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[cheap_labour]

I am a frequent user, but posting anonymoisly for this.

I was notified today that I am scheduled to teach a big intro class next semester. The problem: I am a pre-qualifying exam grad student and shouldn't be teaching courses on my own until past that exam. It has been the general trend for many years in the department, as I am told, not to burden doctoral students with heavy teaching loads before their qualifying exams, so all just TA or grade for the lab courses.

I am not exactly thrilled by this teaching assignment, as I am taking the qualifying exams in May, and thus will be preparing while taking 4 courses as well RAing for my adviser next semester. It would be difficult at best to manage well all that. I only have 24 hrs a day, and do not intend to spend 20 awake on campus.

I am bitter because there are past-qualifyer students that are assigned mere grading for nest semester, while I am the only one from my cohort to have been picked for teaching. Moreover, the graduate students that lack English fluency are given jobs grading lab reports, which are not as a big time and energy drainer as teaching entire classes. I feel it is unfair to "award" me with more teaching work as as a result of previous decent evaluations and comprehendible English.

(Before you criticize me for the English bit, let me tell you I am a foreigner myself. Why should I pick up the slack for those who speak atrocious English and cannot be sent to teach undergraduates ?! And don't anyone mention to me the fact that as one of those 10% female grad students I may be seen as more nurturing and a naturally better teacher. I am not here to be anyone's mom!)

I came to this university for a degree, not to be exploited to the maximum as cheap labour. Of course I was aware that part of my salary comes from teaching. I feel responsible to the students getting their money's worth of classes, though the degree is my goal. So I am going to do my best and try to manage all, but I am worried that I may drop the ball at some point out of mere exhaustion, and I really really really don't want to fail the qualifying exam. I have made good progress so far and am submitting papers, so I do not want to start lagging behind.

Then, my worst fear is that I am being routed into the teaching track, so early in the program too. Here that means you don't get time to do research and publish. It is easy to tell among the graduating students who taught a lot and who just graded, just by looking at their publications or lack-of.  The ones who teach also take longer to graduate. I feel I am being set up to fail, before the exam too.
And if I fail the exam, I may have to start packing.

I'll go and talk with the chair, but I doubt it'll go anywhere.

In the meanwhile I am venting my frustration here for feeling like mere cheap expendable labour.

[octoprof]

Talk with your advisor. Then, talk to the chair.  Express these same concerns (perhaps in softer terms).  Don't delay in having these conversations, though.

[imawakenow]

The order I would take would be adviser--DGS--department chair or perhaps even DGS--adviser--department chair. The DGS should be your advocate. I've found the DGS in my M.A. and Ph.D. programs to be good sources of advice.

Now, as to whether you're being exploited. Well, unless your department promised a fellowship or series of RAships with no teaching responsibilities when you were admitted, you are not being exploited. Rather, you are in a department that has a variety of needs (teaching, grading, research), and your department chair believes you can handle teaching a large lecture class.

In a way, this is a compliment. While by their nature, chairs are often odd/power hungry/cruel/ignorant to the needs of others (tongue in cheek), they do not willingly put people in situations where they will fail. No chair wants a line of dissatisfied undergraduates outside the door complaining about a graduate student's teaching ability.

Further, unless you are only looking to run a lab in the future, having taught a large lecture class will actually be to your (slight) benefit on the job market. If you are seeking a job at an R1 eventually, after publications and research potential will come fit in the department--which will include what you could teach. Being a new assistant prof who can teach a large lecture section will not hurt your application.

Now, as to whether you are being routed to a teaching track--it's hard to say. You indicate that you still have an RAship. I would think if you were being "tracked," then they wouldn't waste a research position on you.

How productive are you relative to other students? Unless you struggle getting publications out, my guess is you aren't being tracked one way or another.

I guess the last thing I would say is that you might use this to your advantage. If you do talk to the department chair, you could say something to the effect that you are willing to take on the responsibility of teaching the class, but you are concerned how it may affect your preparation for your exams. Then see what happens.

[scheherazade]

Teaching an intro class is an opportunity.  Speak to your advisor, etc. about the overload.  Express your desire to teach this class in the future, after comps, but that you feel that the class on top of other responsibilities right now is way too much.  That way you preserve your image as a team player, you get a teaching opportunity that will help your CV, but you also put comps, etc. first (where it should be).

