Letter from Boston
Teaching Fellows
By MASAKO YAMADA
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ティーチング・フェロー
ボストン大学物理学部の大学院生として、大学から奨学金を受けている雅子さん。ほとんどの大学院生は研究分野がはっきり決まるまで、教授の研究を手伝うかたわら、学部生を教えます。
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bo19960927text.htm
Letter from Boston
Teaching Fellows
By MASAKO YAMADA
Most of the 24 new grad students in our physics
department are financially
supported by Boston University. Not only do they get a full
tuition waiver
(in
itself worth over $20,000 a year), they also get
money for basic items
such
as rent , transportation and food.
These
are not loans but fellowships , for which the money
need not be paid back.
Students can't expect to amass a great deal of
savings , but most can afford little luxuries like movies and restaurant
dinners, at least.
Not all university departments can afford to give their students free education. The humanities departments and professional
schools (law, business and medicine) rarely give such fellowships. But in the physics
department, if you are
accepted by a school, you're usually guaranteed financial support.
Of course, this money doesn't really come for free. Most of the incoming
students are offered what are called "teaching
fellowships." That is,
they earn their keep by working as assistants to the
professors. This work
includes teaching undergrad courses as well as doing research for a particular
professor.
I, myself, am supported by organizations other than
my own department. I
do not have to teach or do extra research, but I am
required to attend
meetings and seminars sponsored by my group.
During the first week of class, all of us got together every evening from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
and "rehearsed" teaching. This did not involve lectures.
Instead, each of us got up
in
front of the other class members and solved a sample
physics problem. The
remaining students heckled the victim at
the board and afterward gave their comments .
Since we were being videotaped , we also got to see
ourselves perform . Although I don't have teaching duties, I still went to the sessions , because teaching is such an important skill in
itself.
Besides, it was nice to be with my classmates at this initial stage . The
setting of the meetings was very casual. Refreshments
were served every
evening, and since we hadn't been assigned homework
yet, we didn't mind
(too much) having our precious evening time taken
away. It was a good
chance for all of us new students to get together outside the classroom. It wasn't anything
like a party, but I
think getting to know each other's faces was a big goal.
Getting to know names was a different issue . Only four of the incoming students are American,
so roll call always took a long time. Pronouncing
names such as "Alexei Trofimov" and "Qizhi Zhu" is not easy for people who are used to
names like "Tom
Jones."
For that reason, many of the foreign students have taken on American nicknames. I admit that it's much easier for me to say "Julian" than
"Qizhi," but I've never
liked the idea of taking on an American name, myself. One of my friends jokingly
suggested that "Martha" sounds a little like "Masa," but I'd rather have
my name mispronounced "moussaka" (a Greek eggplant dish) or "miyako" than change the name I grew up with .
Being a new teacher is hard in itself, but I think one special difficulty that many of my
classmates have is that
their native language is not English. All of them have passed a language exam, and
therefore they are able to
understand their own professors, but standing in front of a room full of squirmy
undergrads and trying to explain a subject like physics is very different. I could tell
that many of the
teaching fellows were struggling so hard with the
language that they
didn't
even notice that we (their students) were getting
restless . It's obvious that many of the teaching fellows are very
good at physics. I only
hope the undergrads will overlook the thick
accents and focus on what the teaching fellows
have to offer.
During the first couple years of grad school, students work as teaching fellows, take
courses in the fundamentals of physics, and try to pinpoint their research area. After they decide on their
field, they approach various professors to see if they are
willing (and able) to fund them. If they are, the
students can stop
being teaching fellows and start focusing on their own research.
Of course, I'm not yet at that stage, but I realize that I am among students who work
― whether it is teaching or
doing research ― order to study, and this is a great stimulus for me.
ST
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