American Heritage TA
Description:
As a TA for American Heritage a student meets weekly with the professor he or she TA’s for. Along with holding weekly office hours where the TA helps students with difficult concepts the TA teaches a weekly class. This gives college students an invaluable link to professors and great experience leading discussions, teaching, and grading essays and tests.
How I got the idea / found the employment:
I met with a professor who suggested that I apply for the job. I had heard that American Heritage was a valuable but tough class and though I hadn’t taken it the professor thought that I would be prepared to TA for it because of other, similar courses that I had taken. Any student who has taken two of the following three courses and Econ 110 can apply: Political Science 110, History 220 and American Heritage.
Challenges I faced, and how I overcame them:
The interview process to get the job is very comprehensive and intense requiring applicants to teach an American Heritage principle to a panel of teachers and students who judge your abilities. It’s a great idea to teach other people the principle you are assigned several times before hand. Also, because the application process is so competitive it is a great idea to get a letter of recommendation from another professor, verifying your competency.
This job also requires about 20 hours of work a week. This can definitely be tough when taking a lot of credits. Really the only way to deal with this is to manage your time exceptionally well (planners, goals, etc.)
What I learned:
What I learned: This employment opportunity is especially useful as it gives you an opportunity to get to know several different professors on an intimate level (a different professor teaches the class each semester). This, of course, is useful because these professors can provide excellent letters of recommendation when it comes time to apply for graduate school or a job after school.
This experience is also especially useful for students who are interested in teaching for a career. Where most TA jobs on campus don’t actually give you the opportunity to teach a full class, American Heritage actually has you teach a 50-minute class each week. TA’s receive constant feedback on how they can improve their teaching.
MTC Teacher
Description:
Teachers are responsible to prepare and teach lessons from Preach My Gospel, help the missionaries learn how to teach the lessons, and, if applicable, teach a language. Teachers are provided with continual training to ensure that they are well prepared to fulfill their job requirements.
The pay is very appealing, starting around $11/hour. You are compensated for all time spent for job related activities such as preparing lessons or attending training and meetings. They are also very good about working with a school schedule.
Teaching at the MTC really is an incredible experience. I think it feels like being a missionary again (kind of a cross between training and working with investigators).
How I got the idea / found the employment:
When I served an LDS mission, I had some wonderful teachers in the MTC that really influenced my mission. Largely because of that, I have wanted to work at the MTC ever since. My mission president worked at the MTC before he was called to preside over my mission, and he also recommended it.
Challenges I faced, and how I overcame them:
Getting a job at the MTC can be pretty competitive since there are so many applicants for each position. Something that can give you an advantage is a recommendation from a current or past employee. As you go through the application process try to find out the name of the training coordinator who will be hiring you so the person who is recommending you can get in contact with them.
Time has been one of the main challenges that I have faced since I started working there. You are required to work around 20 hours a week. Trying to balance that, school, and hopefully a social life can be difficult. To be able to do it all, I have taken the minimum amount of credits that I can each semester. I would recommend staying around 12-14 credit hours.
What I learned:
Working at the MTC has been a great opportunity to continue to develop the skills that I learned as a missionary. I have also become much more comfortable with teaching groups and public speaking.
Physics Teaching Assistant
Description:
When you apply to be a physics teaching assistant there are a couple of different responsibilities to which you may be assigned. The two major responsibilities are as a physics lab instructor or a tutorial lab TA. Physics lab instructors are responsible for actually teaching a physics lab (such as the physics 107 or 108 labs), however since you are actually responsible for teaching a class these positions are usually only given to physics majors or those who have completed upper division physics courses. The most likely responsibility to which you will be assigned is as a tutorial lab TA.
The tutorial lab is a place where physics students go to work on and get answers to questions about their homework. As a tutorial lab TA it is your responsibility to answer any questions that students have regarding basic physics concepts and also to help them understand and solve the homework problems.
At any given time you will likely have one to four other TA’s in the physics lab working if you need help answering a student’s questions. This is rarely an issue however because you will already be well prepared to answer any questions or concerns from the weekly review session, but it is reassuring thought for the first few weeks of work when you are still developing confidence as a TA.
