Confessions of a GTA: Part 10

For most of my time as a GTA here, I have stuck very securely to the undergrads. These are people I may not always like but at least I know where they are coming from. I have been there. I have experienced the peaks and troughs (or more likely deep underwater trenches) of undergrad life. With the MScs, however, it is different. They make more exotic and hard to find GTA work than 3rd year undergrads. Their courses are an awful lot smaller (lowering their sighting chances) and they are only taught by certain departments (lowering the habitats). Due to their rarity they also hang around in one big group and when threatened by countless undergrads generally stake out some sort of back room not many people know about and claim it as theirs. As my supervisor is not really involved with them, I had assumed that was that for me, but somehow early this term I talked my way into one. I was not really sure what to expect, but prepped the notes as usual, on the, um… night before.

When I walked into the room something immediately hit me: lack of smell. To be fair to the undergrads some of the ventilation in the lecture halls is really terrible, but to be honest after they have been in a confined space for an hour or two, it is not always the nicest place to enter. Also the MSc faces looking back at me were kind of old. Not gnarly or anything, but older definitely than me which was off putting especially know I was trying to help people who had much, much more experience than me. Before long I had my first question, where a pair of students (who had checked with each other first, which was weird) did not understand the question. I explained and was thanked politely and not as an afterthought which was nice. This was a prequel to a question about how you would apply this technique in “real life”. I mean they weren’t even interested in where to get marks, but my somewhat surprised explanation was again thanked and the person retreated to “check an answer with a friend”. And the questions kept on coming: “Could you help me understand this bit in the notes?”, “I understand the question but what is the best way to start out of our two?” and even “Could you tell me about an extra book you found helpful?”

So my confession this week is, although it was a refreshing change from the constant “Will we get a question like this in an exam?”, to be honest talking to other people who cared about your subject was highly disconcerting.