Just make sure you don't whine about teaching an intro class or say anything like "teaching track" to ANYONE (not even other grad students).  Teaching is part and parcel of being in academia.

[daffy]

Your concerns are completely valid.  This workload is way too much for a quals semester.  Please talk to someone about this and negotiate a change.
And don't go into the meeting already thinking that your request will be denied. 

It's possible that someone just did not realize that you are a pre-quals student.

Also, be sure to pay attention to Scheherazade's advice about not calling it "the teaching track". 

[gayle]

You are scheduled to take 4 classes + RAing + studying for comps + teaching a class?  I can't believe someone made up this schedule for you intentionally.  Though it's possible at some psycho places.

There must be a miscommunication somewhere along the line.  Maybe they thought you had completed all of your coursework?  Definitely start talking up the chain with this.

[polly_mer]

Oh, Cheap_labor.  I remember when they tried to do this to me (say, this isn't a top 5 ChE program in the Midwest, is it?).  Oh, and the teaching brought in a whopping extra $50 a month because my research fellowship put me near the maximum allowed stipend.

Let me share two survival tactics that I learned:
 
(1) Prioritize ruthlessly.

(2) You have to stand up for yourself because no one will do it for you. 


I cannot state this strongly enough:

DO NOT LET TEACHING INTERFERE WITH YOUR RESEARCH 

Go talk to people NOW, get your responsibilities reduced, and do not allow research to be the thing that goes on the backburner.  Teaching can be reassigned, qualifiers can be moved, and classes can be postponed.  Decide what you want to have happen and go negotiate.  Think of it as professional training because you will be doing this forever.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

As others have mentioned, this is probably a sign that your department has confidence in you as a teacher, and the person making the course assignment likely did not know your other obligations this year.

I have never heard of a "teaching track" for a graduate program, I can't even imagine what it might mean. - DvF

[polly_mer]

As others have mentioned, this is probably a sign that your department has confidence in you as a teacher, and the person making the course assignment likely did not know your other obligations this year.

I have never heard of a "teaching track" for a graduate program, I can't even imagine what it might mean. - DvF

Hmm.  How sheltered are you, DvF?  The teaching track exists and it is the kiss of death in engineering.  I have known several people to get tapped to do a lot of teaching instead of just two or three TA semesters to get a little experience.  These people tend to neglect their research because it was hardly off the ground when they started teaching.  After a few years, the teaching track people are told that they aren't making good progress and will be given the summer and one more semester to write up a master's thesis on what little they have accomplished.  No one worries about these losses because industry is a perfectly acceptable path after graduate school.

While it's possible that the OP has such incredible teaching potential (and I hope she does) that the department forgot that she is prequalifiers, it's also possible that the department assumed that a foreign woman would be a cheap source of labor with minimal whining.  Unfortunately, it happens.

[iomhaigh]

I imagine this, like many things, is field specific.  In my world, getting asked to teach specific classes was not only a sign of confidence, but it was a sign that you were anticipated as being capable of handling the workload juggling involved and that you were expected to be able to do the research involved in teaching those non-intro courses.  (Think: theories of performance vs. intro to acting.)

But, we were all teaching at least a 2/2 load of solo teaching/prepping classes while taking a full slate of classes and studying for exams and working on productions all the way through the program (there were something like 8 total comp & qual exams before you were ABD and free to write the diss).  Teaching was but one part of the pie.  You learned to juggle or you didn't graduate.  In many ways, this approach made the transition into real jobs more possible because we can all do it because we've all been doing it.  In our field, being able to juggle all of this while on the job is non-negotiable, and the grad programs are often set up to mimic our future jobs so that we develop the juggling skills early on. 

So:
What does your field look like in academia?  What will your future jobs look like?  Is your grad program creating a scenario that will help you to learn to balance that upcoming reality, or is this scenario that they are creating a complete anomaly?

Are you getting a break on anything else (fewer RA hours seems like a must -- you cannot be expected to do 1.5 assistantships rather than 1, especially in a qual studying semester.  If nothing else, you must negotiate this reduction and be vicious about protecting your time.  Clock in and out if need be.  Teaching one class while RAing will take up more time than RAing solely or teaching two sections of that one prep.)   

