This semester as a TA I learned so much not only about teaching, but also psychology. There is no better way to solidify something I learned a couple years ago now, than to teach it to others. It’s amazing how fast it comes back. I can honestly say before I was a TA that I had no clue how much planning, thought, and effort goes into the successful teaching of a class. Seeing all of the behind the scenes action peaked an interest I never knew I had. I never knew that I would be interested in pursuing teaching in psychology.
Before this semester all I saw was the part of psychology that originally drew me in, which was counseling/clinical psychology. Now I see another area of psychology that holds an interest. This also caused me to re-evaluate the type of graduate program I wanted to look at. I originally thought that I would want to go for my Psy. D. and even researched programs that I was interested in, and now my summer project is looking for Ph. D. programs.
I’ve said on multiple occasions that this semester is the first semester I actually feel like a psychology major. It’s weird, but there’s no way to describe it. The combination of taking more upper level classes, and being helping teach a lower level class just really drove the point home for me that this is where I belong. I also said multiple times during the semester, how lucky am I that I get to wake up everyday and study a subject that I absolutely love. I never really felt that way before this semester.
I will also say that this semester as a TA definitely helped my confidence in my ability in psychology as well as public speaking. I definitely feel more competent in psychology as well, having to come up with alternate explanation when my pod or students in a review session didn’t understand something helped me dig deeper than just repeating a definition. I also had some previous public speaking experience, but nothing compared to this semester. Having to talk about psychology was more nerve wracking than just leading a meeting, I think because I put greater importance on psychology and being accurate.
I would definitely recommend the TA experience to everyone who is able to fit it in their schedule. For me, I had no clue that I might be interested in teaching until I became a TA. I also liked that I was able to develop a relationship with my 50 students, it really helped me feel like I had some allies while I was giving my lecture. And it was nice to be able to have some conversation before/after reviews, before class, and in other classes that I had with them. I think the pod feature really helped students feel like someone notices whether they were there or not, and someone was able to focus on them and their questions without 200 other people there. I know for me it can be difficult to ask a question in front of 250 people.
This was a game changing semester for me in large part because of my TA experience. I am so lucky to have been able to experience being a TA, and will definitely value the experience for grad school and beyond.