How much time do you spend teaching vs. doing research

[process chemist]

Its been a while, but here I go. Got a TA assignment at the start of my 2nd year that I wasn't thrilled with. I taught the class before with a different professor, no problems. With this instructor, the person is just so, what's a good work, annoying. They micromanage every detail of your grading, gets upset with you after the head TA reviews your grads and finds nothing wrong, accuses you not following the rubric, etc. In addition to this, my other TA assignment requires me to sit in a freshman lecture 1.5hrs on MWF, and write a lecture and activities for a recitation section on Wednesday and Thursday night.  This is seriously starting to eat into my research time, even on Saturdays and Sundays, just as I was starting to get some really good data. 

 

Is this common, I am seriously considering leaving my program with my MS, and going to another school more graduate student focused. I feel as if I am only here to teach lab, and everything is ancillary to that. I am wondering, what is everybody else's TA situation. I am in Chemistry if that helps

[Arrowfletch]

I don't know that it would be too different anywhere else, except the issues with that one professor.  I sit in on a class twice a week, and teach discussion four days a week, plus planning and grading 180 assignments every week.  I'm a first year, and partly because of this I haven't had time to even start research yet.  I would keep in mind, though, that once you get into the upper years you might be able to get an RA position and not have to teach at all--here a lot of students only teach until they finish their own classes.

[puppy1785]

I'm also in chemistry. I TA 4 lab sessions, each is 3 hours long + setup time + extra help, labs are every two weeks rotation. So each week I spend about ~9-10 hours a week for teaching (sometimes 11-12 hours if things get messier). Then I had about 6 hours of classes I had to take, (~6 hours a week). All the other time, there's other admin stuff like seminars, group meetings and god knows what else can happen. So my typical week and to answer your question on how my time is spent research vs teaching:

My first year:

~33% teaching only

~33% classes to take/study/assignments

~10% meetings/group meetings/admin

~20% my own research

~4% "other"

 

My second year (currently):

~25% teaching

~10% meetings

~50% research

~15% unaccounted "other" (if nothing happens, this becomes research too).

 

So don't expect a lot of research in your first year.  Instructors are supposed to be a pain because they have so much paperwork to go through or a complaint from a student. Should talk that over with your head TA to get it straightened out.

Edited November 16, 2013 by puppy1785

[ss5ay]

I am a fully funded PhD in engineering, so I was not funded as a teaching assistant, but as a research assistant. Even though I was funded as a research assistant, my program required all PhD's to TA 2 classes.

 

I basically spent the minimum amount of time TA'ing, but because of that, I'm getting my PhD in 4.5 years (graduating this December).

 

Another person in my lab has been here for 3 years, and accomplished pretty much nothing (because of spending too much time doing course prep, beyond what was required by the program).

 

Unless you want to teach in your future career, I would recommend not spending much time on teaching.

[Eigen]

Traditionally, a full TAship is supposed to average ~20 hours per week most places in the US. 

 

Practically, some weeks will be heavier than others. Some assignments will also be a bit heavier or lighter than others. 

[Queen of Kale]

My current TA commitment is about 15 hours a week but there a students in my department who spend up to ~ 30 hours a week with TA duties.  Some of these students have longer TA hours because they personally are very focused on TAing and some have larger classes or more demanding professors.  At the other end of the spectrum are the few students who feel above TAing at all although they are supported by TAships and will 'pass the buck' onto a fellow TA so they can focus on research & publishing.

 

So even in one department it is not clear what the time commitment of a TA is.  I think if you switch to a new department just over the teaching demands in your second year; you will spend more time replacing that year than you would if you stayed in one place and let the natural fluctuations in TA-demands average out.  

 

Of course, that's only if the TA time demands are your only complaint and not the thing tipping the scales.

[lewin]

I think Eigen was saying this implicitly, but doesn't your department have guidelines of how many hours per week are expected? I've been in departments with "full" TA's (10 hours/week) and "half" TA's (5 hours/week), and other departments with a set number of hours for the term (e.g., 140 total).  If a professor had asked for significantly more time I had administrators and supervisors I could have talked to who would have fixed it.

[TakeruK]

In Canada, most TAs are considered contracted employees of the University, so like lewin says, our assignments have a set number of hours and there is a specific pathway to resolve the issue of not having enough hours to do your work.

 

In my last department, one "unit" of TAship is 4.5 hours per week x 12 weeks / semester = 54 hours per semester. Most students either have one or two units of TAships per semester (depending on if they have outside fellowships or not). TAs in Canada are also paid hourly (about $30-$40/hr) and I think putting a price tag on our time means the department respects that our time is valuable (i.e. we can be using that to advance our careers via research) instead of viewing graduate students as an inexhaustible source of teaching labour. I don't think any of us keep track of our time down to the minute but I do think a lot of people do aim to finish their work within the contracted time and have a general sense when they are working way too many hours. Personally, I wouldn't go and ask for more paid hours unless I was working more than e.g. 10% than my contracted hours. If a professor wanted more TA time, they would have to petition the department to pay for more hours (or for an additional TA to be assigned to their course). I think paying TAs an hourly rate also creates a more efficient teaching load. For example, the department would have more incentive to make sure the TA-to-student ratio for each course is more balanced so that they don't end up paying TAs more hours than is necessary to complete the work etc. So this creates a more equitable working environment where everyone puts in the same amount of hours; it prevents favouritism where some TAs might get the "easy courses" and only have to work 6 hours per week while others have to work 12 hours a week!

[Eigen]

We've definitely had issues that I've helped grad students in other departments mediate. Thankfully, our senior administration is pretty supportive of the fact that a TAship here is supposed to average 20 hours or less, and that students putting in significantly more than that are being done a disservice. 

 

Always a really tentative line to walk though- there are are some situations where it's taking more time for a grad student, but shouldn't necessarily be taking that much time- they need more than "average" time to prep for a course, or are a really slow grader, etc. 

[TakeruK]

We've definitely had issues that I've helped grad students in other departments mediate. Thankfully, our senior administration is pretty supportive of the fact that a TAship here is supposed to average 20 hours or less, and that students putting in significantly more than that are being done a disservice. 

 

Always a really tentative line to walk though- there are are some situations where it's taking more time for a grad student, but shouldn't necessarily be taking that much time- they need more than "average" time to prep for a course, or are a really slow grader, etc. 

 

I agree--I think that, whether talking about contracted hours or just guideline hours, simply setting a limit doesn't solve everything. It's important for both the TA and the prof in charge of the course to revisit these time allocations and check that the TA isn't taking longer than necessary to do certain tasks. It would be very irresponsible for a TA on contracted hours to know that he/she will run out of hours to complete all of the marking and choose to not bring this up and not do anything about it. Sometimes the TA is spending more time than necessary (e.g. grading in more detailed than required) or sometimes the TA just lacks training on how to do a task efficiently, or sometimes the course enrollment has increased significantly but no one assigned more TA hours to that course. These issues can be caught and corrected early on if people check in and compare their worked hours with the guidelines/contract. But sometimes, the TA might just simply be below-average at a certain task and if all attempts to solve the issues do not work, then the deficiency should be noted in their employment record which would be used to assign future TAships, especially in years where guaranteed TAships run out. At my last school, employment records are destroyed upon graduation though.