What does you RA supervisor say about all of this?  Will s/he be upset at losing your time?  Is that a possible way out of this situation if they are indeed creating an unrealistic scenario for your field?

So, with all of that said, you absolutely must be vicious about prioritizing and protecting yourself. 

If you do end up teaching, repeat after me:  "I may not be the world's best teacher this year, but I am learning how to teach and I am learning how to research.  I will get to do neither in the future if I do not graduate." 

[daniel_von_flanagan]

As others have mentioned, this is probably a sign that your department has confidence in you as a teacher, and the person making the course assignment likely did not know your other obligations this year.

I have never heard of a "teaching track" for a graduate program, I can't even imagine what it might mean. - DvF

Hmm.  How sheltered are you, DvF?  The teaching track exists and it is the kiss of death in engineering.  I have known several people to get tapped to do a lot of teaching instead of just two or three TA semesters to get a little experience.

I've never heard of the term or concept in any of the many doctoral programs in which I have been involved (as student and professor).  Some students do get called on to teach more than others - that is not a "track", a department has nothing to gain by derailing the PhD progress of its good students, and just as little to gain by putting its undergraduates in the hands of its bad students.  The aim of every PhD program I know w/r to its students is to get those students through their degrees.

Teaching a large class as a grad student is good for the CV, which is one reason why a department might give it to one of its better students (the other is that someone needs to teach the class, and a bad student will possibly do a bad job).  - DvF

[dr_crankypants]

Is there a possibility that someone goofed, and failed to notice that you're pre-quals? 

I would talk to your advisor, and simply explain that you're extremely honored to be given the assignment, but you're a little worried about how you will manage that at the same time as studying for exams and also being a RA.  If your advisor is perceptive, ask his/her advice about how to manage the situation.  If your advisor is not so perceptive, you may need to talk more directly about the difficulty of the situation. 

[acrimone]

You are scheduled to take 4 classes + RAing + studying for comps + teaching a class?  I can't believe someone made up this schedule for you intentionally.  Though it's possible at some psycho places.

There must be a miscommunication somewhere along the line.  Maybe they thought you had completed all of your coursework?  Definitely start talking up the chain with this.

I concur.  Make some inquiries.  Don't RAing and teaching classes generally count towards the required credit-load you have each semester?  (I'm assuming it's a semester system based on the number of classes you are taking.)

If they do, cut your classes.  This is going to be a rough ride.

[iomhaigh]

Don't RAing and teaching classes generally count towards the required credit-load you have each semester?  (I'm assuming it's a semester system based on the number of classes you are taking.)

I've never heard of this system.  Does it happen in places that are sane? 

[cheap_labour]

Thank you all for the advice and the encouragement!
(It helped me to keep cool and not do anything rash.)

I talked the the director of graduate studies, who agrees it is a big work-load, which is exactly why they don't normally assign teaching to pre-quals students who also have a lot of coursework to complete. We are tracked down the secretaries that made the schedule and they claim it was an honest mistake on their part and will try to fix it. Let's hope so.

I'll still have 2 more years of teaching after this year, so I'll get tons of experience in that regard. Everyone (with understandable English) gets to teach in their last 2 years. I am in no hurry to start this early.

The RA part of the money is the tricky one, as that job here means to work on the dissertation project. So there's no set tasks, but one should still work and progress. It is the first thing to get neglected when teaching needs more time, although it shouldn't be that way. So for a moment I feared that I'll become one of those students that teach too much and rarely get the time or energy to do the thesis. That may still happen in the next two years to me, but at least I am happy I didn't get the "kiss of death", as polly_mer says, before my research has taken off.

I certainly cannot cut any of the classes due to visa restrictions. Also, pre-quals students do not get to register in Independent research credits, so I have no choice but to take 4 regular classes, homework and all.

So I am hoping this gets fixed. It is going to be a tough semester anyway.


As to the "teaching track", polly_mer explained best how I perceive it. The big departments want their many students to succeed, but if they have a few starlets every year, then their reputation doesn't get tarnished by a few that are barely finishing, right? With little research and lots of teaching, a lot of the latter are not going to make it to a nice R1 place with the cutthroat competition in the field. It seems like another weeding-out process of the too many PhD students. Just my impression so far, at one department, at one university. I hope it differs elsewhere.