Looks like I'm going to be a graduate TA.

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Starting a week from Monday. I'm a bit nervous since it's a junior level course that I got a pity grade in when I took it myself. It isn't exactly a difficult one (Mass Transport Phenomenon), and I'll be taking the graduate level version simultaneously, but when I took it, my mom had a heart attack about halfway through (I missed a few recitations and was thrown completely off track). Also, I'm not going to be the only GTA in the class, fortunately.

Anyone have any advice or been a GTA before?

Hello!

I did two semesters of teaching as a graduate student TA, one semester of medical genetics and one semester of undergraduate genetics lab. For the former, I had to lead a discussion section, whereas the latter required leading a lab section with less emphasis on speaking in front of a group and more emphasis on one-on-one consultation with students as they did their experiments. Eventually I'd love to do teaching fulltime, but in which capacity I'm still not sure.

Do you know what will be involved as part of your teaching assistantship? Leading a discussion section, running a lab, grading exams? I can tailor my response depending on what you know you will be doing, so that it'll be more relevant and helpful for you.

I'm hoping that, since there's another GTA, I'm going to just be there to grade homework, and perhaps answer questions on the homeworks. The professor did it mainly so I could easily get free tuition and paid for it, since I'm also going to be training to be his new Lab Manager that term while running one of his current projects.

If you will just be grading homework and perhaps answering questions from students about homework, it shouldn't be too hard. However, what I can suggest is that unless the homework assignments (and exams for that matter) are multiple choice or true-false or some other system where the correct answer is very discrete and clear, make sure that it's very clear to the students how you're grading those assignments. This is particularly true if the assignments tend to be short answer or essay-type questions. Students will constantly go up to you to try to reason their way into getting back a few lost points, and you'll be in a stronger position if you can tell them exactly why they lost points. Of course you'll have to know the course material enough to defend your position and refute their reasoning, so definitely approach each section or assignment knowing the material. If a certain topic is not your strong point, you'll want to look up the stuff beforehand and know it sufficiently to be able to explain it to a confused student. That being said, you're human and you're not going to know everything, nor have the answer to every question they can come up with, and that's ok! You'll want to come across professionally and reasonably authoritatively, but just remember that you're human and you'll make mistakes and that's fine. It happens and the best you can do is learn from it and do your best. Teachers have their bad days, just as students do.

With this subject, the homework assignments are pretty much going to consist of around five questions, each question requiring 1-4 pages of equations written out. I'm definitely not going to be one of those jackasses that only looks at the answer and gives 0 points if it's wrong (I've had to deal with two of those when I got my degree). I'll be making sure to look over all of their work and giving partial to full credit dependent on what ratio of correct equations they've used. I myself know far to well that you can have all of the correct equations, but one mistyped number in your calculator in the beginning completely destroys your final answer. And I should have plenty of time to grade this way, considering the project I'll be working on will require me to watch two numbers on a readout twitch back and forth for several hours.

Oh hells bells, looks like I'm the only GTA for an 80 student class... And I already have 80 quizzes to grade. Fortunately, the professor's going to be getting lab assistants to help me out.

Being a graduate assistant can be very difficult or very easy, depending on your relationship with the professor for whom you work. Congratulations on your appointment, because it's an excellent opportunity.

Good luck on TAing for the people in this thread, and I hope you let us know how it goes. I'm starting graduate school in the fall (in History) and will hopefully be a TA during my second year. It sounds pretty nerve-wracking.

Okay, first week's over, and it hasn't been bad at all, I'm just completely out of whack from going to school. Fortunately, the professor's aware of my condition, and I have a desk separate from the other clusters of grad student desks, in a completely separate room. He's already found one lab assistant, so I only have to help with maybe two of the labs each week, and he'll be hiring another undergrad to help with the grading, since I'm also going to be doing research for him and train to be his new Lab Manager.