First, we need to know who is a TA and what is the role of a TA in college? TA (teaching assistant) is typically a graduate student from a college who assists a professor with instructional responsibility. TA is the one who handles many of the same tasks as professors do. In this article we shall see What Is the Point of Being a Teaching Assistant in College?
We can say that there are two prominent roles of a TA lend a helping hand to students of the class and support teachers with standard tasks like conferring lectures when the teacher is absent, taking attendance, collecting homework, and recording grades.
The perks of being a TA (teaching assistant) in college are:-
Holding a spot as TA in class is beneficial in many ways starting with the opportunity it provides to enhance your skills and develop new ones. Also, you may get paid for your assistance so you can use your money to manage your expenses and be self-reliant instead of being dependent on your parents.
Being a TA in class enhances your ability to present a topic in front of many people sitting together. It boosts your confidence level as well as your comfort level in front of an audience and becomes a source of your courage to put your thoughts and point of view on different topics.
Also, the best part of being a TA is gathering knowledge, boosting memorizing skills, and improvising your human behavior tackling skills too.
Being a TA also helps to build a strong CV, and you can list the skills in your resume that you will be going to send to potential employers. Also, it will support the TA if that person is looking forward to pursuing any teaching course; it can indeed be your stepping stone to the future as the experience you’ll gain as a TA is invaluable, and it will going to help you in your future.
Challenges a TA (teaching assistant) faces challenges during their job.
Choosing to be a TA in college is a decision that must be taken carefully because many responsibilities come with a position. And the responsibilities of a TA include:
- Being available most of the time.
- Being the most patient and being able to tackle different behaviors of different students.
- Being a TA is not easy because TA has to be au courant, well-read and cognisant.
After all, without these qualities, it’ll be challenging to handle the situation, studies, and the given spot to you.
Sometimes you may face impatient students who may behave crudely and bluntly with you and who’ll try to make fun of you with different taunting ways. But, on the other hand, sometimes you need to be more patient and understanding with teachers because knowing how to tackle different human behaviors isn’t easy. And TA is a job where you are supposed to interact with most humans of different nature, and hence, you have to face many difficulties in your job.
TA is a job where you have to be prepared for the lectures you’re required to give in the class, and you need to be more informative, tolerant, and interactive.
Most TAs are expected to be friendly and helpful because, in the job of a TA, that person is a medium between a teacher and a student. Therefore, a TA knows the views of most students and weak points a student can have, not ignoring the fact that a TA knows the kind of struggle and hard work a teacher does to interact with the class and how much they try to be more educative for the students. Also another difficulty TA must face is handling their studies and working for their own life goals while grasping the knowledge they suppose to deliver in their class.
Through Which a TA (teaching assistant) Can Overcome The Challenges That They Face During Their Job:-
If you are looking forward to applying for the position of TA or if you are already a TA and want to work on yourself to become sufficient and the best, then you may take help from the succeeding tips-
- Start by being patient because before doing anything, you need to know that there may be many difficulties and hurdles, and the first thing you require to face them is patience. With patience, you can make anything easy without stressing yourself out because of the hindrance created by different factors.
- Second is always be well-read and up to date about all the topics. Only then you will be able to give answers to the questions that students can ask you. As a student before becoming a TA, you must have had this experience that students judge teachers or other students very quickly when they fail to answer or fumble while answering. So be confident, revise the topic at least twice in points, and present it in a very humble way.
- The next tip is to be friendly and interactive as much as possible. Because the more you know about what students are thinking and in what way or manner they think or what their interests are, the more you’ll make the task easy for you to deliver the knowledge. Suppose you can identify the most famous or gossiping topic amongst them and relate the subject topic with it, then you can gain their interest in the presentation you are giving in the class. Other than that, you can conduct an interactive or quiz session through which you can know how much they are taking an interest in the subject and how much they are gaining knowledge, and you can also improve your presentation skills through these tips.
Conclusion
Being a TA depends on one’s choice because it takes a lot of effort to maintain the decorum and enlightening nature and keep yourself up to the topic. And not only it’ll take a lot of effort, but it also provides lots of benefits to the one applying for a TA. It adds special skills to your CV and gives teaching experience and helps you to develop critical thinking skills, boosts confidence, and provides lots of knowledge to you as well as you may get paid for the job too so you can also be self-independent for your expenses. So If you want to put in your efforts for the position, then it’s a good idea.
