What Are Student Professors?

Question

What are student professors and how do you become one? Also, are they nerds or just normal cool people?

Answer 1

I assume you are talking about Teaching Assistants (TA).

Teaching assistants are usually graduate students who help with teaching duties like grading homework, grading tests, proctoring exams, holding study/review sessions, and helping students with homework problems. At some schools/programs, they actually conduct lectures.

You become one by becoming a graduate student, during which time, you might be offered a teaching assistant position by your department. They are offered as part of a compensation (funding) package for graduate students.

Whether they are nerds or cool people, it could be either. It depends if you consider graduate students cool or not.

In some situations, senior level undergraduates can become teaching assistants, but for the most part, they are almost always graduate students.

Answer 2

Student Professors are generally either Teaching Assistants or students majoring in education and doing their "student teaching."

Both teaching assistants (TA's)and student teachers do basically the same things. They will do things like grade assignments and exams, possibly conduct some lectures or classes themselves, and even assist in class material and exercise development / creation.

Essentially, they perform many of the functions of actual teachers, except that they're under the direct supervision of the actual classroom instructor.

In addition, they must maintain a certain grade point average (GPA), which varies from school to school. In other words, student teaching is a "reward" not a right!