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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’d rather be taught by a tenured faculty member with lab space than an individual who was in undergrad a few months ago. Your kid would have a better education with discussion sections or even crazier- Office hours- with professors.[/quote]

You seem to be misunderstanding that in the Prof/TA model, the Prof is teaching the course. S/he has a team of TAs that teach the smaller discussion sessions. TAs are usually PhD students or at least 2nd year graduate students unless they are superstars. Not every graduate student is offered a TA spot, they are usually in high demand.[/quote]
Can someone explain what the discussion sections are?

I went to a liberal arts college and so did my husband. We had lecture with a professor, TA sections where you went to work in the homework with a student who aced the class and office hours (which I’m assuming are much lengthier than a university prof) with the professor.

TA sections often didn’t involve much teaching, just a quick glance over your work, pointers to the solution, and some guidance if you were completely lost. Are grad students teaching whole courses?[/quote]

In science, you're teaching the students. The professor is just lecturing a mile above their heads and disappears, and you're actually in the trenches, doing the experiments, working the problem sets, and answering all their science questions and also whatever life questions and angsty problems they have. And then you grade all their work, and they come and ask you for letters of recommendation.
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Jeez. They really need to pay grad students more.[/quote]

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