Your statement that all T.A.s do care a little about teaching is false. I was a T.A. that Did Not Care. There were no consequences to doing poorly, and student grades were controlled across T.A.s so my performance could have no affect on student performance.

Also? Be nice to your T.A. Sometimes I was allowed to wildly inflate grades for students who were enthusiastic/tried hard. Sometimes not. But it can't hurt.

Another random piece of advice I would give is for students to take sections later in the week rather than earlier. My first section was always a disaster, I had no idea what I was doing.

If there is a rubric, follow it to the letter, and don't try to be creative. Rubrics are for larger classes to make the grading even, and they are followed exactly. I knew an A paper from a B paper, but sometimes A papers got Bs and B papers got As because of the stupid rubric (or worse...)

From the essay:

To be sure, there are exceptions: some professors will be hostile or uninterested regardless of how much effort a student shows, and some will be martyrs who try to reach even the most distant, disgruntled student. But most professors are in the middle, looking for students who are engaged and focusing on those students.

Look for:

  "assuming you want to graduate on time."
  "Go to the professor’s office hours"
  "whether the question he has asked is the right one"

Thanks for the heads up.

See this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1730253 :

Despite temptation, a beginner's introduction to a topic is not the place to list every permutation of the basic concepts that somebody, somewhere uses, but rather to simply explain the basic concepts. Trying to do both at once results in the student knowing less at the end than when they started; not only do they still not understand, now they're afraid of the topic!

In addition, see what I wrote under the section "Degrees:"

Congratulations: you’re now probably working toward your B.A. (bachelor of arts) or B.S. (bachelor of science), which will probably take four years. If you earn that, you’ll have received your undergraduate degree.

It's easier to write "B.A." in most circumstances than B.A. or B.S. or S.B. or B.F.A. or the various other ways of getting cross the same basic idea.

I didn't know C very well yet, and trying to learn the algorithms material whilst being distracted by implementation details was simply not worth it. I'd tell my younger self: you're going to screw yourself out of both a grade and understanding of fundamental material.