TA Job Description

Department/Agency:

Computer Science Department

Length of Position:

Academic year

Functions/Description of the Position:

The TA will gain further experience and expertise working in the unix computing environment and/or the Windows PC computing environment. The TA will gain experience in communicating effectively in a technical work environment and will continue to develop their computer science skills through their work.

Duties and Responsibilities:

The duties of a TA may include any or all of the following: (percentages vary significantly, depending on your specific work schedule.)

assisting students with the use of unix workstations and/or PCs and the software used during a course-related laboratory (45%)
answering questions/tutoring students during closed labs or evening open lab time (45%)
grading student lab reports or homework assignments in lower division computer science courses under the supervision of a faculty member (10%)
returning graded work to the students in a timely manner, including helpful feedback
attending TA meetings and training sessions (< 1%)

Minimum Qualifications to perform the duties of the of position:

Satisfactory completion of CS161 and CS162 and completion of the course assigned for other closed-lab work assignments, with the exception of CS130 which requires only CS161 and CS162.
The TA must have the ability to interact with other students in a positive and helpful manner within a computing environment.

Work Schedule:

When working on scheduled time, the work shifts for lab duty vary depending on the time of day and whether the work assignment is helping out in a closed-lab for a class.

Daytime shifts: 1 ½ hours

The closed-labs associated with a course are 80 minutes long.

Evening shifts: 3 hours

The evening shifts are either from 6-9pm (SJU), 9pm-midnight (SJU), or 7-10pm (CSB), Sunday through Thursday.

The TA should generally be available to work both daytime and evening assignments although sometimes your class schedule may prevent that from being possible and then we will schedule you for times you are available.

Grading can be done at a time mutually agreed upon by the TA and the faculty/staff supervisor.

All work is done during the academic year. No work is required during final exam times or over the holidays.

Contact Person:

John Miller
Phone: (320) 363-3155
SCIEN 213, SJU
jmiller@csbsju.edu