A graduate teaching assistant, abbreviated as GTA, is a graduate student who assists a professor with various teaching activities at a college or university. The person is usually a full-time student who is providing these services to help pay for their education. Aside from the monetary benefit, students interested in teaching careers can use this position to gain instructional experience in a classroom setting. Before being considered for this position, graduate students may need to meet certain requirements. In most cases, the person will assist in his or her field of study, though some may be qualified to help in other areas as well.
In many cases, simply being a student is insufficient to qualify for a graduate teaching assistantship. The student may need to apply for the job in the same way that he or she would for any other. A general requirement to be enrolled in a related academic program may also exist. In order to qualify for this type of college or university job, assistants may be required to complete a training program. It is not unusual to devote some unpaid working hours as part of the training process.
In most cases, a graduate teaching assistant should be prepared to fill all of the roles of the active professor if the professor is unavailable. As a result, a teaching assistant’s responsibilities can be varied. This person may assist the professor administering tests, grading homework and examinations, lecturing, and leading discussion sessions while in this position. The majority of assistants will also offer tutoring. As many professors have hundreds of students at any given time, time can be limited for them; as a result, a teaching assistant may hold office hours to meet with students if the professor is unavailable.
A graduate teaching assistant is frequently placed in a research department. This is especially true if his or her field of study is research. The student may be assigned to work in a laboratory rather than a classroom in this case. A laboratory teaching assistant’s responsibilities may differ slightly. In a lab setting, the assistant may be responsible for setting up labs, making them ready for use, and supervising student experiments in addition to standard teaching duties.
Working as a graduate teaching assistant can be extremely rewarding. A position like this can be especially useful for someone looking to hone their teaching skills in preparation for a future career. Because college and university classes can be quite large, this position can be quite demanding. As a result, anyone interested in working as a teaching assistant should be people-oriented, good at giving instructions, and have good time management skills, as most assistants are also students.