Grad students teaches undergrad classes: so what?

Great Debates
81

In community college, each of my classes were FAR more lively than FSU. The teachers knew most of the students, and welcomed discussions, and students felt they could actually contribute, as there were only 15-25 in a class (rather than 50+).

At my 4 year, to a man/woman, every teacher basically just lectured, and game assignments. They never asked for input, and when a student actually tried to input they were greeted with short answers that assure that other students were less likely to try that again thank you very much.

As to the folk that are adding the social aspects of a 4 year college as part of the appeal, I have to ask: What prevents you from having similar experiences outside of that 4 year college? Of the many people in my age group I know that attended a 4 year from day one, none of them built any lasting experiences, and spend a great deal of social time trying to recreate fleeting situations that happened in college, or vainly attempting to keep up the friendships from those days (while constantly complaining about said friendships). Those of us who did not have said college experience are happily going through life building relationships and experiences as we go.

I am not saying this is universal. I am merely saying that I hear this a great deal from people (that they wouldn’t trade their college experience) and yet, none of them seem to have any healthy relationships. So, it could be said that the college experience isn’t for everyone. And for 80K, couldn’t you have bought some friends or taken a long road trip where you have great expeiences, saw the world, and made some interesting friends along the way. If you need 80K to build relationships of have experiences, I feel you may have some problems.

82

Ooooh! Sghoul reminded me of another advantage to JCs for GenEd and introductory classes–no classes with hundreds (literally) of other students like at my 4-yr school. Those were the one that absolutely needed multiple TAs just to handle the questions.

83

Hang in there; it gets better. (At least, freshman comp does … trying to teach classical drama is making me give serious thought to running away to the mountains and becoming a hermit.)

The trouble is that every class is going to have rough spots the first time the instructor teaches it, regardless of whether the instructor has a doctorate in hand. Education level and teaching experience are two separate issues. Most of the problems people have described with their grad-student-run classes are the result of having classes taught by inexperienced or unenthusiastic teachers, not grad students per se. If grad students didn’t teach, it would compound the problem because universities would be forced to hire regular faculty members with little or no teaching experience, and probably less enthusiasm and flexibility than your average first-year TA. (Most of the grad students in my department want to teach; we were fully aware going in that the teaching load would be heavy, and in some cases selected the program for that very reason. Graduate programs that don’t involve teaching attract people who want to do research.) Furthermore, professors – even short-term adjuncts – cost more than grad students. Students would see tuition increases that wouldn’t necessarily reflect a corresponding increase in the quality of education.

BTW – $80K for two years of college? At my own alma mater, which is a medium-sized, highly regarded four-year college where most classes have 30 students or fewer, it’s closer to $10K for in-state students. Smaller state universities are a great way to have the best of both worlds.

84

What problems might those be? I’m agreement that every college experience is different, and I can certainly only speak for my own. I wanted to have a residential life experience in addition to an academic one; hence I chose a small liberal arts college in Maine. I was lucky and thankful that my parents were able to finance my education and advocated going away to school (8,000 miles away, in fact). And I built plenty of healthy relationships in college. I also had the opportunity to see a bit of the world and travel with some of those friends when I went abroad my junior year. Without, of course, having to buy said friends.

And yes, my undergraduate education probably approached $80,000 for four years of schooling. My parents and I thought it was well worth it.

85

I have done an extraordinarily poor job articulating my beliefs about the benefits of college if all I’ve gotten across is that it provides one the opportunity to make dysfunctional, expensive friendships.

And I’ll remphasize the point made earlier–not all families will have to spend $80,000 for the first two years. It’s the most exclusive colleges that cost that much in tuition and room & board (tiggeril is at an outstanding place), but they are the exception. Also, many families qualify for grants and scholarships that make the actual price of college somewhat lower than the sticker price.

