Questions regarding TAship

[Anxiously Hopeful]

Hey everyone!

As a newly enrolled master's student, I would want to apply for TAship positions at the Biomedical Engineering department at Johns Hopkins University. Can someone throw light about the entire selection process and how is it is like to be a TA?? Are you already expected to be an expert in the area in which you would be getting the assistantships or you are allowed to learn and earn at the same time??

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Anxiously Hopeful

[londonbnd]

Hi! I'm the same boat as you but I've found tons of info in this post. I hope it helps!

 

[maxhgns]

If you're not a student at JHU, then you're highly unlikely to get the TAship.

For most fields, TAs aren't expected to be experts, no. They're expected to have basic familiarity with the field, but not necessarily with the particular subfield. It's normal, OK, and expected that you'll be learning along the way. That said, some TAships do require more and more explicit competency with particular things than others. This is especially true for formal subjects, so I imagine there are areas of biomedeng where it's true, too. In those cases, TAships just won't be assigned to someone who doesn't already have the required background.