Re:Omscs: The Revolution Will Be Digitized
by milosdog2 on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @02:38PM
(#19627547)
wait so even TAs are remote? they just hold office hours from their home or whatever?
Re:Omscs: The Revolution Will Be Digitized
by cgearhart on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:39PM
(#19628055)
The program did not initially allow remote TAs, but they started allowing it after a year or two. The latest data I’ve seen is that about 50-60% of the TAs are also OMSCS students and the rest are from the resident program in Atlanta. It was my experience that GT professors preferred to have a senior TA or head TA from campus (usually one of their PhD students), but they were comfortable letting most of the graders be remote. Some online TAs earn a reputation for being awesome and wind up as head TAs, and some profs don’t mind having fully remote teams, etc., but that’s the gist of it.
I don’t know if my experience is considered typical. I worked as a TA in the algorithms course and then in Computational Photography while I was there. The algorithms professor was actually how I found the SV job I moved here for. I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere already, but I can confirm that TAs run most classes—but it’s also worth pointing out that TAs in OMSCS are often comically overqualified, and 90% of the work in running a course is logistics (due dates, extensions, grading, etc.).
I think it’s as valuable as a resident program if you can’t justify leaving your current job or taking on debt to finance an advanced degree. Just make sure you try to learn everything you can while you’re in it.