In my first semester, I worked as a support TA. A support TA works as an “on call” sub for other TAs from any general chemistry section when they are unable to teach (COVID/sick, personal emergencies, or exam conflict), with only a day’s notice or less.
In this post, I’ll share my experience as a support TA during the first semester of my chemistry PhD.
It takes a lot of time to prep for class.
I signed up to be a support TA because I thought that having fewer students would help me transition into teaching. I taught one section of an advanced general chemistry course, which had only 14 students, instead of 40 students in 2 sections.
I taught discussion and lab once a week. With only 14 students, I got to know my students better and help them out more. I thought I would spend less time preparing for class since I had fewer students. However, I still spent a significant amount of time preparing for class. The only difference was that grading was significantly less.
It’s disruptive and unpredictable to work as a support TA.
I thought that as a support TA I could have more flexibility in my schedule, which would be helpful during my lab rotations. I thought that my past experience as a resident advisor (where I had to wake up in the middle of the night to unlock doors and handle other mishaps) provided me with the adaptability needed to pick up teaching shifts.
Over the course of the semester, I learned that being a support TA was more disruptive to my schedule than I anticipated. Some weeks were rough because I picked up multiple shifts to sub.
Since I was a support TA for all of general chemistry, many times I subbed a lab for a different general chemistry course, which I was not as prepared for. One time I took on 3 additional discussion sections in one day, in addition to my own classes, leading to 7 hour teaching day. After that experience, I decided I didn’t want to be a teacher because of how exhausting it was.
I didn’t like choosing my hours each week.
I chose when I wanted to sub for a class. For example, when I had huge blocks of time open, I reserved that for lab rotations. If I needed to, then I used that time slot to sub for a lab. If there were classes that needed subbing during an open slot in my day, I picked it up. It was up to me when I wanted to teach.
Our hours were tracked by the undergraduate office to make sure that everyone was doing their part. However we weren’t given access to this information, so I felt pressured to take on shifts so that I was not contributing the least.
By the end of the semester, I landed in the middle in terms of hours worked. I realized that I didn’t like feeling this type of pressure, especially since I couldn’t see how many hours I worked compared to others.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the semester, I decided that I would not be a support TA again. I wanted to have a more predictable schedule since I would be in a research group the next semester. Managing more students would be easier than changing my schedule every week to accommodate my support TA responsibilities.
In my next post, I’ll share my experience as chemistry TA during the second semester of my chemistry PhD.
I hope that you enjoyed reading about my personal experience and takeaways from my chemistry PhD journey. If you’d like to chat more about what I’ve shared, feel free to send me an email at hello@brittanytrinh.com or send me a message on Twitter and Instagram @brttnytrnh.