Although you will likely find other jobs which pay more than this, it is rare that you will find one with as much flexibility. The department tries hard to work around your schedule and currently you are required to attend one two hour review session per week (which always occurs at the same time on the same day each week), however other than that all hours are negotiable. The available hours begin at 8:00am and end at 10:00pm. When you first apply you will be required to fill out a spreadsheet of the week and rank each hour on a scale of 0-5 for how convenient it is for you to work at that time. (If you rank it as a 0 you will never been assigned that time to work.) After your application is accepted your information will be sent to a computer which will process your hours and all of the other TA’s hours using a program designed to give each person the hours which fit their schedule and the needs of the tutorial lab the best. Although you will probably get at least one shift that is less convenient for you, overall you are likely to get a nice schedule. At this point in my description it is important to note that one of the major factors they look at when hiring an individual is the hours which they can work. You are much more likely to be hired if you can work a couple of times in the evening each week (as the evenings are often the busiest times of the day for the tutorial lab.)
Below are a list of links and information that may prove helpful:
Wages – http://gardner.byu.edu/tas/wages.html
($8.40) – Level 1 – No criteria
($8.80) – Level 2 – 41 credit hours
($9.20) – Level 3 – 76 credit hours and completion of physics 121, 123, 220 with at least a B-
($9.60) – Level 4 – 111 credit hours and completion of physics 121, 123, 220, 222 with at least a B-
Weekly Schedule for the two hour review session - (Make sure you can go to this, if you have a conflict in your schedule with this meeting you will not be hired!)
http://gardner.byu.edu/tas/tutorprep.html
If you would also like to apply to be a personal tutor this is a helpful link - http://groups.google.com/group/byu_physics_tutors
One last bit of information, if you are planning to apply to be a TA in the future and have not already taken the necessary physics courses it is highly recommended that you take physics 121 and 123 instead of physics 105 and 106 as they prefer to hire students who have taken the calculus based course because they are able to help both the 105 and 121 students.
How I got the idea / found the employment:
When I first came to college I had saved up enough money to pay for all four years and graduate debt free, or so I thought. I soon began dating a girl who I would eventually marry and after factoring in the costs of dating I quickly realized that I needed to pick up a part time job in order to graduate free of debt. The major problem I faced was the fact that my class schedule made it difficult for me to find employment. I was frequently on campus from eight in the morning to five or six in the evening. This made finding a ‘normal’ job out of the question for me. Considering my schedule I realized that I had two major options, first I could work at a restaurant or second I could work as a TA. Although I probably would have made more income working at a restaurant I recognized that working as a TA would help me to solidify the concepts I had learned and better prepare me to take the MCAT. I applied to work for a couple of different departments, but chose to work for the physics department because it was the most organized, the quickest to respond, and had the most flexible hours.
Some of you may have never applied to be a TA before and have no idea where to even start. There are several ways to go about it; the first thing to do is to go to the main office of the department of the class you wish to TA for. At this office they will usually have applications which you can fill out or will often have helpful information about how to apply. The next most common way to apply is to directly contact the teacher of the class for which you would like to apply informing them of your interest as serving as one of their TA’s. The final common way to apply is many departments will send out a mass email to all students after they pass a particular class. In this email they will state that they are looking to hire a TA for the class and list the requirements to apply for the position. If you meet the requirements there will be a link to click on which will send you to the webpage where you can apply online. When I applied to be a physics TA I did it through one of these mass emails, however I also could have applied at the main office for the physics department.
Challenges I faced, and how I overcame them:
Working in the tutorial lab can often be a challenging task because you need to be able to explain concepts on a level that the individual student with the question can understand. This means that you need to follow the adage, “A good teacher takes a complex subject and makes it simple enough that even a child can understand, a bad teacher takes a simple subject and makes it so complex that often nobody understands.” Although this was frustrating at first, I quickly learned how to explain concepts simply and clearly using easy to understand analogies. One thing to remember is that the students who have difficulty understanding are very rarely “dumb” students, most of the time they are so stressed by the course that they try to overcomplicate things and end up hopelessly confusing themselves. If you are having difficulty explaining a concept in an easy to understand manner, listen in to how the other TA’s explain the same concept and learn from their examples.
Another common challenge you’ll face is that you typically only review problems from the actual BYU campus based physics courses during your review session, meaning you do not go over the problems assigned to students enrolled at the Salt Lake Center or in the online course. Although there are not very many of these students you will need to know the concepts well enough to be able to quickly work physics problems you have never seen before. Luckily with the practice you receive working in the lab in nine cases out of ten you will find that you are more than up for the challenge. On occasion you might get stumped, if such a situation does occur it is more than likely that at least one of the other TA’s your working with will know how to solve the problem.
