tajob

Yes it's highly possible that I can't talk my way out of it, although it happened to one of our senior students before who made the complaints and was changed to intro to linguistics, meaning sometimes the department is able to make the arrangement. I guess usually people avoid talking bad things about the department when perspective students come. But I guess if they ask, we won't lie. The problem is most perspective students don't know this can be a potential problem later and don't ask. The program of course won't bring it up. Although it's a genuine concern among us students and the department, in the welcome presentation they still just make a brief statement like "oh of course you can also got a language TA, but it's not common (may be for most students yes, but not for some particular others)".

Thanks! It's always good to "normalize" your situation and know you are not the worst. Of course I understand the department does not mistreat me deliberately, and they need to look at the big picture to accommodate all the students. But still, at least in our program, 20h of work is not the norm, and only language teachers and maybe writing seminar instructors got to work this long, and only very few of the students, almost all internationals, got to teach these classes for all the three years. More TA work means less time to do research, means a particular group of the students always being less productive than the others, and this is pre-decided even before we come to the program. To make sure everyone is funded does not make this less unfair for us individuals (but of course there is no real fairness in real life), we students know it, the department knows it, those being caught in the situation complain about it privately, most keep silent when prospective students are coming to visit. Isn't this the department's responsibility to make sure that at least the same thing will not always happen to the same particular group of students? Anyway, as it seems normal, I guess there is little I can do about it. Thanks for the advice about sharing materials with the pre-instructors. I did use such help. The preparation could have been much longer if I haven't. As for asking the department to assign me the same work every year, this does not work for our particular program, but can be a good advice for other people who share the problem. I guess I will keep making a few complaints to the department. Maybe things won't change for me, but at least make myself and people in the same situation heard.

I feel really frustrated about the TA assignment of my PhD program and was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice. I'm in a PhD program in linguistics. When I received the offer letter a few years ago, I was happy to know that 5 years of fundings are guaranteed and I only need to TA for the three years in between. It turned out that, as an international student who spoke another language, I was assigned language teaching for the 2 and 3 year and may be the same for the 4th. It SUCKS. First, it's super time-consuming. Each week you need to teach SIX (hours of) classes, have 2h of office hour, 1h of meeting, (not required but highly recommended) 2h of lecture class sit-in, and numerous hours for grading and class preparation. It costs me about 20h per week, which is on the edge of maximum 20h workload specified in the contract. Yes you only need to speak your native language, but it does not mean it's an easy work to prepare for/teach the class. Second, although it's teaching language, it's not relevant to linguistics at all. It has no benefit to my current research, and I very doubt that it can benefit my resume and my future job seeking. Third, only international students or students who spoke another language are assigned language job. We may have a chance to TA one semester of linguistics class in the fourth year, but many other students are assigned linguistics/relevant-field TA jobs all the three years through. I understand the department lacks TA jobs to accommodate all the students, but it's simply unfair for those of us who got punished for our virtue (knowing another language(s)). I hope I can negotiate with the department and the graduate school. I talked to our chair and although she feels sorry for us and doesn't like the situation either, there is little the department can do. I believe I come to the graduate program to do research and the department and the graduate school should know that, but somehow they let it happen. What I can do to save myself from 20h/week of irrelevant teaching work? Or, is it just normal for graduate students to have such heavy TA work, and there is nothing to complain about? Or, even if most graduate students don't have this problem now, you may face it one day when you find a job, and this is just a rehearsal? Or, I should be more grateful since I'm at least guaranteed tuition coverage and payment? Any advise/comment is welcome. Thanks! (It's a new account so the program will not be revealed. Although the whole TA thing sucks, I still feel very grateful to my program and I love people here. But sometimes I will still be thinking if I knew this beforehand, I might think twice before I accepted the offer. Maybe it's a lesson for the new applicants? Know as much as you can about all the aspects about the program before you decided.)