Hi there! I’m about to start my PhD soon and have heard that phd students are sometimes expected to teach undergrad tutorials [up to 6hrs/wk] – I am not that keen on teaching as I have done it before, but wondered whether it will be seen as uncooperative by my supervisor if I said no? If I say yes will this involve taking whole classes and preparing lots of material?? Any advice would be great –thanks.

I can't really comment on your particular department...but typically you are just there to supervise the students, kickstart discussions and at worse briefly go over the stuff they have done in lectures. Its up to the lecturer teaching the course to provide the material, so you don't really have to prepare anything! At least thats how it works where I am. Regards.

oh that doesnt sound too bad then! How often did you do that - 1/2 X week and for how long? Which year of your phd would you normally do any tutorials in? -thanks

If you dont want to teach you shouldnt have to. There are positives - money, being involved in the department (where I am, seems P/T teachers have higher status than those who are 'just' students), looks good on CV. I did 2 hr per week actual teaching (seminars) plus marking, attending lectures etc, total about 6hrs/wk. But my impression is it is becoming more difficult for PhD students to get teaching work - financial pressures mean Unis dont want to spend on this and are putting more of the load onto faculty.

I actually didn't cover any tutorials, I just did labs and it was about 2 hours a week for a semester. We have to do a short course in teaching and then can sign up for supervising undergrads....so I did it in my 2nd year...missed the course in 1st year!

Is this teaching you are talking abt in UK universities? Wow I am glad I found out since I love teaching and thats one of the reasons for persueing a PhD to go up in the academia I would love to do this if given half a chance

Yeah it is indeed Dev although the type of teaching varies from dept to dept. We also have to do a short course in teaching before they let us loose on the students which I'm going to sign up for.

Teaching is important if you want to go into academia eventually, but you don't have to do it as part of your course. A lot of PhD students start teaching, but find they don't have the time to do much with their studies anyway.