One of the only other major challenges I encountered with being a physics TA was on occasion you get “smart” students who really have no clue what they are talking about. They will come up to you not to ask for help on how to do a problem, but rather validation that the computer is wrong and they really are solving the problem correctly. (In all of my time of being a TA I have only seen the computer be wrong twice so this is very rarely the case.) When you ask them to explain their approach they will very confidently present an obviously incorrect approach. With these students you need to be tactful because they will often get defensive once they realize that they misunderstood the concept. Although this situation is rare, I once had a student storm out of the room upon my stating, “You’re really close to the right answer but the problem is you’re using the equations for torque when we’re looking at linear forces.” In this particular situation the student was already upset because the other TA’s he had approached told him the same thing, but he was convinced that he was correct and that no one else in the room had a clue what they were talking about. I only share this story to teach two points. First you need to be able to let things roll of your back, if you take things personally this position probably is not for you. And second, sometimes students get concepts mixed up in their head and you need to find tactful ways to help them to understand without making them feel stupid or inferior.
Although you may face other challenges, these constitute the major ones which I faced as a TA and will most likely constitute the major challenges you will face as a TA.
What I learned:
The major thing I learned from being a physics TA was physics. After working countless problems with students and explaining concepts hundreds of times it helped me to understand the subject matter at a much deeper level. This has helped me throughout my college career, especially in my physiology classes where application of these concepts has helped me to more fully understand how the human body functions.
Another thing I learned from this job is how to multi-task. Often there would be several students who needed help at once and you had to be aware of what the different students were working on so that when two students had the same question you could help both of them at the same time, thereby conserving time and allowing you to help more students during a given interval of time.
This experience was useful because it helped me to turn physics, which was not one of my strongest subjects, into one of my strongest subjects.
Substitute Teaching
Description:
Substitute teaching for the public schools in Utah would be a good opportunity. The hours are flexible and it is totally up to the individual what days they work. There is always a demand. The pay is better than average for a usual college job at $65 a day. It provides good experience and will look great on a resume for someone who is looking for a future career in teaching, like I am. This website had a lot of good information regarding substitute teaching throughout the United States: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/28317/how_to_become_a_substiute_teacher_requirements.html?cat=31
How I got the idea / found the employment:
I got this idea a while back from a girl in my ward. I needed to find a better, higher paying job that would boost my resume for the fall. She told me she was looking at substitute teaching so I started looking into it as well. I researched a little on the internet and talked to my boyfriend’s mom who had actually done it for Utah County just a few years back. She told me what her experience was related to her job now as an actual teacher. This was very beneficial to me as I have and will continue to look into this employment option.
Challenges I faced, and how I overcame them:
I had a hard time finding out how one should go about starting a substitute teaching career in Provo. I looked around on the Provo Utah School District page and on the Utah Education page as well but it was not easy to find the information. I did a general Google search and found an article announcing Provo’s school district’s shift to using Kelly Services to staff their substitute teaching needs. There is an office nearby, just off Bulldog where I intend to go as soon as I find out if this is a real option for me due to my lack of transportation. The website for Kelly Services is: http://www.kellyservices.us/web/us/services/en/pages/
What I learned:
There are lots of options for employment out there with better pay and the capability to boost my resume. I am currently working at an on-campus copy center which does not do much to give me experience for my future. It pays for my rent and food but certainly doesn’t leave much for saving or extra expenses. This research project helped me to realize that there are better options out there; it just takes a little bit of time and research to find them.
Teaching Assistant
Description:
: I am studying English Language, and think that someday I would like to be an English teacher. Last semester, I was a teaching assistant for my favorite English Language class and my favorite professor, which was a good experience for me and an opportunity to prepare to achieve future goals. The class I assisted with is ELang 223, an introduction to linguistics, and I had taken it from this same professor several years before. I had thought about how cool it would be to be a teaching assistant, especially for this favorite professor and this favorite class, and it was a kind of dream, but I didn’t really think it would happen. As a teaching assistant, I attended class each day, kept attendance, had complete responsibility for all grading, including tests, assignments, and papers, and taught review sessions for tests. I even got to teach class one day as the substitute when my professor was out of town! I also spent some time helping my professor check sources for a book he was working on.
