Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site eosp1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!eosp1!lincoln
From: lincoln@eosp1.UUCP (Dick Lincoln)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: T.A's in college
Message-ID: <1210@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Oct-84 17:43:51 EST
Article-I.D.: eosp1.1210
Posted: Mon Oct 29 17:43:51 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Oct-84 00:12:40 EST
References: <199@scorplx.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton, NJ
Lines: 45

> Are there any other college students out there that have had
> communication problems with a teaching assistant at their 
> respective college?  The University of Lowell where I am currently
> enrolled, is notorious for hiring graduate students to teach very
> difficult courses such as Calculus, Physics or Data structures.

>  
> The real problem is when the school hires a grad student that can
> hardly speak english.  I'm really not biggoted at all, but if they
> are going to hire teachers that hail from some country other than
> the U.S., can't they at least make sure they have a working
> knowledge of the english language?

This is an old, old problem that is often caused by a conflict of
interest in many university departments.

A long time ago when I was a TA at a well known graduate school (name
purposely omitted), I was told that the purpose of the TA program was to
round out the presumed deficiencies in the PHD candidates who were TA's,
and NOT to save money, improve undergraduate education, etc.

This department decided that probably the Asian TA's were lacking in
practical experience due to a lack of equipment in their native
countries (a fairly accurate assumption - remember this was a long time
ago) but were probably strong in theory - what else is there to do when
you have no meters, oscilloscopes, etc.?  Thus they mostly assigned the
Oriental TA's to labs and made them design experiments, while Occidental
types like me were assigned to drill sessions for Engineering Analysis
and the like.

One consequence was a linear motor (as opposed to rotary - not
"non-linear" in the sense of superposition, etc.) experiment where the
students were asked to measure the inductance of a large, homogeneous
slab of iron and a large coil, as a function of the distance between
slug and coil, with a standard General Radio bridge.  Unfortunately the
TA lab designers didn't know that the bridge oscillator frequency was
about 400 Hz.  At that frequency the coil - slug lash-up looked like a
resistor rather than an inductor due to hysteresis and eddy current
losses, even though it worked well as a DC linear motor.

The lab was a total failure, and NO ONE in the department faculty
reviewed it before the undergrads were subjected to it.  When I heard
about this and questioned my advisor, he told me that the TA placement
objective had apparently been quite well satisfied - the lab leaders
learned a lot about the practical use of AC bridges.