Changes to the School of Biological Sciences for the next academic year would significantly decrease the number of undergraduate IA’s and would eliminate traditional discussion sections in favor of single zoom discussions for entire classes. With these drastic changes looming on the horizon, as a bio student myself, I thought it would be important to highlight everything that the TA’s do to make our education what it is.
I had the opportunity to interview a professor from the biology department, who chose to remain anonymous, about the value that TA’s provide to instructors and they detailed how TA’s were invaluable in reinforcing content from lectures and reaching students at an individual level. They discussed how smaller environments allowed students to grapple with the material on their own and become more confident in their knowledge. Another major point that was brought up was the importance of TA’s in bridging the gap between the instructor and the students. They described how having secondary instructors allows students to have more avenues to ask questions and creates an organized channel for feedback from students to the professor as well. When asked for a closing statement about the changes, the professor said, “This will cripple education at UCSD more than we even realize”.
After having the opportunity to interview numerous TA’s about their experiences, many of them highlighted the importance of developing peer to peer relationships with students and the value of having a small class size. Fourth year student Vincent Le detailed his experience of being a TA and the importance of creating trust within the students of his sections in order to successfully be an effective resource. He discussed with me that this was only possible because of the smaller classroom sizes and how opening up discussions to such a large number of students would only deteriorate that connection.
From my perspective as a bio student and from my discussions with my peers, it is clear that having a strong network of TA’s is crucial to a students success, both in and out of the classroom. Having large lectures be split into smaller sections allows for TA’s to be an immediate academic resource that is much more accessible and less intimidating than a professor, especially for minor questions. Additionally, as students themselves, TA’s understand the struggle of being a college student intimately well and so are perfectly positioned to be peer mentors. I personally have received valuable professional advice from my past TA’s and even owe my position on The UCSD Guardian to a past TA. I know that being a bio TA is undoubtedly a thankless job, which makes up for its lack of glory through the immeasurable amount of value that they provide to both instructors and students alike. I sincerely would like to say thank you to all the TA’s who have helped me throughout my time at UCSD and hope that a compromise can be reached such that the changes are not as drastic.
