How Many Courses Can One Handle with a TAship?

[applefangirl]

Hi!

 

So I found out that next fall I will have a TAship where the workload is expected to be 20 hours a week. How many courses could I reasonably take with this responsibility as a TA?

[GeoDUDE!]

It really depends. I've taught 1 upper division course which took up all my time. I've also taught 3 lower division sections (same thing but 3 different sets of students). It all depends. I've found myself never hitting 20 hours a week, always less. 

[ritapita]

Hi!

 

So I found out that next fall I will have a TAship where the workload is expected to be 20 hours a week. How many courses could I reasonably take with this responsibility as a TA?

 

Most likely your first semester, and possibly your first year will be spent as a grader, or assistant with recitation, or discussion leader, or proctor, or all of the above.  I seriously doubt they will dump you in to teach in your first semester, unless you have actually taught that material before.  And I concur with GeoDUDE...I have never spent 20 hours on any teaching duties.  Current case in point:  I grade for two undergrad seminars making my load about 300 students, plus I am an adjunct at another university for my own course and I put in about 15-18 total, which is the most I have done.  I have successfully done 2 courses and an R&C with that approximate load.  I was certainly ready for a break at the end of the semester, but I was not completely dead.  Time management is key.

[anabeldm9]

I would ask around what other students have done in the past in your program. In my first semester, I found in my own program three courses was kept me quite busy and so I ended up dropping a fourth, extra class. It was not a course I needed in the first place, so I was able to do that. Seek out the advice of older students.

[rising_star]

It really depends on the program. In my PhD program, 6 credit hours of coursework were the minimum if you had a TA position. In my MA department, 12 credit hours was the minimum, though there were some fluff things you could register for to help you get there. In my MA department, both MA and PhD students that were TAs tended to take 3 seminars a semester. In my PhD department, some people did 2 seminars a semester, some did 3. It depended somewhat on people's interests, as well as what was being offered and if one wanted to do independent studies. As GeoDude! has said, a lot also depends on what sort of TA assignment you have. I took 3 grad seminars while leading 4 discussion sections and grading for almost 100 students one semester and I don't really recommend that. 

[orangeglacier]

20 hours is usually the maximum they'll expect you to work and not an average (they probably tell you 20 so that if there's a crunch week you don't complain about the 20 hours interfering with the rest of your classes).  My TAship here is technically 20 hours a week, but it's essentially 1 hour of teaching section, 1 hour of preparing for that, 1 hour of meeting with the professor/other TAs, 1 hour of typing up homework, 2 hours of office hours, and 4-5 hours of grading a week.  And grading is not quite every week either, so some weeks it's 5-6 hours total of work.

Edited March 12, 2015 by orangeglacier

[twentysix]

Hi!

 

So I found out that next fall I will have a TAship where the workload is expected to be 20 hours a week. How many courses could I reasonably take with this responsibility as a TA?

 

It depends entirely which department your TAship is in.

 

My girlfriend taught 2 courses a semester (as the instructor of record), every semester for her entire MA. While teaching 2 courses, she also took 2 graduate level degree-progress courses and a foreign language course.

Edited March 12, 2015 by twentysix

[TakeruK]

Or, think about it the reverse way--how many hours do you want to spend on school and work each week? During coursework heavy years, I'd say 50-ish hours is standard and I spend about 9-10 hours per week per course (including everything that has to do with the course, e.g. lectures, reading, homework, studying). So, if I was TAing 20 hrs/week, I'd take 3 courses. If you are expected to do research as well, then perhaps 20 hours of TA + 30 hours of courses won't work.

 

But also keep in mind that depending on your program, the 20 hours might be a maximum, not an average. My current program has a TAship set to 15 hours per week, but I probably spend only 8-10 hours on average (3 hours attending the lectures, 3 hours grading, 2 hours preparing for and holding recitations/office hours and 2 hours creating problem sets [but not every week]). I would recommend talking to your advisor about load (and making sure you meet their research expectations too, if any) and perhaps aiming for 50 hours of total commitment for the first semester then adjusting later as you realise you need to spend more/less time on each of your responsibilities (teaching, research, courses).