The Terminator
Cyburbian
- Messages
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When I was in Uni, I had my share of Teaching Assistants. Some of them were great, some of them were awful. Here were my top and bottom 5 (all names changed out of respect for privacy). I think we all went to post-secondary here and have had our fair share of experiences with the highs and lows of academics.
Top:
1. Aurelie: She was a gorgeous French from France PhD student who knew who the band Berurier Noir were, was writing a dissertation about Vichy France and TA'd my Intro to European History class. She was about 10 years my senior and wouldn't go on a date with me, but was a very fair and constructive grader.
2. Samuel: A mercilessly tough grader but a really good guy who was writing a PhD in antebellum American history. He gave me C's on everything I submitted but we were ideological comrades and part of the same reading group. He helped promote the campus visit I organized for Ed Soja (RIP 1940-2015) about his "Six Visions for Los Angeles" and musings on "the thirdspace" super wonky but fun stuff. Edward was in Montreal on vacation and we smoked cigs together after, rest in power.
3. Yang: A foreign student from Guangzhou, China who was absolutely tormented by our totally mental Heidegger theorist prof. who had no business teaching intro to planning studio. Prof was an academic architect and made what was supposed to be a basic intro to urban design concepts course, all about having us create highly detailed architectural renderings BY FREAKING HAND on vellum. Yang was a CAD guy and also hated having to grade those silly drawings and liked that I stood up to said prof one day about his deplorable, borderline racist treatment of Yang and ridiculous deviation from the course description and syllabus. From there on, I skipped EVERY tutorial for that class and the homie didn't take any points off my participation grade. Said prof was later asked to leave the University the following term.
Bottom:
1. Alexandra: When I was briefly a student at the University of Toronto a decade ago, I had this one TA for a course on Food Security that was writing her PhD on Canadian Foreign policy and would intentionally mispronounce my name every time she took roll call. This stemmed from my refusal to take no for an answer when she denied a request for reasonable (visual) disability accommodation for my dysgraphia condition, because it would create slightly more work for her. On the fifth Tutorial roll call with the intentional mistake, I said to her in front of the class "G-d damn you, Alex! You know my name is "s___" not "s___i", I'm sorry I came late to the first tutorial, and you disagreed with my opinion on the Potash article, but please for the love of god stop playing favourites and calling my disability fake in public, its a form of harassment". She was naturally not amused and asked me to leave the Tutorial. I later filed a discrimination complaint with the University that backfired on me because she was the golden child of a prominent faculty member.
2. Bob. Bob was a MA student from East Africa who was technically illiterate and did not understand how the University's course scheduling system worked. He TA'd an anthropology elective I also took at U of T. A brilliant anthropologist and writer, but awful TA who could not lead a classroom discussion to save his life. I had been let into this particular tutorial group as an overflow student with written permission from the Prof and department, but because he was operating off a pre-semester registration list, did not have my name yet in the group and refused to assign me any participation credits. I dropped the class instead of continuing the argument.
3. Pablo. Pablo was a misanthrope from the American midwest and GIS Lounge Grouch who would close the lab an hour early every Saturday so he could skip out early on work. He would never allow the first and second year students to use the lounge when senior UG's were in there working on terminal projects, even if the lab was at only 40% capacity, and was a tough grader but personable guy outside of the academic setting. We later became friends outside of the classroom and I once gave him a ride to the border because he missed an overnight bus and had a time sensitive connecton to make at Plattsburgh Intl. Airport the next morning. Good dude.
HBU??
Top:
1. Aurelie: She was a gorgeous French from France PhD student who knew who the band Berurier Noir were, was writing a dissertation about Vichy France and TA'd my Intro to European History class. She was about 10 years my senior and wouldn't go on a date with me, but was a very fair and constructive grader.
2. Samuel: A mercilessly tough grader but a really good guy who was writing a PhD in antebellum American history. He gave me C's on everything I submitted but we were ideological comrades and part of the same reading group. He helped promote the campus visit I organized for Ed Soja (RIP 1940-2015) about his "Six Visions for Los Angeles" and musings on "the thirdspace" super wonky but fun stuff. Edward was in Montreal on vacation and we smoked cigs together after, rest in power.
3. Yang: A foreign student from Guangzhou, China who was absolutely tormented by our totally mental Heidegger theorist prof. who had no business teaching intro to planning studio. Prof was an academic architect and made what was supposed to be a basic intro to urban design concepts course, all about having us create highly detailed architectural renderings BY FREAKING HAND on vellum. Yang was a CAD guy and also hated having to grade those silly drawings and liked that I stood up to said prof one day about his deplorable, borderline racist treatment of Yang and ridiculous deviation from the course description and syllabus. From there on, I skipped EVERY tutorial for that class and the homie didn't take any points off my participation grade. Said prof was later asked to leave the University the following term.
Bottom:
1. Alexandra: When I was briefly a student at the University of Toronto a decade ago, I had this one TA for a course on Food Security that was writing her PhD on Canadian Foreign policy and would intentionally mispronounce my name every time she took roll call. This stemmed from my refusal to take no for an answer when she denied a request for reasonable (visual) disability accommodation for my dysgraphia condition, because it would create slightly more work for her. On the fifth Tutorial roll call with the intentional mistake, I said to her in front of the class "G-d damn you, Alex! You know my name is "s___" not "s___i", I'm sorry I came late to the first tutorial, and you disagreed with my opinion on the Potash article, but please for the love of god stop playing favourites and calling my disability fake in public, its a form of harassment". She was naturally not amused and asked me to leave the Tutorial. I later filed a discrimination complaint with the University that backfired on me because she was the golden child of a prominent faculty member.
2. Bob. Bob was a MA student from East Africa who was technically illiterate and did not understand how the University's course scheduling system worked. He TA'd an anthropology elective I also took at U of T. A brilliant anthropologist and writer, but awful TA who could not lead a classroom discussion to save his life. I had been let into this particular tutorial group as an overflow student with written permission from the Prof and department, but because he was operating off a pre-semester registration list, did not have my name yet in the group and refused to assign me any participation credits. I dropped the class instead of continuing the argument.
3. Pablo. Pablo was a misanthrope from the American midwest and GIS Lounge Grouch who would close the lab an hour early every Saturday so he could skip out early on work. He would never allow the first and second year students to use the lounge when senior UG's were in there working on terminal projects, even if the lab was at only 40% capacity, and was a tough grader but personable guy outside of the academic setting. We later became friends outside of the classroom and I once gave him a ride to the border because he missed an overnight bus and had a time sensitive connecton to make at Plattsburgh Intl. Airport the next morning. Good dude.
HBU??
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