Graduate Student Instructor

Graduate Student Criteria:

• Only graduate students who have advanced to candidacy may serve as Graduate Student Instructor (GSI).

• GSIs must have very good evaluation ratings and at least 6 quarters of teaching experience.

• If you are requesting to teach a course you have not TA'd for, please include a statement of qualifications.

• Priority will be given to qualified students who (a) have not previously had a GSI (excluding GSI during summer session) and (b) have been primarily supported as a graduate student through TAships.

Course Guidelines:

• PSYC 10 or PSYC 20 OR

• An upper division course:

  • Developmental: PSYC 101-118

  • Cognitive: PSYC 120-138

  • Social: PSYC 140-158

• Current approved courses may be found at http://psychology.ucsc.edu/courses/course-catalog.php 

To apply, please provide the following materials:

• A cover letter that includes your name, program, year in program, and the course(s) you are interested in teaching. The cover letter should also address the GSIs competence to conduct the entire instruction of the course in terms of subject knowledge and teaching ability (a page max).

• An updated Curriculum Vitae.

• A proposed syllabus (no more than 5 pages) for your course. We have included CCI's syllabus checklist for your reference. The department also has syllabi from past courses on file if you'd like to see examples.

• A letter of support from your faculty advisor approving your proposal.

• Acknowledgement from a faculty member who will serve as your GSI mentor confirming they have read, understand, and agree to the Faculty Mentor Agreement attached. 

First, per CEP and CCI policy, GSIs for courses that require teaching assistants must have 1. advanced to candidacy and 2. must have served as a course instructor before. Therefore, if you do not meet these two requirements, your summer course has an enrollment cap, and you will not have any TAs assigned to your course.

If you are in the category above, you may be able to request reader support for your course depending on enrollment numbers. Reader maximum is 100 hours for one class, and 50 or 100 hours is most common.

For GSIs who do meet the requirements above, you may have TAs assigned to your course, but please note, not all courses are guaranteed TA support. As you may know, summer TAships are contingent upon summer session enrollment numbers and TAships are allocated by the summer session office. However, in the past couple years, courses with an enrollment ranging from 36-45 students received 1 TA, 60> received 2 TAs, and 100+ received 3 TAs. Please note these allocations are very tentative and change year by year, but I hope this provides some information when planning for your courses.