are because you cared enough to show up for office hours a couple of times, they’re more likely to nudge you up.
@washugrad
Thank you for your comment.
Sometimes neither. For biochemistry for example, external graders are grading student’s papers to eliminate conflicts b/w professors/TAs. For physics other TAs (for a different section of the same class) are grading the exams. The professor, at the end, is the only one who is allowed to enter the grades into the system.
That is interesting.