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To teach or not to teach?
Anna Kushnir
Thursday, 10 July 2008 23:15 UTC
One of the main reasons I went to grad school at my institution was that there was no compulsory teaching. One could TA (teacher assistant, or something to that effect) a class for compensation, but it was not required. I always dreaded teaching, due to a combination of many factors not the least of which was laziness. However, I am now starting to wonder if I missed out on an important learning experience. Did you teach? Was it helpful, a good experience? Or did it just take time away from thesis work?
Updated 11 July 2008 04:04 UTC
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Replies
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I’ve taught – several times – during my graduate career and I have to say that I would have to answer yes to all of the above questions. Unlike you (yet in the same graduate program), one of my driving forces to go to graduate school was that, at the beginning, I thought teaching at a small liberal arts college was what I wanted to do when I grew up. In this way, teaching has been extremely helpful, if not a bit frustrating, because now I have no clue if it is still what I want to do in the end. Granted, acting as a teaching assisstant is a far cry from running one’s own class, but the repetition, the distracted students and the aforementioned laziness do detract from the appeal of my sneaky way of bringing summer vacation back into my life (which, in reality, is completely untrue – if you want more than 9 mos of salary).
Although my experiences both teaching and at the bench have made me question my ultimate career goal (and mostly put it aside while I contemplate post-doc land), it was incredibly rewarding in the people I was able to meet and help. Even as a lowly TA (or TF, if your school wants to feel special), I got the opportunity to see that light of understanding flash in a student’s eye. I’ve received heartfelt thank yous and there will be a pod of ex-students sitting in the corner cheering me on when I finally do defend – they’ve told me they are excited to finally cheer for me, rather than the other way around.
Which brings my long-winded response to your last question – yes, no question, it did take time away from work. However, this has never been a concern for me (I shake my head in chagrin now, writing my dissertation and watching you enter the real world). I have always held fast to my rule that I would rather take a little longer to finish my PhD and experience all that grad school and life in my twenties had to offer, then rush through and not know what happened to all of that time. Teaching was a part of the grad school experience and I am very satisfied that I actively sought it out. -
I wish.. I could..
I have partially supervised master student’s dissertation before.. which was very different from teaching students..
but i wonder, how someone will focus on both at teaching and research at the same time.. ??
Can a good scientist be a good teacher ???
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I think Melissa puts it well; more than anything, teaching is about the satisfaction you get from helping other people. You cannot be an effective teacher if your heart isn’t there. In that regard, I don’t think you’ve missed out by not taking a TA position.
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James – Beyond altruism, I do believe there is something to be said for teaching. My heart wouldn’t be in it, certainly (speaking only for myself), but that doesn’t mean that I can’t learn. Teaching can help one with presentation skills, speaking clearly, and developing patience.
But Amit’s point stands – how does one effectively balance teaching and research on a short time budget? Other than the obvious satisfaction one would receive from the endeavor, is it a good idea for students to teach grad school?
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The balance is hard. At my grad school teaching was essentially compulsory. It was a hell of a shock to the system, I’ll tell you, but it was also one of the most rewarding and fun things I’ve done. but it was a hell of a lot of work.
On paper, if you’re scheduled to teach for 15hrs/week, you get to 15hrs less lab work…. yeah… right… but you do get used to it very quickly. It’s hard if you end up like some of my chums who were bounced from pillar to post and had to teach for their entire grad careers (5+ yrs). It adds to the length of time you’re in school, obviously. but if you want to teach afterwards it’s invaluable.
I had it fairly easy because I only taught for 3 semesters before getting my own predoc grant. And I got to teach the same course each semester so, after the first run it was easy and I had a better time of adapting my lab-schedule too. However, I know I was fortunate.
So, yeah. Very valuable experience, even if you don’t want to go on to be an instructor. And also, Amit, it’s not difficult to be a good teacher and a good scientist. That’s easy, in fact!
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