Undergraduate Teaching Assistantships
Each fall and spring, the Department of Sociology selects from a pool of highly qualified undergraduate applicants for paid undergraduate teaching assistantships (UGTA) in sociology. Serving as a teaching assistant is a fantastic professional development opportunity to add to a resume, and it can also provide you with an integrated department experience to highlight on an application to graduate school.
Our teaching assistants work 10-20 hours per week and are paid at the standard undergraduate teaching assistant rate. Assistantships are sufficiently demanding and we strongly encourage our teaching assistants not to hold other employment while they are already balancing TA positions their course load.
Responsibilities
Undergraduate teaching assistants are expected to:
- complete all the readings for the course
- attend all the lectures for the course
- hold 1.5 to 3 hours of office hours each week
- assist with grading
The Department of Sociology provides a shared office space for your office hours and desk copies of the readings.
Eligibility
To be eligible to apply for a teaching assistantship, you must have:
- a grade point average of at least 3.5
- completed most of the requirements for your major in sociology
- registered for at least 6 credits (a University-wide policy for employment)
- earned an A in the course you are assisting
Application
We accept undergraduate teaching assistant applications for graders or section leaders year-round. We extend undergraduate teaching assistant employment offers after sociology graduate students are appointed: in late August for fall term and late December or early January for spring term.
To apply, email the undergraduate teaching assistant applications to socadvis@umn.edu or drop it off in our main office.