5 Tips for Interacting With Your TA

But first, happy birthdays, Ken and Heather! And happy early birthday, Sarah L. G.!

It’s distant enough in time and space from my last TA-ship that I feel like these tips I post can be received as intended: as general guidelines learned through many TA-ships and course-marker-, uh, isms rather than pointed comments aimed at individual students. And why post? A bit because, well, a lot of the people I know are or have been TAs and will appreciate the whole, “It’s true! Dear god, it’s true!” thing. But also because these are other things I was expected to know as an undergrad when in fact you pick them up only too late, when you’re already a TA yourself. So, without further ado.

1. The reason why you need more marks is not the same thing as the reason why you deserve more marks.

I understand why this is tempting even when you have the most innocent of motivations: you’re asking the TA to review your essay or midterm or assignment, knowing that the best possible outcome is maybe 1 or 2 extra marks, and you don’t want to seem like a nerd or nitpicker who’s going to all this trouble just to prove you’re right on some esoteric point. So you think, maybe if I show the TA why this trivial issue matters to me, they won’t laugh at me behind my back.

The thing is, TAs don’t care if you’re applying to med school, law school, or grad school. Or if your personal life is difficult, and you really need these marks to get a job, finish your degree, or avoid getting in trouble with your family. TAs don’t care what your marks were in your other courses, or what average you need to maintain to keep your scholarship, or how many grade points you need to stay in your program. I mean, TAs do care about those things, because we’re human, and we wish you well, but TAs can’t care about them in the context of marking, because we’re hired to grade you on the quality of your work, not on your life circumstances, however much it may make us feel like big jerks.

Tell me why your work is better than I thought, though, and now we’re playing with power.

2. When the TA does something nice for you, he or she is usually not getting paid for it.

OK, no one’s really paid to be nice to you (unless you have a lot more money than I do and spend it very differently). But here’s what I mean: TA-ships are given out in hours. Every TA has signed a contract to work x number of hours in exchange for a certain hourly wage. Before term starts, these hours are allotted in various ways (e.g., 24 hours for attending classes, 15 hours to  mark exams and papers, etc.), but it’s kind of an open secret that many TAs end up working more hours than their allotment simply because 15 hours to mark everything leaves you with about 15 minutes to mark each student’s final exam, and although that’s certainly possible, it’s very difficult to do one’s job well within that sort of time limit.

TAs (in my experience, anyhow) usually get around 5 hours to “interact” with students: answering emails, office meetings, talking to you after class. And in my experience, any TA in a relatively large class who doesn’t consistently ignore everyone goes over those hours very quickly.

I’m not saying that makes it better when your TA replies to your emails with a terse “It’s in the syllabus!”, tells you after class that you’d better talk to the professor, or jots down nothing but a mark and no comments on your weekly assignments. But before you assume that your TA is doing this because he or she hates students, hates undergrads, or hates you, consider the likelier reason:  it may not actually be your TA’s job, and even though TAs are usually nice people who wish to help you,we often don’t have the time or resources to do things that aren’t our job.

3. Professors don’t become different people with TAs.

Yes, you can expect your prof to communicate a little better with his or her TAs than he or she might do with students: not only do profs generally trust that TAs’ emails have something relevant to say, but they also probably know each other better, as grad students or studious upper-years spend more time with the faculty than do most undergrads.

But, in general, professors, like most people, don’t change their habits drastically regardless of the person with whom they’re communicating. In other words, if you feel that your professor’s guidelines for what she wants on the assignment are vague, that she and the TA didn’t cover any of the material on the exam, or that she never answers your emails, it’s likely that a) your TA also has only a vague idea of those assignment guidelines; b) your TA was also surprised by the content of the exam; and c) your TA also has trouble getting hold of the prof by email. If we had the key to getting 100% on your essay, we’d give it to you; if we knew what would be emphasized on the exam, we’d do our best to emphasize it in tutorial. We want you to succeed.

Now, every professor I’ve ever worked with as a TA has done his or her explicit best to make TAs part of the various decision processes related to the course, so it’s not that the profs are holding out either. It’s just what naturally happens when different people communicate.

4. Just because the professor accepts your request doesn’t mean your TA was lying, malicious, or wrong.

(And vice versa, of course, but I find that few students need to be reminded of that.)

Professors are people, with human foibles. Sometimes they will accept your requests for re-marking or extensions not because they believe your perspective is 100% correct and the TA’s is wrong, but because they have to (or are able to) take other factors into consideration.

For instance, maybe your essay really was that bad, and maybe you really aren’t supposed to get a rewrite — but the prof is able to bend the rules and give you another try. Maybe they stand behind the TA’s marking but know that according to university regulations, you have a right to ask for a re-mark. Or maybe they’re just in a benevolent mood and figure everyone deserves a break today, even if it’s not completely supported by the evidence or the Man.

Whatever the reason, the point is: decisions get made for lots of reasons, not just because the person in power agrees completely with one side of the argument. That doesn’t make you a bad person for accepting and agreeing with their verdict, but don’t think your TA’s an idiot or a drill sergeant for differing.

5. TAs are not hired for their expertise.

Here’s the thing about TAs (and grad students): we’re at the beginning of our academic careers. Would you like a lecture on the exact topic of our dissertation or that of a recent term paper? Perfect, we can go on for ages. Would you like some general background on the field in which we work, or information from courses we’ve taken? Sure, no problem! But detailled information in areas not our specialty? Enh, many of us will have to get back to you.

However. We’re generally hired not because we’re experts on the content, but because we’re knowledgeable about the content and experts on the format. Your calculus TA may not have encountered that specific problem before*; your chemistry TA may not have done this exact lab; and your English TA might be reading this text for the first time, too. But we are very good at problems, labs, and interpreting texts in general. And we have a firm grasp of the underlying principles, concepts, and methods that may elude you. That’s what we’re hired for.

This isn’t to say that if your TA is wrong, you shouldn’t challenge her: you should, particularly if he or she refuses to acknowledge the mistake and/or is unwilling to find the correct answer or open a discussion on the subject. But please understand — just because I don’t know offhand the minutiae of the topic of your paper doesn’t mean I can’t tell whether you’ve written a bad or good one; just because I am not an expert in a particular branch of technological history doesn’t mean I can’t evaluate how well your test answer matched that of the prof’s answer key. And please trust that in the few cases in which the quality hinges on whether particular pieces of evidence are valid and I don’t already know if that is the case, I will go and find out before I give you a final mark.

* Although, admittedly, this state of affairs seems to exist less in math and science courses simply because courses are more similar from year to year, and students often have to answer the same assignments that are given within very narrow boundaries, as opposed to choose-your-own-topic essays.