Preparing Future Suckas

"Preparing Future Faculty is recommended for all Ph.D. students", says the Graduate Handbook. It makes sense; why should everyone from K-12 be taught by teachers with Masters degrees in education, but college students should be taught by untrained geeks who love their fields?

I was looking forward to learning how to teach... after all, it's what I want to do someday (following the grand traditions of everyone from MegA and AngryMark to Ralf and Andy). I wanted to learn about the Socratic method, and about opposing schools of thought like ... well, I don't know what schools oppose Socrates, because I never learned any of that stuff.

Instead, this course turned out to be Slave Labor 501 (as opposed to 101... 'cause this is grad level servitude). Our "training" is actually spending a week as a TA in the general BME (that's Biomedical Engineering) undergrad lab. We spent all fall semester "preparing" for that week.

Find yourself a communications major (I choose Brigadier General Handloff) and ask them about the pitfalls of group meetings. Specifically, things like groupthink, soliciting volunteers, sharing responsibility, and so on. That's what the ass-hat running this course did. Our 1.5 hour meetings should've lasted 5 minutes. I've relearned how to doodle.

Even worse have been the assignments. Instead of saying "when we meet next week, please revise the model lab report", we got emails as late as the midnight before class to the same effect. No, Professor Ass-Hat, I will not be able to accomplish this menial task, which would take me 10 minutes, in the next 12 hours. I need to sleep for most of it, and the rest of the time will be spent doing anything but set the precedent of being at your beck and call. It's too bad you didn't ask me yesterday, if not last week.

Of course nobody would do the work he wanted us to do, and of course there were no consequences. Fortunately, since he delegated this responsibility to everyone, we could all hide behind each other.

If you can't tell, this week is my week to TA, and I'm THRILLED. Yes, I've known this was coming for months now, but the magnitude of it is only now sinking in.

What doesn't help is that because Prof. AH forgot to upload the revised Lab Writeup I sent him, there are now 2 versions of the Writeup available on the interwebs. Oh, and he would like me to prepare a 1-page summary of what I'd like from the students in their lab report (I want a LAB REPORT, damnit! Didn't they learn this stuff freshman year? How complicated could it be?). And to prepare a few powerpoint slides to introduce the lab (the students are being lectured about the lab by a tenured professor tomorrow morning... what the hell else am I supposed to contribute?).

Everything I listed in the above paragraph was sent to me via email, THIS AFTERNOON.

Now, there are TAs who do this week-in and week-out. Who am I to complain about dealing with a bunch of weinerkids (©Handloff) for a week? Well, in my defense, TAs are paid to TA. Their continuing presence at grad school is contingent on TAing. Their performance is rewarded by money for tuition and food.

I get a credit. Worse, I get a credit that I don't even need. Coincidentally, the first class meeting, in which I was informed of the nature of the class, was 1 week after the drop/add period closed. How convenient.

If this is what being faculty is all about, I'm going to industry. Starting salary there is almost 2x as much, anyway.

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? I'm not going to industry. Damn it...