CA Policies

Policies for Hourly Course Assistants (CAs) in Computer Science

Time Commitment

The average time that you can expect to work per week varies widely by course and instructor. It also varies widely by week—you will work more in the week leading up to and following a big exam, for example, while your time worked during the first few weeks of the term might be low. Of course, the size of your CA team vs. the size of the course enrollment also plays a factor.

Many of our hourly CAs average 5 hours or under per week. Sometimes your work commitment may fall within the 6-10 hours per week range. In extreme cases and by special arrangement, you might work something closer to 20 hours per week for a short period of time depending on what is happening during the course. Please make sure that you are communicating with your instructor and/or lead CA about how much time you are working if it regularly nears 15 hours/week or higher. Working 20 hours/week is considered the equivalent of working a full-time job considering the addition of your own coursework! Getting permission to work this much is exceedingly rare. You would need to speak with your instructor about this in advance, who would then need to talk with others before agreeing to this arrangement.

Lastly, at no time are you to allowed to work over 40 hours in a single week.

Payment

To log the hours you work as an hourly RA or CA, you will use the online timecard system, located at https://www.eecs.tufts.edu/~courses/timecard/. If you are a first-time CA or need a refresher, please refer to the guide titled “How to Report Hours as an Hourly Worker for Computer Science.”

It is your obligation to report your hours promptly! It creates extra work for the CS administrative staff to report late hours because they often need to be treated differently. Naturally, hours turned in late will be paid late.

Here are the guidelines for meeting your reporting obligation:

• Hours for the prior week must be entered by Monday 9:00am.
• If there is a Monday holiday, hours must be entered by Friday 1:00pm.
• Hours MUST be turned in weekly. The absolute deadlines for getting paid for hours worked during a semester job are as follows:
  • Fall semester: submit final hours before January 15
  • Spring semester: submit final hours before May 31
  • Summer work: submit final hours before September 15

Please note: the department is not responsible for lost wages if you do not fulfill this obligation.

As an hourly worker, your main point of contact for payroll matters is Ellen Quirk in 420D Cummings Center. She can be reached at equirk01@cs.tufts.edu.