What do you call graduate students who teach classes?

[Hacp]

My Physical Chem lab is taught by a graduate student. What should I call him? He did not specify anything to call him, but the students call him professor, which is strange cause he's a graduate student! Any graduate students wanna chime in?

 

[Newbian]

I would use the persons name but that's just me.

 

[HaxorNubcake]

I also currently have a graduate student teaching. I just call her Professor out of default. I'd like to know also...

 

[Sea Moose]

I helped teach apprentices at college, no one called me anything special (dickhead was used a bit tho)

 

[PottedMeat]

use the guy's name

or just skate by and don't use anything - use the following to interact...

'hey you'
'i think i screwed something up'
'do you have another of these <show broken instrument>'

I had a russian physics lab instructor that we called 'the filthy red'

 

[Hacp]

I currently use instructor lui(which is the guy's name), but I don't know if that's appropriate. It may be offensive which is why I'm asking. I usually call all my PHD teachers Dr. out of habit since I had 4 or so PHD high school teachers and they would always correct me if I called them Mr.

 

[AmberClad]

You just call TAs by their first name. Only academic lecturers and higher get called Professor in my experience.

 

[bobross419]

Dude, brah, homes - depending on your upbringing

 

[tfinch2]

Bro

 

[daniel1113]

I call everyone by their first name, so, yeah.

 

[Newbian]

If you really want a A call him big daddy.

 

[Sea Moose]

Originally posted by: Newbian
If you really want a A call him big daddy.

While receiving that special booster shot?



:heart:

 

[Capt Caveman]

First name

 

[LordMorpheus]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
You just call TAs by their first name. Only academic lecturers and higher get called Professor in my experience.

A Lecturer is not a Professor. The only people who are called professor are people who are actually professors (it's the title they will have at the school). A Lecturer is either Mr. or Dr. depending on the degree. A grad student is just a TA and you can call them whatever the hell you want because they're pretty far down on the food chain (sigh).

<- grad student

 

[potoba]

you call them by their first name, you call lecturer by Dr. xxx, you call profs by profs.

 

[polarmystery]

I call everyone Mr. (insert their last name) in a teaching environment unless they have a PHD.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus

Originally posted by: AmberClad
You just call TAs by their first name. Only academic lecturers and higher get called Professor in my experience.

A Lecturer is not a Professor. The only people who are called professor are people who are actually professors (it's the title they will have at the school). A Lecturer is either Mr. or Dr. depending on the degree. A grad student is just a TA and you can call them whatever the hell you want because they're pretty far down on the food chain (sigh).

<- grad student

Guess it depends on the college in question, but I had two "academic lecturers" during college (they were part timers in non-permanent positions) and they were addressed as "professor" by the students. Might have been out of southern politeness and all that, I don't know. All of the TAs were addressed by first name.

Course, when when you're mocking them / gossiping about them behind their backs, it's their first name, or last name, or nickname, etc, regardless of whether they're a TA or Professor Emeritus...

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus

Originally posted by: AmberClad
You just call TAs by their first name. Only academic lecturers and higher get called Professor in my experience.

A Lecturer is not a Professor. The only people who are called professor are people who are actually professors (it's the title they will have at the school). A Lecturer is either Mr. or Dr. depending on the degree. A grad student is just a TA and you can call them whatever the hell you want because they're pretty far down on the food chain (sigh).

<- grad student

Guess it depends on the college in question, but I had two "academic lecturers" during college (they were part timers in non-permanent positions) and they were addressed as "professor" by the students. Might have been out of southern politeness and all that, I don't know. All of the TAs were addressed by first name.

Course, when when you're mocking them / gossiping about them behind their backs, it's their first name, or last name, or nickname, etc, regardless of whether they're a TA or Professor Emeritus...

They were probably non-tenured professors. So addressing them as prof is the correct way. There is a lot of contract professors to keep the cost down.

 

[Whisper]

Most graduate students I know (myself included) are ok with instructor or Mr./Ms. Being called professor and/or Dr. actually tends to make us feel a bit odd, given that we haven't earned the title yet.

As for first names, that really depends on the person. Most are generally fine with it, but some prefer going with Mr./Ms. in order to maintain appropriate boundaries and a certain level of professionalism, especially given the closeness in age...which also tends to cause some students to think they'll be able to receive more lenient treatment and/or are able to behave in a more inappropriate manner in class.

Edit: I should mention that the above preferences were for graduate students who were actually instructors rather than TAs. The same generally holds true for TAs, but there tends to be even more openness to being addressed by your first name in that situation.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I clearly tell my students on the first day of class to address me by my first name. Good TAs are there to mitigate confusion, not create more of it!

 

[CPA]

Hey Teach!

 

[WraithETC]

myfirstsexteacher

 

[Mide]

First name.

 

[AmberClad]

Are there entire courses taught by TA? Or do they normally function as subs?

Because come to think of it, I don't recall ever having a class taught by a TA. There was normally another professor available with the same area of expertise if the regular one had to be at a conference or was out sick, etc.

 

[PepePeru]

their name