Teaching assistants are there for students in ways the regular teacher cannot be. They provide extra guidance and knowledge, as well as break down concepts and problems in ways the students can comprehend. In a way, teaching assistants are really great, in-depth tutors.
Becoming a teaching assistant is a great way to eventually become a teacher. As an added plus, you won't have to work summers since you most likely work for a school. An extra bonus will come at the end of the school year when you get to see how much you helped those students learn.
To become a teaching assistant, you won't need more than 2 years of college coursework. You also probably won't work past normal school hours. Think of all the extra free time you'll have as a teaching assistant.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a teaching assistant. For example, did you know that they make an average of $16.16 an hour? That's $33,610 a year!
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a teaching assistant, we found that a lot of resumes listed 23.0% of teaching assistants included laboratory experiments, while 7.7% of resumes included class activities, and 6.1% of resumes included lesson plans. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
If you're interested in becoming a teaching assistant, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 70.4% of teaching assistants have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 16.5% of teaching assistants have master's degrees. Even though most teaching assistants have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a teaching assistant. When we researched the most common majors for a teaching assistant, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on teaching assistant resumes include associate degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a teaching assistant. In fact, many teaching assistant jobs require experience in a role such as research assistant. Meanwhile, many teaching assistants also have previous career experience in roles such as internship or volunteer.