DICK TA

[HopelessGirl]

So I've been working so hard this quarter with great results.
So far, getting all As.

But my Physics TA is... a dick.
Not only is he MEAN, he makes it seem like "oh it's so easy you should be fine" and then takes off so many points. It was the easiest lab (calculating acceleration/gravity) and I got a 60. We're way past this in class and I got all 100s on my quizzes in class that are hard compared to the lab.

What should I do?
The only section I can transfer to is another one of his. The other TA is fair in comparison, but oh well?

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[Chipster.]

The correlation between "thread title" and "what I thought this thread would be about" is zero.

 

[mrh125]

can you go to office hours and run your answers by him and get more clarifications on how he wants you to do things? he's got the power, so you pretty much have to find a way to deal with it and turn it to your advantage

 

[khrisskhoras]

huh?

 

[Reckoner]

The correlation between "thread title" and "what I thought this thread would be about" is zero.

I misread it and was expecting:

But yeah, @HopelessGirl, you should go to office hours and get clarification on what you can improve. You could also try to approach this with a little more maturity. Starting threads about how "MEAN" your "DICK TA" is gives the impression that you might be blowing things way out of proportion.

 

[Doudline]

 

[HopelessGirl]

can you go to office hours and run your answers by him and get more clarifications on how he wants you to do things? he's got the power, so you pretty much have to find a way to deal with it and turn it to your advantage

He has no office hours. It shouldn't be that complicated, honestly. He says not to put to much thought into it, then marks it all wrong.

 

[mimelim]

He has no office hours. It shouldn't be that complicated, honestly. He says not to put to much thought into it, then marks it all wrong.

Were the answers wrong?

 

[BrawnsNBrain]

Real world advice:

Confront the TA with backed up evidence about how your answers/results match peers, and ask the right question of why there is a grade discrepancy. I was a TA, and we're not perfect. I used to grade things late at night so I could go out on a Friday (oops). We mess up, it happens. Just confront him, kindly, and ask for a resolution.

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

#firstworldproblems

 

[mrh125]

He has no office hours. It shouldn't be that complicated, honestly. He says not to put to much thought into it, then marks it all wrong.

email him. talk to him during class or after class. it's less about what it should be and more about what you now have to do to succeed. fair and unfair to you arent taken into account in his judgment. it happens. Getting defensive and not doing things under his terms and conditions won't end well usually. trust me, i've been there

 

[Mr Roboto]

he ... takes off so many points. We're way past this in class and I got all 100s on my quizzes ...

What should I do?

He probably takes off points because you put the wrong answers. You probably got 100's on your quizzes because you had the right answers.

What you should do is put the right answers down in the lab manual.

 

[La Presse]

He probably takes off points because you put the wrong answers. You probably got 100's on your quizzes because you had the right answers.

What you should do is put the right answers down in the lab manual.

Ha!

 

[MDforMee]

Couldn't have been any worse than a TA that I had. She had magic the gathering tattoos and talked about wanting to live in the forest and "harvesting piglets."

 

[HopelessGirl]

Not sure, haven't seen it yet. BUT, how could it be wrong? Calculating gravity? That was all. I got 9.70 which is pretty darn close to the actual 9.8.

 

[Mr Roboto]

Not sure, haven't seen it yet. BUT, how could it be wrong? Calculating gravity? That was all. I got 9.70 which is pretty darn close to the actual 9.8.

You're on here bitching about a bad grade without having seen what you did to deserve it? Jeez.

 

[chenzt]

Not sure, haven't seen it yet. BUT, how could it be wrong? Calculating gravity? That was all. I got 9.70 which is pretty darn close to the actual 9.8.

Did you bother to explain the discrepancies? It was wrong unless you can attribute it to something else. (error analysis)

 

[chocolatethunder]

This thread should have been titled "NEUROTIC STUDENT"

 

[LostinLift]

student doesn't know how to flirt with TA for better grades

 

[deleted407021]

In my experience TAs are some of the most useless carbon based life forms to have ever existed. They often do grade stuff with the "I just wouldn't have put it that way." mentality. They leave reagents out to denature and ruin everyone's experiment then wonder why our data are screwed up on the reports. They can't answer questions and they're creepy. Freakin' TAs.


#vent

 

[BamaNicole]

Couldn't have been any worse than a TA that I had. She had magic the gathering tattoos and talked about wanting to live in the forest and "harvesting piglets."

Sounds like my Animal Bio TA

 

[mimelim]

Not sure, haven't seen it yet. BUT, how could it be wrong? Calculating gravity? That was all. I got 9.70 which is pretty darn close to the actual 9.8.

You don't really understand how labs work do you... The final answer isn't the point...

 

[WillburCobb]

Couldn't have been any worse than a TA that I had. She had magic the gathering tattoos and talked about wanting to live in the forest and "harvesting piglets."

Don't know what you're bitching about.

