The Koothrappali Conundrum

[beamjockey]

Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali* is purportedly employed as an astrophysicist at Caltech.

This implies that at some point in his career, if only as a graduate assistant, he taught classes.

Raj's Achilles heel is that he shy and unable to speak when an adult woman is present. (Female family members appear to be an exception. Also, I have not seen how he behaves around children.)

How did he teach?

I can't believe it took five seasons for this question to occur to me. He is never seen in a classroom. (The other academics on the show are rarely seen in classrooms.)

Possibilities:

1. None of the classes he taught had female students.

2. His shyness became a problem only subsequent to his years of teaching.

3. We know that Raj is able to speak to women provided he has consumed alcohol. He may drink before each class session.

4. There is a huge inconsistency in this character that the writers of The Big Bang Theory have not patched up.

   4a. The people who make the show are aware of this, but ignore it.
   4b. The people who make the show are unaware of this.

Probably there exists, somewhere on the Internet, a community of people who have considered this question, and have figured out the answer.

Also, I looked up "autotrophs," but I can't understand why they would drool.

Also, I don't really know why the show is called The Big Bang Theory


* Played by Kunal Nayyar.

Comments

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

The effect of alcohol on Raj was only discovered early (I don't know which season since I only picked this up in re-runs) on in the program, therefore after any teaching he would have been before that.

Hmm. Have we noted any particular age range in this? I don't think he could speak to Sheldon's mother; I don't remember if he could talk to any of the teen students at the young genius award ceremony episode (sorry, seeing these things in re-runs makes it hard to pin down actual seasons).

(Edited to complete an unfinished sentence.)

[whl.livejournal.com]

The reality? 4a; the retcon? It's a joke about the gender ratio historically at CalTech.

Only my guess, of course; you went to grad school, I didn't.

[kathythorne.livejournal.com]

I think you may be on to something here. Even in Cartography in the early 90's in a state university in the East, I taught classes that were all male. Who knows when women would finally have started showing up in the classes if I hadn't been teaching them. By the time I left in 2008 the cart class was about half women. The faculty was also 50% female by that point. I think physics is still trailing in the gender balance, not just at CalTech. It's hard to build up a critical mass of role models.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

This implies that at some point in his career, if only as a graduate assistant, he taught classes.

It does? Does CalTech have a firm requirement that all graduate students be teaching assistants? I don't know anything specific about CalTech, but in general, while many graduate students are teaching assistants, there are other paths through graduate school. Similarly, being employed as an astrophysicist at a university does not, in general, require being employed as a professor -- though unless you count postdocs as employees, it is again the commonest case.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

According to the Wikipedia article (I don't watch the show) his family is extremely rich. That may or may not translate to immense purchasing power in US dollars, but it's at least conceivable that they funded him through graduate school, removing any monetary need for a teaching assistantship.

[isherempress.livejournal.com]

I think you're right - rich family, no need to teach, plus there's a consistent hint of potential homosexuality. As in: I'm not saying Raj is gay or bisexual, but I'm not saying he's not, either...

Anyway, it doesn't matter. He's one of my favorite characters on the show. The program consistently makes me laugh (one of the three reasons I watch TV), so I hope it lasts a long time.

[kathythorne.livejournal.com]

So far as I know, Keith never taught any classes. I taught lab sections but never lectures. I don't think teaching is any sort of universal requirement in a grad assistantship. Some assistantships are purely research positions.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

At the institutions where I did my M.Sc. and Ph.D., the grad students were given priority for taking the available TA positions (vs. hiring other people). I don't recall any requirement for a given student to teach, though it was usual to do so because of financial need and some expectation that it was part of the academic system. I recall a spurious complaint from the TAs' union that not enough teaching positions were being created to let all the grad students do their "quota" of teaching. And I recall several TAs whose command of the English language was so poor that they really shouldn't have been given teaching positions.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

It took until point 4 until I realized you were talking about a fictional character. I was confused where all this personal information on a CalTech professor had come from.

[isherempress.livejournal.com]

Jeez, John. Thanks for my LOL moment of the day.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I had the same reaction John did.

K.

[isherempress.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I've had 2 big laughs for the day. Thank you, Minnehaha K.

Honestly, I know that many of my friends are not what one might call "socially / culturally aware" (or, they may not be "tuned into" modern American life and culture). I can dig that. I mean, I've never watched American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, nor do I give a rat's ass... but what's ironic here is that The Big Bang Theory is absolutely hilarious because it's about a bunch of geeky guys who I feel like I know. They eat the same stuff every week (if it's Monday, it must be Thai; if it's Thursday, Indian....). They make jokes about Fibonacci numbers and Pi to the 84th degree (or whatever, I'm probably not saying that right). Their foil is Penny, a sweet, pretty blond woman from Nebraska who came to LA for her big break in the film industry and so far all she's gotten is a hemorrhoid commercial and so she works at the Cheesecake Factory. Anyway, it's well written, it's funny as hell, and the guys spend a lot of time playing games, going to the comic book store, watching classic SF movies, and trying to discern how/if they fit into society. Oh yeah, then there's the academic aspect of it, and from my failed academic POV, that's a howl, too.

Thursday nights, CBS. 8:00 Eastern time. Really quite amusing.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

And me. I tried to watch the show. It was unwatchable.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

There was an episode where Raj said that he has no trouble talking to larger groups that include women. It may have been the "Physics Bowl" episode.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Office hours are still a potential problem, though I certainly have known TAs who never had any students show up for theirs (the key is some combination of inconvenient scheduling for homework help, and BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD avoidance techniques, though that might just get you a lot of phone calls instead).