On 8/27/2019 7:16 PM, Bill wrote:
Frank wrote:
On 8/27/2019 1:43 PM, Bill wrote:
Frank wrote:
Grad school was paid for with a teaching
assistantship.Â* Pretty hard to do this today.


I know I left out the earlier part of Frank's paragraph.
I just wanted to mention that departments are staffing the
majority of their teaching position with graduate teaching
assistantships. For a large department, maybe 2/3 of the courses are
taught that way. That translates into there not being very many real
academic positions available to students who do earn a terminal
degree (like a PhD). Having witnessed it firsthand, it's really
disrespectful. It's mostly about the $$$.... I guess this is a
separate, but admittedly widespread problem (think Walmart).

That is interesting.Â* My assistantship had me teaching labs which was
mostly just babysitting.Â* Courses were taught by professors but my
last year, when I had a fellowship, they wanted me to teach undergrad
organic chemistry but I turned them down because it meant no extra money.

This was a private school but thinking back at U of Del. there were
graduate students teaching more courses.

The problem is most-present in departments that have very high teaching
loads, like English and Math.Â* It has become an "epidemic" problem since
the mid to late 90's.Â*Â* In departments like History, there often isn't
enough teaching to be done to give teaching assistantships. Graduate
students are more likely to be graders for regular faculty in the
department, for instance, or run labs for them, as in your case.

These days you would be smart to choose to teach the organic chemistry
class you mentioned--so that you could talk about it in your job
interviews. 2 candidates, one with demonstrated teaching experience, one
without: One has a distinct advantage.

I thought about it but jobs were plentiful at the time. I actually
wrapped it up a couple of months before graduation so teaching would
have held me up.