Step 1 - find a fold.
Step 2 - fu(k it.
Step 3 - AAAAAAA+++++

 

[MDforMee]

Don't know what you're bitching about.

Step 1 - find a fold.
Step 2 - fu(k it.
Step 3 - AAAAAAA+++++

I didn't tell people I was talking about you, chill out. Your secret is safe

 

[WillburCobb]

I didn't tell people I was talking about you, chill out. Your secret is safe

Tequila wins this round. I swear I've gotten good about avoiding Facebook whilst drinking; just need to do the same with SDN

 

[dieanotherday]

At my ugrad you could talk to the lecturing professor and coordinate a meeting about your performance or his grading style

I normally asked about what they would like to see and how should I phrase things not attack them about my reports

Some TAs are nitpicky

I paid a TA from a different section to be my private tutor to help me with the concepts as well as write things more scientifically not just layman terms which helped my overall lab write ups immensely

 

[moisne]

So I've been working so hard this quarter with great results.
So far, getting all As.

But my Physics TA is... a dick.
Not only is he MEAN, he makes it seem like "oh it's so easy you should be fine" and then takes off so many points. It was the easiest lab (calculating acceleration/gravity) and I got a 60. We're way past this in class and I got all 100s on my quizzes in class that are hard compared to the lab.

What should I do?
The only section I can transfer to is another one of his. The other TA is fair in comparison, but oh well?

You don't really tell us WHY you got a 60... so... not much to tell you. I can tell you, my section usually got a lower score because I graded harder :/ oh well, sucks to be them.

Were the answers wrong?

student doesn't know how to flirt with TA for better grades

does not work, I grade harder on those who flirted with me - proceed with caution

 

[LostinLift]

does not work, I grade harder on those who flirted with me - proceed with caution

Tell hot girl she has bad grade, will bump to an A if she bump you. She bump you. Girl had A all along. Trollol.

No I never did anything unethical as a TA, but I would have been more lenient to people asking how to improve their grade - even if they applied that effort to flirting.

Edit - I feel like women are probably better TAs for multiple reasons

 

[Mr Roboto]

does not work, I grade harder on those who flirted with me - proceed with caution

My orgo TA used to flirt with me and graded me harder because of it.

 

[Pacna]

In my experience TAs are some of the most useless carbon based life forms to have ever existed. They often do grade stuff with the "I just wouldn't have put it that way." mentality. They leave reagents out to denature and ruin everyone's experiment then wonder why our data are screwed up on the reports. They can't answer questions and they're creepy. Freakin' TAs.


#vent

As a side note, the only difference between their actions being romantic and creepy is how attractive the other person finds them. *true story meme*

 

[HeyNapkin]

Not sure, haven't seen it yet. BUT, how could it be wrong? Calculating gravity? That was all. I got 9.70 which is pretty darn close to the actual 9.8.

You gotta show dat work doe

 

[NickNaylor]

Welcome to life. Get used to it. What are you going to do if you end up in medical school and are on teams with attendings or residents that are less than pleasant? Are you going to complain about that as well?

It's one thing if you're being abused in any way or otherwise unfairly treated. But working with difficult people is just a basic life skill. In medicine specifically it is a necessary skill in order to work effectively with your team and with difficult patients. Take it as a learning experience to get used to it. Someday you'll be with a "dick" and the situation will be substantially more significant than your physics grade.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ThisCouldBeYou]

FWIW, I knew exactly what this thread would be about given its title. I figure, maybe you haven't had enough TAs like this. Not all of them will give you an automatic A just because you show up.

 

[carparker]

Try having a TA and professor, neither of whom speaks intelligible English. Sounds like you have a pretty easy, clear-cut conversation ahead of you.

 

[mehc012]

God I'm glad my school had no TAs. We had the occasional problem set grader (very rare, but one or two classes, like orgo, had them. I was one), but the profs told you exactly what to look for and rotated the sets between all graders so that you never had the same person's work twice and it all evened out in the end. We also had one in the advanced orgo lab, but that was just because that lab allowed you to do ANYthing the school had the resources for (it was a design-your-own lab course where they gave you one difficult question at the beginning of the semester and left you free to answer it however you could). He was mostly there to help us access things we had never seen before, though we did abuse him a little on the NMR (he offered to run some of our samples for us so we didn't have to come in every freaking night.)

 

[itsthat1guy]

Not sure, haven't seen it yet. BUT, how could it be wrong? Calculating gravity? That was all. I got 9.70 which is pretty darn close to the actual 9.8.

that's over 10% error

 

[HopelessGirl]

You guys are right, 40% off for not putting what he thought the purpose was and putting what was in the lab manual. TOTALLY FAIR.

 

[HopelessGirl]

nope, 9.7 +/- .5 deffinately includes 9.8

 

[Tommyguns89]

He cant be unfair if he's dead. Just sayin...