86

I don’t know where you people are coming up with these figures like $80k. Doesn’t anyone get scholarship money anymore? I mean I’m not exactly ancient, but many schools manage to come up with at least some grant money to attract students, and sometimes the most expensive schools are the best-endowed ones. The university I attended cost $15k in tuition alone in 1986, when I began my freshman year, and the main campus of my state university cost about $3k (if memory serves). Plus room and board are a hell of a lot cheaper in Champaign-Urbana than in NYC, where I ended up. But NYU gave me enough in grant money from their endowment (based in part on academic merit and in part on my parents’ income; Mom, my custodial parent, had a salary that would have covered tuition if it weren’t for pesky details like mortgage and food) that the end cost was about the same for either school. U. of I. just doesn’t have that kind of discretionary grant money to hand out. So the tuition for 4 years at NYU, on paper, was something like $60k, but many students end up paying much less than that out of pocket, or in my case practically nothing,

Maybe my local community college would have been cheaper, but not by much. Plus, let’s face it: even basic liberal arts classes are not going to be as rigorous at a community college as at a highly selective university, and by the time you lose credits in the transfer, it sometimes ends up being not much cheaper to go to a community college for the first 2 years. Especially if you factor in the lost wages that you could have been making if you hadn’t stayed in school an extra semester, or an extra year, to make up the credits you lost in the transfer.

87

As we steadily veer away from the OP . . .

I just checked the website for my college, and tuition for the 2003-2004 academic year is quoted as . . . brace yourselves . . . $38,970. That’s something like a 50% increase I think from when I graduated in 1996.

Granted, this is a private college and there’s plenty of opportunities for financial aid (including a ten-month payment plan set up by the college, student employment, and the usual loan programs), but based on that figure I don’t think $80,000 for two years of college is an entirely outlandish statistic in the absence of any sort of aid package.

88

Perhaps you did because you have not explained what those benefits are and the rest of us had to fill in the blanks from our own experiences. As I got next to nothing out of my first two years of college besides many hangovers and something to do besides go to Vietnam…**

IIRC, my original estimate was $50-60k. Tigg gave the $80k number.**

Even so, it is obscenely high for the benefits received. I am still absolutely convinced that, as far as freshmen and sophomores are concerned, an expensive school is for suckers.

89

dropzone, I hope this isn’t going to be too presumptuous a question, but why did your oldest daughter want, initially, to attend a four-year college? Since pretty much all of our examples of what we thought of college life seem to be drawn from personal experience, I’m curious as to her perception of the benefits and disadvantages of college life.

90

I will ask her.

91

As for a question of me being “too presumptuous,” please bear in mind that when Eve revealed her secret I asked if she had gotten implants or if she had gone the “hormones and cheeseburgers” route. I’m a middle-aged guy–I wouldn’t know “too presumptuous” if it bit me in the ass. :wink:

92

$80k includes tuition, room & board, books, fees, and incidental expenses (of which there are quite a few, as I am a member of the Overprivileged Second-Generation Upper Middle Class [sup]TM[/sup]).

Yes, I consider that worth it. Instead of blowing that money on a McMansion or new cars, my parents spent it on my education. Both my brother and I went to a private school for K-12 too, and I know people consider that an unnecessary expense, but, frankly, we’ve got the money to spare, and we’d rather spend it on schooling than material goods. THAT is economics, dropzone. Making decisions between bundles of goods based on what is more valuable to you.

Also to be frank, the quality of education, grad students or no grad students, would NOT be comparable between the local community colleges, or even the local 4-year private schools and the U of C. Not even in terms of teaching, but in terms of available facilities, technology, the libraries, and also the general atmosphere. The U of C is an intellectually snobbish place, and going in there during junior year would not be an easy experience, as a student wouldn’t be acclimated to the level of work or discussion at another school. Snotty? Yes. But true.

93

My girlfriend would disagree with you.

She decided, after some years out of school, that she wanted to go to university. First, she had to get her high school equivalency because she had dropped out of high school early. Then she did the first two years of her undergrad degree at a local college, before transferring to UC Berkeley, where her grades were good enough to get her into one of the top grad schools in the country.

Not only that, but she tells me that some of the teachers she had at the college were excellent, and that the level of discussion was often no worse than what could be found in a typical lower division class at Berkeley.

94

And i just realize that tiggeril was talking about the University of Chicago, not the University of California. But i don’t think that changes my argument because, in my field at least, UC Berkeley is at least as intellectually rigorous and well-respected as the University of Chicago.

