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[LakeEarth]

So I just became a grad student this year and last night I supervised a lab for the second time ever, and it just hit me how anything I say will be listened to, even if everythign else tells them otherwise. The students needed to save 6 samples for next weeks lab, and the given flowchart, checklist, the lab itself, myself earlier in the lab all said you needed to keep 6 samples. When the lab started to finish though, I was asked by a few groups "what should we do with the left over stuff?" I assume they mean the buffers and standards they have extra, so I just tell them to toss them. I ASSUME they already took care of the stuff they were supposed to keep. Nope! And this is a 3rd year class too, you'd think they'd be smarter than that (well to be fair, the majority of them did it right).

To make a long story short I spend the next couple of minutes digging in the trash getting out 3 groups stuff. And they were easy to seperate from the rest of the junk because they were the ones with tons of information on them that the lab manual told them to put there because, suprise, they needed to keep them.

So anyone else TA'd before? Any tips? I've got "be very clear" down. :lol

 

[Matlock]

Don't grab anybody's ass during class.

 

[Winged Creature]

which uni u TA'ing at?

 

[AntoneM]

I've got the reverse of that story, sort of.

It was my freshman year of computer science and I had never in my life written a program. I was in Computer Science 101, the class was just your basic "learn to write java" class and I was totally lost. I went and talked to the professor numerous times when I could and I asked him what I could do if he was unavailable. He showed me where the TA office was and said that if I ever needed help I could ask whoever was in there. So then it's comming up on mid-semester and instead of an exam the prof is having us write a large program. I'm terribly stuck and I go to the TA office for help. Turns out that none of the TA's, I repeat NONE, had taken a java class nor could any of them code java. Not a single TA in the comp sci departement could help students in the introductory Comp Sci class because when they took it they learned C++ not java. You'd have thought the university would have taken this into consideration before a problem arose, but hey that's NDSU for ya.

Anyway, my major now is Political Science. Turns out computer science just wasn't for me. I guess you could say I couldn't *cough* hack it.

 

[Mejilan]

WTF? You don't need to know Java to help out a fellow in a rudimentary Java class. The actual syntax isn't even all that important. That can be learned by flipping through a few pages of a book. In programming, it's the logic that's key, and that changes little, if at all, from programming language to language. Those TAs should have been able to help you without a hitch.

Unless, of course, your problem WAS a syntax issue, and in that case, all you needed to do was consult the appropriate chapter(s) of your course text.

 

[AntoneM]

yeah, I know, but I worked on it with a total of 7 TA's for 5 hours on it and they couldn'y get it solved.

 

[Mejilan]

*shakes head*

Useless.

 

[LakeEarth]

which uni u TA'ing at?

Sorry for LONG forgetting this thread. It's at U of Windsor up in Ontario. Not so small but not so famous, that's almost our motto :lol

Today it's my turn to mark the weekly lab quiz (the one they take before having the lab) and its pretty interesting how many people can get the same answer wrong. I keep having to check the lab to make sure at no point did the lab manual say "loading gel" instead of "stacking gel'. Copying maybe? I'm so sure I found a paper of someone copying because someone wrote 'static' gel instead of 'stocking' gel. Probably couldn't see the paper well enough.

And to the Java story, yikes. I never took this class I'm TAing for (it has only existed for two years) but I at least I know most of it. It's tough to TA when you never took the course though, keep getting questions you don't understand, and they believe everything you say so you gotta be sure you're right. Strange times. Worst question is "how long do you think next lab is gonna be", cause any guess I give will be wrong.

 

[Matlock]

I reiterate: don't grab anyone's ass during class. It's creepy as hell.

 

[duderon]

I reiterate: don't grab anyone's ass during class. It's creepy as hell.

Come on, you gotta tell the story now.