How I got the idea / found the employment:
I actually happened upon the opportunity quite by chance. Like I said, one of the goals I had made for myself was to get a job as a teaching assistant. I thought, but only semi-seriously, that it would be awesome to work with my favorite professor especially. But I had just returned from a mission, had applied at the MTC, and was waiting for a second interview, expecting to get a job there sometime soon. However, after a while, I still hadn’t been contacted, didn’t know how long I would have to wait, and I really needed some work, so I decided to start looking around. I knew that there was a professor in my department who was doing a research project, and that she had some hired help, so I thought that maybe I would ask her if she needed any more people. I planned to talk to her in the afternoon of one particular day, but as I was studying in the library, a fire alarm went off, we all had to evacuate, and so I had some time with nothing to do, and I decided to go talk to her then instead, though earlier than I had planned. I went up to her office, but found that there was no light on and nobody there. I paused outside the door, trying to decide what to do next, and noticed that there was a light on next door, which was where my favorite professor had his office. I deliberated a minute and then decided that it was worth a shot to ask and see if he needed a teaching assistant. I knocked on the door; he invited me in. He didn’t remember me well since I had been gone for a few years, but I told him about myself and told him that I was looking for employment and wondered if he didn’t need a teaching assistant. He said that actually he did need a teaching assistant, and hadn’t had time to start looking for one. He asked me a few questions about my credentials, and after only a few questions, decided to hire me as his teaching assistant right there on the spot.
Challenges I faced, and how I overcame them:
Being a teaching assistant had some challenges. First, I had to get good enough grades and so forth to be able to be convincing. After I got the job, the biggest thing was that I had never done it before, and had to learn as I went. Luckily, I had taken the class and knew the material from other classes. But I had never graded essay papers, and had to make up my own rubric. The work schedule was unpredictable, and at the end of the semester, it was a challenge working against the deadline of getting the grades in during vacation. Because the professor left all of the grading completely to me, it was hard at times to make judgments about whether answers were right or not. Sometimes I worried that the students would be angry at me. I also had to find rooms for review sessions, make up my own review material from my notes, and find ways to communicate with class members. There were little challenges here and there, but it was a good experience.
What I learned:
I learned a lot from being a teaching assistant. I learned that giving students work is almost as hard on a teacher as it is for students. I learned that you have to know what you are talking about to teach, and that teachers learn a lot from trying to explain things to others. I learned that you can’t fake your credentials, and the things you do: punctuality, hard work, dependability, etc. really do affect whether a person will trust you and let you work for them or not. I learned that you have to be so careful and responsible when you are accountable for the grades and futures of so many people—you can’t lose anything. I also learned that sometimes you just have to make a decision and trust yourself on it, and not worry about it anymore. You can’t please everybody and you can’t be perfect. And most of all, I learned that it never hurts to ask. If you want something, you can’t be afraid to take the initiative, put yourself out there, and just ask. You might unexpectedly find yourself working in a position where you only dreamed you’d ever be.
Teaching Assistant
Description:
If you are really interested in doing well in school and looking for a great opportunity to look good on resumes and graduate school applications then being a TA in your selected major/ field of study is where you want to be. Being a TA allows you the opportunity to learn and grow not just in knowledge of the human body but in leadership and teaching opportunities. Being a TA has increased my retention of necessary knowledge that will be tested on graduate school tests and for classes here at BYU. I get paid a decent amount of money for the time required and it is on campus no wasting money on gas or travel expenses. I also get to save on time too when it is so close to all of my classes. What the job entitles is working 8-10 hours a week teaching and helping students master concepts and terms all about the human body.
How I got the idea / found the employment:
I got the idea from when I took anatomy as a student and I loved the class and I loved the concept of doing something that can help me in my future. I am currently trying to get into dental school and felt that this was a great opportunity to show leadership skills, learn the material better and have some money to spend. I knew that I needed employment close to campus and knew that the employment would have to benefit me in the end.
Challenges I faced, and how I overcame them:
There were a few challenges at first. One of my largest fears is teaching my peers. I had to get over that fear very fast, but one of the things that I learned the fastest was to be the TA that I always wanted. Lots of TAs on campus know the material but feel intimidated by their peers and get nervous. When humans get nervous we mess up and get more nervous. That never helps and your students are thinking that this guy knows nothing. Being calm, patient and clear are great things to have when teaching. So I really had to know the material I was teaching so that the students would trust me and enjoy the experience. I believe that I have achieved this.
What I learned:
I learned that it just wasn’t the paycheck that was going to make me rich when looking for a job. There were other factors that needed to be taken into besides the hourly wage. The knowledge I would gain, preparation, proximity to home and class all factored into my decision.