 

[ninjaman22]

LOL...I just saw this on my uni's confessions page:

#3111
We're getting close to the end of the semester so I'll tell you some things your TA won't tell you (but want to)...I'm a former TA at uni. 1) **** you e-mailing us at 2 am. Just because we're awake watching youtube doesn't mean we want to hear from you 24/7. 2) Yes, of course it's our fault that you had over a week to write it, yet you ask us questions/bitch at us 2 hours before its due and we STILL refuse to give you answers you can find on google. 3) No, I won't curve your mediocre grades by 10% with extra credit assignments so you can go to your Caribbean medical school. 4) You want to know why you can't bring your laptop or wear open toed shoes to class? Because some student spilled some chemicals on their laptop/shoes and SUED OUR ASSES for their own damn fault. Blame the others for their dick moves. 5) TA's are just like you. We are 22-28 (maybe more), taking a full class load, trying to pay rent/get our beer money, plus grading and teaching the classes YOU take 6)....and we hurt you because we know it'll hurt much more later on...because we're taking the same damn advanced level classes you will be taking. Thank them or give them some good ratemyprofessor reviews, they'll read them and appreciate it.

 

[487806]

nope, 9.7 +/- .5 deffinately includes 9.8

9.7 +/- .5? Man your class is awesome with that large of an uncertainty.

You guys are right, 40% off for not putting what he thought the purpose was and putting what was in the lab manual. TOTALLY FAIR.

So is your TA still a dick? Well... not unless you're referring to something else

 

[HopelessGirl]

9.7 +/- .5? Man your class is awesome with that large of an uncertainty.



So is your TA still a dick? Well... not unless you're referring to something else

I calculated my own uncertainty, anyway like I said, wasn't the issue. Can't see what will be the issue next week.

 

[moisne]

You guys are right, 40% off for not putting what he thought the purpose was and putting what was in the lab manual. TOTALLY FAIR.

This made me laugh. You had a lab manual and you didn't use it? You didn't put a purpose in your lab report? Well then, why on earth did you do the lab? What were you looking for from the lab? Just because it was assigned? Purpose is an important part of the lab. I assume this is not the first lab report you have ever written.
Don't make the same mistake next time :3

 

[moisne]

I calculated my own uncertainty, anyway like I said, wasn't the issue. Can't see what will be the issue next week.

Another question, how did you calculate your uncertainty? .5 seems like such a nice number. Did you propagate the error or use standard dev?

 

[HopelessGirl]

Another question, how did you calculate your uncertainty? .5 seems like such a nice number. Did you propagate the error or use standard dev?

Nope, definitely not the first Physics report I've done.

I did a purpose. I was too fancy and used what the book said the purpose was. He took off 40% for not being straightforward and saying "to find g".

He actually WANTS us to write less.

 

[HopelessGirl]

Another question, how did you calculate your uncertainty? .5 seems like such a nice number. Did you propagate the error or use standard dev?

The way he wanted us to.
Basically I found the best curve for my v x t graph. That was the acceleration (later used to find the gravity). We then had to find two more curves based on the points. This gave me two more values. You subtract the biggest from my best and that was the uncertainty. The lab manual was open to how you did it, that was how he wanted us to do it. He had no issues with my results/data, just my purpose.

 

[Mr Roboto]

Nope, definitely not the first Physics report I've done.

I did a purpose. I was too fancy and used what the book said the purpose was. He took off 40% for not being straightforward and saying "to find g".

He actually WANTS us to write less.

If you really got 40% off on the lab for just that one thing, then I totally agree you're getting screwed and should protest.

 

[HopelessGirl]

If you really got 40% off on the lab for just that one thing, then I totally agree you're getting screwed and should protest.

I'm over it. He told us that "everybody got the purpose wrong", I guess cause they read the background reading? As long as I ace the lab quizzes, do okay on the labs, and beast the class, I should be fine.

 

[The Buff OP]

He has no office hours. It shouldn't be that complicated, honestly. He says not to put to much thought into it, then marks it all wrong.

Go speak to the professor. If he/she says I don't meet with you, my TA meets with you, then respond this... "I don't want to talk to your TA, I don't pay the TA, I pay you to teach me."
(just a lil quote from Eric Thomas.)

 

[Mad Jack]

nope, 9.7 +/- .5 deffinately includes 9.8

You guys are right, 40% off for not putting what he thought the purpose was and putting what was in the lab manual. TOTALLY FAIR.

In most labs, only 10-30% of the grade is the answer. The majority of your grade is derived from how you came to that answer, as well as your ability to use scientific reasoning and terminology in an intelligible fashion. Most labs give you a grading rubric that explains why you got the grade you did. If yours does not, ask the TA why you received your grade and how you can do better next time. A large part of undergraduate success is adapting to the grading and testing styles of your professors and lab assistants, as a strategy that succeeds with one might be a death sentence with another. This holds true in most of life (different bosses, friends, family) and certainly in med school as well.

Adapt or fail in the premedical circle of life.