Each semester, our department offers a limited number of teaching assistantships to well qualified students.

To be an effective teaching assistant, you need to have at least the following qualities:

1. Sincere interest in helping other students learn. You must like teaching to be good at it!
2. Mastery of the subject matter. Often, this means attending the lectures of the course the first time you are helping with its instruction.

Once every year, the University sponsors a workshop for teaching assistants. We highly recommend that you attend this workshop, as it increases the chances that you can obtain and retain a teaching assistantship.

We are reviewing the performance of our TAs and their student's evaluations each semester. Students who are not effective as teaching assistants will not have their contracts renewed.

Teaching Assistant Application Process

All international students must have taken the TOEFL test and have received a score of 600 or above in order to be qualified to apply for a teaching assistantship. If your score is below 600, but you have spent considerable time in the U.S. and believe your English language skills are significantly better than your test score indicates, then you should retake the test.

To apply for a teaching assistantship, please follow this procedure:

1. Print out and fill out the ICS Graduate Assistantship Application (PDF) form, and return it to the department secretary in the ICS office in POST 318.

2. Print out three copies of the ICS Graduate Assistantship Evaluation (PDF) form, and give them to three former professors or advisors who can recommend you. They will return the recommendations to the ICS department.

3. Send email to the ICS Graduate Chair with the Subject: line "TA Application", and the body indicating that you would like to be considered for a TA position, have returned the ICS GA application to the ICS office, and have distributed the recommendations. (Please list the people you are having recommend you in the email.)
   
   

   Here is an example email:

   To: ics-gradchair@hawaii.edu
   From: baz@hawaii.edu
   Subject: TA Application
   
   I am writing to inform you that I have just turned in my TA application to the ICS Main Office. I have distributed recommendations to the following people:
   1. Professor Donald Knuth
   2. Professor Marvin Minsky
   3. Mr. John Von Neumann
   
   Thank you,
   Foobar Baz
   

TA Policy

Effective Fall 2006 teaching assistantships are limited to a maximum of two years in order to enable the department to use teaching assistantships to recruit and support new students. (Exceptions may be made.) Students who are already teaching assistants in the Fall of 2005 will be limited to three years total, this limit being first enforced Fall 2006. (This resolution will not terminate anyone expecting a TA for Spring 2006).