Undergraduates Lead Sections

While some undergraduates take midterms, other students grade them.

Undergraduate teaching fellows (TFs) teach chemistry, statistics, computer science and some languages, and are responsible not only for grading midterms, but also checking problem sets and other assignments for these classes.

While some simply asked for the job, other students said they had to go through a more extensive application process to become an undergraduate TF.

Dunster House resident Michael L. Stewart ’05 said the statistics department is small enough for prospective TFs to ask around for possible positions.

This fall he is a TF for Statistics 100, “Introduction to Quantitative Methods.”

Kevin L. Pilkiewicz ’05, who lives in Eliot House, said that he was approached by Greg Tucci, the student adviser for the chemistry department, to become a TF for Chemistry 15, “Inorganic Chemistry.” Pilkiewicz said Tucci said he thought he would do a great job, and offered him the position.

But Alexis Roosa ’05, who is a TF for Computer Science 50, “Introduction to Computer Science I,” said she had to apply for the position, submitting a letter to the professor, providing a transcript and going through an interview.

Roosa, a Leverett House resident, was a TF last year for the course as well. In this year’s CUE guide, Roosa’s teaching abilities received “special praise” from students, and last spring she was honored with a Certificate of Distinction for Excellence in Teaching from the department of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

“Any undergrad who is excited about the material and wants to get other students excited about it as well is qualified to teach,” Roosa wrote in an e-mail.

Eliot House resident Vikram Viswanathan ’06, who is in Computer Science 50, said he has an undergraduate TF, who is only a year younger than him. Viswanathan said that it’s nice to have a teacher who understands what it’s like to be a student in the class.

“He’s done a great job,” Viswanathan said of his TF. “I actually thought he was a graduate student.”

Being undergraduates means that these TFs sometimes face problems that graduate students avoid. For example, Stewart said last year he was a TF for Statistics 104, “Introduction to Quantitative Methods,” a class in which his girlfriend was enrolled.

“It wasn’t a big deal because she wasn’t in my section and I wasn’t grading her homework,” he wrote in an e-mail. “But I had to make sure that when we graded midterms, the other TFs handed me the midterms without letting me see the students’ names.”

While Roosa said she grades assignments of students in her section, she said she cannot grade students whom she knows. She also said she does not have access to the grades of other students.

Roosa said her favorite part of the TF experience is watching students who come into the class with little knowledge of programming learn how to produce complicated projects like web browsers, compression algorithms and computer games with complicated graphics by the end of the semester.

Adams House resident Abigail T. Berman ’05 said that being a TF “has been my most fulfilling experience at Harvard,” and that it has made her want to work in academic management.

Berman became the head TF for Chemistry E2a, “Organic Chemistry,” at the Extension School last spring—a post she has retained this year.

During the spring, Berman played an integral role in planning the course, when she took a lighter course load at the College—only enrolling in two classes—to help the class’ two new professors write the course materials from scratch. She said that writing the exams was particularly challenging.

Extension School Professor Annaliese Franz, who teaches Chemistry E2a, said that undergraduates TFs bring lots of enthusiasm to the course. She said despite being less experienced than their graduate student counterparts, undergraduate TFs are often highly praised by students.

“I had the opportunity to be a TF when I was an undergrad in college,” Franz wrote in an e-mail. “I valued the experience immensely and enjoy knowing that other undergrads are also as excited as I was.”