The Story of Us: Who Are We?
On a more technical level, as a CA for the Math MB course specifically, we are tasked with grading problem sets, co-leading Workshops, attending each class, hold MQC shifts, and attend weekly team meetings to discuss the upcoming material and work through problems together. During our MQC shifts and Workshops, the CAs take charge without the supervision or guidance of a Math Preceptor, and it’s during these times that students and CAs get to connect with each other.
When you first apply to the job and schedule your interview, you’re sent a few documents, one being The Tao of Teaching and Learning Calculus. At the end of this document is a quote from Lao Tzu that perfectly sums up what a CA should have, “Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” We are here to support our students not to boast our possible mastery of the course content, to be patient and not quick to give up on them, to be compassionate and not dismissive. It’s common for students to say they dislike Math or that they don’t like it because they aren’t confident in their skills and their knowledge, as a CA we uplift and highlight the greatness that is already in our students while simultaneously helping them understand the areas they’re struggling in. And as this document says, “the most effective CAs are the ones who can get a student to go far while saying/doing very little for the student.”
So to answer the question, Math MB CAs are students just like our students who are passionate about helping just how we were once helped. We are student’s who genuinely enjoy the job, not simply for the income, but for the connections that are made.