Allen Li is a winner of the 2019 McMaster Students Union teaching assistant merit awards for his work on HTHSCI 2F03/2FF3 – Anatomy and Physiology

Allen Li credits several mentors for his success as a student and a teaching assistant: his high school math teachers, his two upper-year mentors from his program, McMaster professors Alexander Ball and Bruce Wainman, and someone particularly special – his mom.

“Part of the reason I am so passionate about being a TA is realizing the amount of influence teaching and mentorship has on a person,” he says. “It was because of my mom that I built such a good foundation for learning later on. That made me realize that I can really impact someone.”

Li is heading into his fourth year of a health sciences undergraduate degree with an interest in acute care.

He says being a teaching assistant in the anatomy course was a good fit for him because he’s passionate about the material and because he got a chance to develop a whole new set of skills. Even though he describes himself as “absolutely terrified” during the first tutorial he led, that feeling eventually settled down and he became more confident as the semester went on.

“I could go on all day about this. There is so much I learned as a TA,” he says. “I definitely got a chance to solidify the course content that I did a year before – but the amount of knowledge that I gained in terms of interacting with students, taking on leadership, communicating and collaborating with the team, and working as a professional drastically outweighs the content. Honestly, it was an incredible amount that I got to learn.”

He says he’ll be coming back as a teaching assistant because of how rewarding the job was for him.

He remembers a student in his tutorial who was having a tough time at first, who was worried after the first mid-term and required some extra support. Li helped him not only with anatomy knowledge, but also with a strategy for navigating the stress and demands of the course. The student was so successful that he will be one of the teaching assistants in the course next year.

“I think out of this whole experience, being able to see that individual come into the lab, struggle, and then find a way to get comfortable, and then see him literally teach the course next year, that was the most fulfilling experience,” Li says.

If he had to give some advice to people considering becoming teaching assistants, Li would suggest pushing themselves to apply and then focusing on working hard and being thankful.

“Believe in yourself. Do pursue it,” he says. “When I first applied, I heard a lot of stories about how competitive it was. It’s daunting. I’ve had moments in my life, like in high school, where I didn’t apply for things because I thought ‘who am I against this army of people who are so stacked in terms of their experiences?’ And if you’re considering being a teaching assistant, give it your best shot and then really appreciate it.

“At the end of the day, it’s a job, but you always get out what you put into it. The more that you put in, the more rewarding the experience gets to be.”