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[quote=Anonymous]"I agree with the prof. (as a fellow prof). College is really what the student makes of it, so you need to think where your child can thrive. My own belief is that small liberal arts colleges tend to have one advantage: they don't have to focus on a graduate program. Focus on grad programs usually comes at expense of undergraduates in any give department. And also grad students need to be employed, so they TA big classes and teach courses. I was a TA at a major big name university. I had no training. Pity the poor students."

I guess this will be a little STEM centric.  There are articles by Nobel prize winners floating around the web pushing SLACs for STEM.  Which could be related to the idea that Nobel prize winners can go anywhere as undergrads.

Really, you have to know your student.

If they are going to be a graduate student, going somewhere that has graduate students, so you can watch them, is a great way to learn how to be a better (and if you want to be a) grad student.

A big part of being a grad student is learning to teach yourself when the course is missing. This often starts when you have a critical mass of poor TAs.  For many, there is no reason not to start learning the processes as an undergrad.

It has always surprised me that colleges give freshmen the worst TAs.  I guess I understand that incoming grad students would rather teach sophomore classes if they can (I did).

But why not have the worst/least experienced TA teach seniors?  Do seniors really even need TAs?  I remember TAing seniors as a pretty cushy job.  Seniors should pretty much know how the department is run, who to ask about what and how to teach themselves in a reasonably developed course.

If seniors don't even need TAs, maybe the worst (but experienced) TAs could be for juniors who should just need a little help.  Sophomores would end up with TAs (like myself) who might not be bad but might be first years who haven't TAed before.  Leaving those who had proven themselves as TAs for freshmen.[/quote]

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