A few opportunities exist each year for graduate students to teach courses (as the instructor of record, not just as a Teaching assistant) in this department. Many students use such opportunities to satisfy the Teaching Requirement of our Ph.D. program.
A list of the courses commonly available for graduate student instructors each year is provided below. (As always, all such offerings are contingent on availability of funds and suitable instructor expertise.)
Note: The summer school is under calendar pressure from the expanding regular semesters to shorten the length of the summer sessions. Should this happen, we will probably change Comp 14 (at least!) to run across both sessions instead of just across one session. This would likely decrease the overall number of seats and the number of teaching slots for graduate students. (JMC 8/4/98)
Rarely, we have been able to arrange for a graduate student to teach an undergraduate Topics (COMP 190) course on an area of interest to the graduate student. This requires planning far in advance and a good deal of luck along the way.
A Comp 390 Seminar on Teaching is offered in Spring semester (scheduled by arrangement) for graduate students who will be in charge of a course during the following year. These seminars are highly recommended by past participants as an orientation to the teaching enterprise.
The ideal period in which to take on a teaching assignment from a student's point of view begins when you have passed the Ph.D. Qualifying Examination and ends when your approved dissertation proposal is a year old. There is nothing wrong with teaching before or after that period, but that's the optimal time. Before you pass the Qual you are not certain that you need to satisfy a Teaching Requirement at all - it is a requirement only for the Ph.D. degree. Once your dissertation proposal is a year old, you will want to be dedicating yourself to completing your research and your dissertaiton document, not teaching some undergrad course.
For planning student instructor assignments, the Asssociate Chairman maintains a list of interested students, their time scale, and course preferences.
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