What is the difference between being a research assistant (RA) and being a teaching assistant (TA)?
As an M.A.-only program, we do not offer teaching assistantships to our graduate students or have them teach discussion sections. Occasionally, graduate students who hold an assistantship are given the opportunity to lecture in a session of an undergraduate course. In addition, beginning in the spring of 2010, a number of our assistants will be used as graders in our undergraduate introductory courses. Outside of these grading activities by some of our graduate assistants, research assistants are typically called upon to assist professors with their current research projects. Typical assignments include, but are not limited to: data entry, retrieval, and analysis; literature searches; proofreading; and editing.
