Fake It 'Till I Make It

By Luis Rendon

We don’t expect too much from professors. At the very least, we hope they are knowledgeable enough to impart their sage wisdom to our young, malleable minds. You have a “Dr.” in front of your name? Here’s 34K, now tell me everything you know. Unfortunately, students wind up dragging their butts to class at some ungodly hour to listen to a hard-on-the-eyes 20-something yak on about a subject they care nothing about. Not to mention that 20-something probably just squeezed through the same course when he was an undergrad—less than a year ago.

Barely a graduate student and hardly a professor worth any type of salary, I fall into these ranks. I am absolutely a fake professor. As an instructional assistant for GRA 217, my English degree doesn’t even come close to helping me when I’m standing in front of 15 sophomores waiting for me to teach them something about graphic design. But that doesn’t mean I have nothing to teach you.

For two semesters I’ve been in and out of labs and lectures trying to find different ways to say, “Your résumé is ugly,” without sounding like an asshole. I’ve learned two important things in that time: 1) Teaching is hard. 2) Being a 22-year-old teacher with no practical experience is even harder. IAs and TAs go through the same shitty things you go through as students. Except now we have to grade your projects.

Between the students timidly asking me to help them with a problem and the slackers begging to make up class by meeting with me during office hours, the job gets a little stressful. In the end, SU’s tag-team approach to your education can only benefit you. Without us, you’d never know your résumé sucked before turning it in for a grade. But if you do find yourself in a class run completely on TA talent, don’t take your grade too seriously. I mean, we’re not much closer to a Ph.D. than you are.

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