What exactly does a Teaching Assistant (TA) or Research Assistant (RA) do?
Teaching Assistants typically do a mix of tasks such as: grade (mark) student homework, programs, or exams; have office hours where they are available to answer questions from students who need extra help; organize in-lab problem- solving sessions. At WPI, TAs do not teach courses. Research Assistants help faculty members with their research. Usually RAs are also doing their Thesis work in the same area. RA duties may involve: programming; finding, collecting and analyzing technical publications; writing papers about the funded research project.
