Re:Why I'm Getting a PhD
by GuiA on Monday September 16, 2013 @04:24PM
(#6395654)
I was a PhD student (I stopped to move to SF and work on startups- although now after 2 years I'm thinking of going back), and fwiw I enjoyed TA'ing. Grading papers was the worst part (but with a glass of beer and some motivating music it's not that bad), but I found everything else to be fairly rewarding.
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You're right. I would just guess that most people are there there to learn and do research. And TA'ing takes away from that. But plenty of people do from PhD to teaching positions - in which case a TA'ship is perfect and gets your feet in the water.
I wouldn't necessarily agree that TA'ing takes away from teaching and learning. Many of the top researchers are also, in my experience, fantastic teachers.
I like to refer to Feynman's writings on this matter: http://www.pitt.edu/~druzdzel/feynman.html