Guide for Potential Undergrad IAs

So, you’re interested in being an undergrad IA for Will in one of his classes? Awesome! Motivated and interested students are a wonderful asset to the team, students report it being a great experience, and everybody benefits from great Undergrad IAs (‘UGIAs’).

This page has some details for you about the joys, the requirements, the expectations, and the timeline for the process.

Benefits

The benefits here are myriad, but among them are…

Experience the ‘behind the scenes’ elements of grading and planning a course as a full member of the instructional team!
- You’ll also have a chance to ask why courses are structured, graded, and held as they are, and learn more about teaching theory if you’re interested
Learning the course material in greater depth than ever!
Experience leading study groups, sections, or office hours
Up to four units of course credit which can count towards your linguistics major!
An excellent element of your resumé or CV!
Building a strong relationship with a UCSD professor, which can make for very strong and personalized letters of recommendation!
You’ll be a role model for future linguistics majors, helping people learn the things you’ve already learned!

No matter the class, you’ll be a member of the instructional team, hosting office hours, helping students, doing some grading, proctoring exams, potentially co-leading sections, and mostly helping make the class a friendly and happy place for new linguists.

Requirements

The formal requirements from the academic senate for UGIAs are…

Upper-Division Standing
A 3.0 Overall GPA or higher
You’re not allowed to IA in a course you’re currently enrolled in (obviously)
You’re only allowed to IA one class each quarter
You’re only allowed to IA a given class once
You can’t get more than eight units total from IAing in courses
IAships can only be taken as Pass/No-Pass

My (Will Styler’s) additional requirements are…

You’ve previously taken the course before, and gotten an “A” or greater
- This requirement can be waived for a brand new course, or for a student with exceptional background in related material.
You’ve taken and gotten good grades in most (if not all) of the core Linguistics classes (Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, and Semantics)
You are kind, open-minded, and have excellent communicative skills
You’re comfortable leading a section or discussion group
You have a strong passion for linguistics
For IAing classes other than LIGN 101, talk to me about other courses and bits of background which will be helpful for you.
It’s not appropriate for you to IA for a class in the same quarter that it’s being taken by a person you’re close to (e.g. family member, (ex) partner, good friend, co-worker, roommate, arch nemesis, etc)
- This is mostly for your protection, as many people will unexpectedly turn nasty when they perceive that you ‘could help’ with their grade or offer additional consideration, but refuse out of professionalism and fairness
- If it’s just a person you’re friendly with, we can work around that, but generally, it’s better when you have no strong pre-existing relationships with anybody taking the class

Note also that I generally get far more interested students than I have available spots for IAs, and generally speaking, students who I know better and whose performance and passion I’ve seen firsthand will get precedence. So, meeting these requirements is not a guarantee that you’ll get to IA for me, please don’t be hurt if I can’t find a slot for you, and feel free to ask again later!

Expectations

If you’re curious about my expectations for IAs, both grad and undergrad, you can check out my full IA Expectations and Goals.

Note that this document covers both grad and undergrad IAs, and not all of the responsibilities will apply for all IAs, quarters, and classes

Timeline

Here’s how the process works:

As soon as you know you’re interested

Send me an email or come to my general office hours!
- Include or have ready an unofficial transcript, please, just to save me a step
- We can talk over things in more detail, figure out which classes would be a good fit, and see which quarter(s) would be the best target given your schedule and mine
- This isnt a commitment, just a show of interest!

Week 7-8 of the quarter prior to your planned IAship:

Confirm that the course meeting and section times don’t conflict with your course schedule.
- We can probably get you one of a few sections, but if you can’t attend the lecture or the bulk of the sections, it’s better to find another quarter.
Set up a time to meet with me (likely with any other IAs for the course)
- We’ll confirm everything, go over last minute details, and talk a bit about your hopes, fears, and some of the issues that can come up during IAing and how to handle them
At this point, I’ll submit the paperwork to enroll you in LIGN 195, which will disappear into bureaucracy for a while.

Week -1 of the quarter of IAship:

Keep an eye out for invitations to Gradescope, Canvas, and any other services
Keep an eye out for requests for information from me for the syllabus, and details on how the class is going to run
Be prepared to help me find a time to meet with the entire instructional team once a week
Find out which sections, if any, you’ll be supervising, and plan your schedule accordingly
Complete the required Canvas modules assigned to you

Week 1 of your IAship:

Be ready to introduce yourself the first day of class
Confirm that you’ve added or been added to LIGN 195
- This sometimes takes a while to clear the administrative hurdles, don’t fret if it’s not available until week 1 or 2.
Go forth and be awesome

UGIA Mentorship

All UGIAs will be assigned to a graduate mentor among the grad IAs. This will allow for direct feedback and training. You’re encouraged to communicate with your grad mentor regularly, and form a genuine mentorship. I’ll choose mentors based both on student desire and shared temperament, so if there’s a team member you want to work with, let me know!

Undergraduate IAs will co-teach sections with their grad mentor. This leaves open the possibility of the grad student letting the undergrad ‘teach’ a given week under their supervision, and effectively doing a teaching observation with the grad student, but for the most part, you’ll work together with your grad mentor to help students, and to plan a given week’s activities.

UGIA grading will be doubly-supervised. In addition to my oversight of all grading and choosing questions which are reasonable and plausible for UGIAs to grade, you’re encouraged to talk about their grading with your grad mentor first, and the grad mentor will be expected to ‘sign off’ on your grading.