Confessions of a GTA: Part 14

In the early days of my GTAing I thought it strange that all the other GTAs became twitchy when there was a quiet tutorial. I mean what is better than getting paid a decent wage just to stand there, literally sometimes for hours. Some of the longer labs can be up to three, not a bad little break from banging your head against the wall of “research”. I mean after a few years at Imperial a bit of boredom is welcome.

But out of the corner of my eye I could see them, the older PhDs. Hovering around groups of students that might be stuck (or in fact just discussing who the power couple of the department is). Or they would pace up and down, start sweet talking the lecturer or start heckling the students outright to make sure the students did not even have an inkling of a question. What was really noticeable was these veterans never chatted. They remained on point, prepared to leap to the needs of any student and would always be seen answering a question when the lecturer walked back into the room.

This hit me at the common denominator: the lecturer. As a PhD you have moved a few rungs down on the apathy level. Not only will lecturers now know your name, they might also have met your like boyfriend or something. (Even sometimes they might know where your parents live and yes, this has disturbed my sleep). But with great power… well a recognisable face … comes great responsibility. I came to realise when a lecturer asked me to teach in a class, he/she (probably he) would remember if the students asked me things or avoided me at all costs, which has happened.

The main reason for this is that the lecturers pay for the pleasure of our company out of their funds for a class. If they employ too many GTAs they will have over paid for something they could get for less. The first symptom of this is a quiet class. This is where the veterans come in to their own. They become indispensable as they are the only ones working while all these newbies are standing at the front chatting. They also have known the lecturer longer. They will be the first for the call backs and the pay check for next year.

Now in a quiet room of students working beautifully quietly, I find myself insanely pacing, drumming up questions even the students did not think they needed to ask and being totally icy to my chatty colleagues. So my confession is that you need to give GTAs work to stop this obsessive behaviour. Ask them that question however stupid you think it is, they will love you for it.