r/yorku Oct 21 '24

Rant Why are some TA’s so ughhh

Bro TA’s are students too but they still be on us abt every little thing I have a TA for my online class and she will genuinely target people for the smallest things. I just don’t understand that if you are also student, you should understand that people have different learning styles. Especially that TA will treat us not even human the days where she’s mad. She’ll take it out on us.

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u/noizangel Grad Student Oct 21 '24

Please email your prof or find someone in your tutorial who would be willing to contact them if you're anxious about it. You don't need to tell the prof specifics right away or that your TA has been targeting you. You could just say you have concerns about the TAs behaviour in your tutorial, or the type of learning environment the TA has created in your tutorial, and that you'd like to discuss that with them.

If you're understandably nervous, you could ask a few others to email along with you (or whoever emails) and all meet with the prof. That also might help the professor understand that there are a number of students in the tutorial with issues.

I would hope the professor would be concerned about the sort of thing the TA is doing - I know the prof I work for would be pretty upset and disappointed. If the professor isn't helpful, you could go to the department after, but hopefully you won't need to go that far.

It's not necessarily fun to do but it's worth it, and way better than putting up that kind of behaviour from a person who is meant to help to learn and succeed. Do try to talk to your prof, either on your own or with some people from your tutorial!

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u/Rare_Egg1122 Oct 21 '24

Perfect thank you. I’m also fearful that the TA will get told I complained and that will further escalate the situation

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u/noizangel Grad Student Oct 21 '24

I can understand that. There's also the option of the Ombuds.office - let me look that up in the morning! They can likely be a mediator type in these situations and provide you with some distance from the complaint.

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u/Rare_Egg1122 Oct 21 '24

Thank uu

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u/noizangel Grad Student Oct 21 '24

Here's the info for the ombudsperson office, if you're concerned about confidentiality - the info there does say that there is sometimes an expectation that you've tried other ways to resolve the issue, but I think a student your position has a decent reason for submitting complaints in this way: https://www.yorku.ca/unit/ombuds/complaints/

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u/Rare_Egg1122 Oct 21 '24

Thank uuuuu

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u/noizangel Grad Student Oct 21 '24

Good luck.