Teaching Assistant Training

I finally finished training for my new job today. The first week, I was put into a training group with TAs studying in different areas at Syracuse, and this past week, I trained with the TAs of communications-related courses. Even though we did a greater variety of things last week, I felt that this week's training was more useful for the kind of work I'm going to do.

One good thing that I got out of all of this was that I made some new friends and networked with professors I had not met before. I went out with a few TAs last Friday night to a couple of bars. I was staying low-key, so I only had one beer. While we were at one of the bars, a group of Christian protesters marched up and stood outside with signs.

It was pretty funny that they decided to come there because the bar is always quiet (they don't play any music), and there weren't many people there at the time. The protesters didn't stay for long because the management asked them to leave. A little while later, a guy came in with his guitar and brought some music into the place.

I got a little bit of a break this week because we only trained for two-and-a-half days. I've learned how to grade papers and got some useful tips about restaurants in the area. My group took a tour of the Newhouse Complex to meet some of the people we might need for our jobs. I was excited to see Newhouse III because it is still in the construction phase.

For lunch, I went to a banquet for the grad students in Television/Radio/Film. Many of the professors in the program were there, and it was nice to talk to some of them one-on-one. The banquet was catered by a famous restaurant called Dinosaur BBQ. The food was good, but it can't light a candle to the barbeque in Arkansas. Now, all I have to do is by the books for my classes and get ready to start on Monday.