Fridays

This semester, I set up my schedule so that I only have one class on Friday, at 9.  But, I am also a TA for a professor I had last semester and we, meaning the TAs, teach the lab every Friday.  I still don't have to teach for a couple of weeks, but I am pretty scared.  See, I always thought I didn't want to be a teacher, but now I am thinking I might change my mind.  Don't miss understand, I don't want to be a teacher, but I might want to be a professor.  Big difference.  Fall semester I was a TA too (but for a much less enjoyable class and professor), and I realized how much I liked it.  Maybe I just like being in charge.  Okay, I know I like being in charge.  I just love to help people understand what I know, as long as it is something I care about.  

So here is the background story on this class and professor.

The first day of class, I knew I liked the professor.  He's young, meaning only graduated with his Ph.D. like three years ago, extremely intelligent, and an entertaining lecturer.  I wasn't super excited for the class and I knew it would be hard (he told us so the first day, partly just to scare everyone so that the class would be smaller) but I actually felt kind of excited for it.  Well, I was right.  I never walked out of a lecture thinking I had wasted my time; it was never boring.  I did, however, walk out of many a lecture completely freaked out about the future.  He likes to be honest with his students about what they are getting themselves into and how difficult it is to do what he does, so he talked about it A LOT.  Don't worry, by the end I was only having minor, 5 minute freak outs after his "graduate school" soapbox instead of the hour long breakdown (crying and all) I had after his first real one (Thanks for helping me with that, Kate!).  Anyway, I knew this was a professor that I wanted on my side and to impress.  So I did my best in his class.  Most of the time, it was my top priority on my homework list.

The Monday before Thanksgiving, Dr. B asked me to talk to him in the hall right after I had set my stuff down.  "Don't worry, it's not a bad thing," he said as we were walking out.  Good thing he said that, because I actually was a little worried.  Once we got out into the hall the conversation went a little like this:

Dr. B:  "By this time of the semester, students have usually proven how they are going to do in my class.  And every so often I get a student who proves that they are just going to beat the crap out of all of my tests and rock them no matter what I throw at them.  This semester, you're that student.  When this happens, I like to make a little deal with those students.  As a professor, we have a few students who do pretty poorly and a few that do extremely well, and the rest are all just in the middle somewhere.  And for the most part, we have to teach to those in the middle.  So here's my deal, if you're interested, I'd like to have you tutor a few of the students who aren't doing well for the next couple of weeks, and in return, you won't have to take the final, because I already know you'd do well on it.  I feel like you will get a lot more out of the material and learn it better if you have to teach it to other people.  So, does that sound like something you'd be interested in?"

I, of course, said yes.  A) I wouldn't have to take the final (score!) and B) You can't say no when a professor gives you a compliment and opportunity like that.  Little did he know, but he had just made my whole semester.  My excitement was even able to withstand another one of his graduate school talks, this time a whole, purposefully designed lecture's worth.

A couple of weeks later he e-mailed me, told me a couple of TAs were leaving and asked me if I would be interested in filling one of their spots.  Obviously I said yes, since I am now one of his TAs.  

Walking home the day he asked me to tutor, being the psychology major I am, I started to wonder why our little chat in the hall had meant so much to me.  And I realized it was because it was exactly what I never even knew I needed.  I had been working so hard, and not feeling like I was succeeding in anything.  I knew I wasn't doing the best I could at work and in a couple of my classes and felt like I wasn't in control of anything.  My talk with Dr. B seemed to be God's way of telling me that I am doing things right.  That my hard work has not gone unnoticed.  And that on a university campus with over 30,000 students, I was making myself known.  There are a lot of times at BYU that I feel like I'm the dumb one.  So sometimes it's nice to reminded that it's okay for me to be a Psychology major with 3.8 GPA instead of a Chemistry major with a 4.0.  I'm still doing pretty good.

So I guess that's why I like being a TA.  It reminds me that I'm still doing pretty good.  I mean, I'm here aren't I?