Reply to If you think it matters that your kid's classes be taught by a professor: Why?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Faculty brat here. I’m definitely concerned about the exploitation of adjuncts. It’s appalling.

It’s true that some TAs make great teachers but I like professors because they are experts and they are dedicated to teaching, not doing it in the side while they earn a degree.  Some TAs enjoy teaching and are good. Some do it because they have to.  No one chooses to become a professor unless they truly love teaching. Competition is fierce, you can’t control where you live, and you don’t make much money. [/quote]

I'd argue plenty of professors are NOT "dedicated to teaching".  Many are at the university to do research.  They hate teaching entry level/lower level undergrad courses and as such, suck at it and don't really care.  IN that case, I'd rather have a TA would is working their ass off to teach.  Or a "lecturer"---they are there to teach and typically are much better at it.

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Agree. Each type of instructor has a range of good & not-so-good teachers. It’s not as clear-cut as some posters are claiming. Your kid isn’t necessarily getting a substandard education if he gets an occasional non-tenure-track prof.

There are many other variables that college applicants should be considering rather than the % of classes taught by TAs. The quality of food, cleanliness of dorms, amount of drug use, size & convenience of campus, etc. are all probably going to have a bigger impact on your kid’s overall experience than whether intro psych is taught by a tenure-track professor or not. [/quote]

For our family, class size is more important and access to professors.  Sure Chem 101 can be taught with 200 in lecture and then discussion sections and that works well, but I'd prefer not to have the lecture be 400+.  I'd also argue that calculus 101 should not be 200+. I prefer if those courses are taught with 25-40 students.

My kids all picked universities where most classes, sans the intro Chem/Bio, are typically 25-50 students.  One had a few business classes that were 75-100, but IMO that's okay as you can still "engage" in a class of that size if you choose to and sit in the first 10 rows of lecture.

One kid's major is about 30 kids, so majority of their classes from sophomore year onwards will have at most 40-45 students (they get crossover from BME majors with a focus in this major so classes will have 5-10 BME majors sometimes).  Same kids for most classes, so it's collaborative.

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