The best and the worst of GTA-ing

Almost every memorable moment as a GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistant) is both wonderful and terrible. Some are so bad that they’re good in retrospect (though some are just bad), and sometimes being a GTA makes you so happy that you can’t help but love your job. It’s been a rollercoaster first year as a GTA, and I’ve definitely learnt some valuable lessons (such as not to get too drunk the night before a field trip abroad), but I don’t think I did a bad job. Here are my highlights and lowlights of the year, as well as the best and worst experiences I had with GTAs when I was an undergrad.

The Best

As A GTA

1. Having my tutorial students ask whether I’ll be their tutor next year. Honestly guys, you made my year. I’ll do my best!
2. Being told by a student that before the class, he wanted to kill himself over the topic, but by the end, he definitely thought that he could figure it out for the exam. At least their level of understanding increased, even if mine was still hopelessly poor!
3. Getting hit on by a student, during one of his final exams. Seriously man, don’t you have better things to be doing than making eyes at me for hours?
4. Spending ages helping a struggling student with something really fundamental, then seeing them go off and do it independently. Bonus points for the student whose work I recognised when I was marking their exam, being better than I could ever do it myself.
5. Being paid to do nothing but watch on so many field trips, but make sure the students didn’t kill themselves. Okay, that one time that one student did nearly die, but he didn’t, and it was just once…
6. Being awkwardly stuck between being a student and a lecturer. You get to drink with both and hear what they each have to say about the other, which always give you the best stories to tell.
7. Watching final year students sitting their exams, knowing that you got through this already, and you have absolutely nothing to prove anymore.
8. Seeing a struggling student have an epiphany in an exam and start scribbling furiously. Oh, I know that feel.
9. Looking really popular when walking through my department. No-one needs to know that all these people saying hello to me are my students, not my friends.
10. Automatically gaining a whole load of friends (usually MSc students) to hang out with after a weekend of bonding on a field trip.

As A Student

1. The magic GTA who made Fluids make far more sense than the lecturer ever did
2. When the GTA I spent all term falling in love with asked me a question and told me I was doing a good job. I still love you, demonstrator with the dinosaur watch <3
3. When my group project was saved by a GTA, when they really didn’t have to.

The Worst

As A GTA

1. Being approached and asked out by a student after class. Sure, we may be friends for the purpose of a class or a field trip, but you’re 18, there is zero chance that I will consider making you a regular part of my social life. Don’t embarrass me in front of my real friends!
2. After invigilating an exam, when the entire class of students claimed to have left the room for ten minutes, without my noticing. Luckily, the senior tutor didn’t find this believable…
3. GTAing for a practical chemistry lab when I was so hungover that I couldn’t hold the bottle of HF steady. All of the students had done the lab before and clearly knew it better than me – no-one wanted to be there.
4. Realising when drunk and in Soho at 1am that I had to GTA at 9am, for a problems class that I’ve never studied or even looked at the subject material. What followed was the worst three hours of my life, as I hastily googled every single question I was asked. No-one bought it.
5. While idly checking my phone when my students were working something out, I received some bad news, but had to keep teaching and hold it together for another two hours. It’s a fine line in GTAing between informal teaching, and still being professional.
6. Having to give a tutorial or teach a class that you signed up for months ago… without realising that it would clash with a huge deadline from your supervisor. When we’re snowed under with work, the last thing we want to do is teach you how to solve differential equations.
7. Realising halfway through a problems class that you’ve misunderstood the topic, and have been explaining something incorrectly for the last hour. It is with a deep sense of shame and regret that you backtrack through everyone you’ve spoken to with the correct answer.
8. Running into your students in the bathroom, or worst, out and about. The young ones, especially, don’t embrace the social etiquette of awkwardly walking 20 feet apart to avoid any awkward extended conversations.
9. Being told that a question is simply impossible by a student in an exam, when you can clearly see that they have all the information that they need. Either you want to tell them that they’re stupid, or they look so helpless that you want to give them a clue; but remaining ambiguous is so frustrating!
10. The many hours long, mindlessly boring, irrelevant training that we’re forced to sit through at the beginning of the year. The majority of us aren’t even responsible for imparting any original knowledge, why teach us to do it? It’s enough to put a naive PhD student off teaching for life!

As A Student

1. The GTA I had in my first year who would consistently ignore me, and talk only to my male lab partner, even when he was answering my questions. Last year, he hit on me. Not cool.
2. “What do you think?” guy. I relate to him now, but he really took it too far. Sometimes you’ve got to throw a confused student a bone.
3. An invigilator standing behind my shoulder for an entire exam, breathing his smelly breath down my neck. To say this was distracting would be an understatement.