Undergraduate Teaching Assistants
Consider becoming an undergraduate teaching assistant (TA) to sharpen your communication and leadership skills, give back to the younger undergraduate community, and learn much more about a subject you’re interested in.
The ability to teach others is essential for engineers—and all professionals—but it doesn’t always come naturally. While leading a student organization is a great accomplishment, becoming a TA provide a high caliber of leadership experience for your resume. If you’re planning to pursue a Ph.D. and work in academia, being a TA can act as a great starting point in your teaching career.
Over the years a number of chemical engineering students have been recognized by Cornell University as Exceptional Undergraduate Teaching Assistants.
Not only will working as a TA be valuable to you during your upperclass years, but also to many undergraduates who are in the process of taking the same courses you did. If you can remember a time when a TA helped you prepare for a test or walked you through understanding difficult material, then you know what an incredible resource they are.