Quote:
Originally Posted by flar
BCTed, I think you understand but are being facetious because you disagree with my way of looking at things. I'll reduce it to its simplest terms: TAs make about $5000 a year to do integral work at the university.
Tuition and TA salary cannot be separated, the university pays with one hand and bills with the other. It's a good deal for the university. You may rightly or wrongly write-off some TAs as incompetent, but without them the university would not function. Professors sure aren't going to mark all the thousands of essays and exams that TAs do. Some TAs might not work 15 hours every week, but at other times many will work 15 hours a day marking a stack of 80 or 100 essays.
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Flar, thanks for the counterargument.
However, everyone in my department at the graduate level made roughly twice that when I was a TA.
Also, I agree that TAs are necessary, but would have to question why they necessarily need to get paid significantly more to work at McMaster than UBC (where the cost of living is much higher).
I would also take issue with the fact that every TA is "highly qualified." To use an extreme example, there were a couple MA students in my program who could not have written an A-quality paper if their lives depended on it (and were thus certainly not qualified to adjudicate one) - most, mind you, were better than that.
On a general level, however, there is a problem with grad student accountability. Students have recourse (however limited) with professors seeking tenure in a way that they don't have with Masters level TAs whom the department knows will be gone after a year.
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