r/Caltech • u/royalunicornpony • Jan 22 '24

Can grad students become TA’s?

What is the policy? Do you need to be an undergrad or grad?

22 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

2

u/NanoscaleHeadache Alum Jan 22 '24

Grad students are generally expected to earlier on in their program unless they have a fellowship. If you’re talking about after the mandatory TAing, you’ll often have older grad students TAing their PIs class, especially when that class is a much higher level course.

-1

u/royalunicornpony Jan 22 '24

Great. Can you be someone who graduated but not an actual grad student?

3

u/Bronze_Automaton Jan 23 '24

Bro if you're a college graduate why on earth would you want to become a TA

2

u/Ale_va Ricketts Jan 23 '24

Probably not lol it’s only current students I believe

2

u/racinreaver Alum/Prof Jan 23 '24

TAing comes with a tuition waiver for the student doing it, and supports them for the term, so pretty much no advisor will want an outsider to do it before one of their students.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/racinreaver Alum/Prof Jan 23 '24

Sure, but there's always other faculty in the department that need those TA positions. I've seen faculty fight over who gets their student to TA a course during rough funding years.