Being a Teaching Fellow (TF) for 3 semesters was the ultimate highlight of my 4 years at Harvard. I had the best time getting to know all of my students and working with them over the course of 1.5 years. They consistently taught me how to be a better educator and how I can best serve them. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work with many of my students for more than one semester (a rare occurrence for TFs at Harvard). If they only remember one thing, I hope it’s this:
When in doubt, Free Body Diagram it out.
– Mia
Solid Mechanics Teaching Fellow
I was hired as an undergraduate teaching fellow for ES120: Solid Mechanics for two semester (Spring 2023, Spring 2024) by Professor Joost Vlassak. The course covered stress, strain, torsion, bending, deflection, and transformation of stress among other topics.
My main duties included hosting weekly office hours, grading problem sets, creating class assignments, managing course logistics, and being available to answer students’ questions after class.
During my second semester with the course, I decided to host review sessions (2-3 hours in duration) before exams after students expressed nervousness over their upcoming tests. An example of a review guide is posted to the right.
Mechanical Systems Teaching Fellow
I was hired as an undergraduate teaching fellow for ES125: Mechanical Systems (Fall 2023) by Professor Boris Kozinsky. The course covered resonance, damping, frequency response, Laplace Transform methods, Lagrange’s equations, multiple degree-of-freedom systems, and 3-D rigid body dynamics among other topics.
My main duties included hosting weekly office hours, grading problem sets, weekly staff meetings to discuss course logistics, and being available to answer students’ questions after class.
I was fortunate to have 60-70% of the same students as the semester before in ES120. This was a pleasant surprise and allowed me to feel even more comfortable stepping into this role just a few weeks before the semester began.
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