95

I’m the first to admit that my career depends on people disposing of obscene amounts of disposable income, but I still laugh at them behind their backs. You, instead, I feel kinda sorry for because you do not realize the reality of the preposterous waste of money you are making. I understand–I bought into that “four year schools are better” crap when I was a kid, too. It took plenty of life experience to convince me that I was wrong.

OTOH, mhendo, even I have to chuckle Illinoisian partisanship when you make your FEEBLE comparison between U of Chicago and UC-Berkeley. :wink:

96

dropzone, your responses here stagger me. Based on an “n” of 1, you’ve decided that hundreds of thousands of families are morons, suckers, and deserving of pity? Now come on.

97

So anyway, those “social relationships” that some of you disparage are actually a critical component of many students’ engagement with their college studies.

Alas, I’ve got a huge deadline so I can’t go page through my scholarly stuff–although I confess I don’t have much community college information, because people who study all forms of postsecondary education consider 2-yr and 4-yr colleges entirely different animals. Maybe we’re all deluded, too. However, a quick grab off my bookshelf found this: Studies have shown that “18-22 year olds attending community colleges drop out of college at a much higher rate than would be expected from their abilities, aspirations, and family backgrounds.” Why is that? I dunno exactly, but it seems that some of them must be getting something less than their identical peers at 4-year schools.

98

Look, i have no real barrow to push in this comparison; i went college in Australia, and i’m very happy at Johns Hopkins as a grad student.

But you’ll notice that i did say that i was talking about my field.

Perhaps you should check out where UC Berkeley ranks among history departments nationwide.

In a 1995 National Research Council study (link), the Berkeley history department ranked second (yes, 2nd) in the nation. According to the 1997 Gourman Report (rankings summarized here), UC Berkeley ranked second again, behind Yale, with Chicago in 8th place.

In the most recent U.S. News and World Report rankings, i’m not not sure what Berkeley or Chicago’s overall rankings are, because the free website only gives the top three places. The top three are Princeton, Yale, and Stanford.

But if you click on the History Specialties links, you’ll find Berkeley in the top three in the following areas:

Asian History – first
Cultural History – first
European History – second
Latin American History – third
Modern U.S. History – second (equal)

The only one of those top-three lists featuring U. Chicago was the Cultural History category, where it came in second.

I realize that all such rankings involve a considerable amount of subjective criteria. And personally, i chose my grad school based on the particular adviser i wanted to work with, not on some nebulous general ranking. Nor am i trying to bash Chicago here; their history department has some amazing scholars, and i have quite a few of their books on my shelves.

But to suggest that any comparison between the UC Berkeley and U. Chicago history departments is “feeble” is the sort of American private school parochialism that this Australian (all our universities are public) finds silly and unproductive. And yes, i know you winked as you said it, but i’ve heard it often enough since i moved to the US to know that plenty of people believe it.

99

I went to a (snobby!) four-year university and I wouldn’t trade the experience. In fact, for me, the social experience was even more valuable than the academic experience. I am still close friends with at least a dozen of my classmates, including my freshman roommate. I met every one of these people when I lived with them, the vast majority in the dorms. I guess if I’d gone to a commuter college, I would have made friends in other ways, but it’s not the same.

In fact, I had the opportunity to commute to school – a mere four miles from home. I knew I didn’t want to commute based on a summer camp experience where most kids were residents (including me) and one girl lived at home. She felt excluded from our bonding, and she was. Not that we disliked her, but she wasn’t around for the late night chats, the communal toothbrushing, the study sessions and all the other elements of dorm life.

Another difference between my university and, say, the community college in my state: my school was much more diverse. My high school was neither diverse nor challenging. My college was both, which enriched both my academic and social experiences.

And finally, to address the OP, it depends. :slight_smile: One of the reasons I went to my snobby school was that fewer TAs taught classes. Though, actually, the one class I failed was taught by a TA… quite possibly it was entirely my fault, but I didn’t understand one bit of the material.

100

Well, to be fair, that’s a “Comprehensive Fee”, which includes room and board and the General Fee, plus money for books and (what can only be an estimate for) personal expenses. The tuition is probably only $30K. :smiley: