Pros
You get to do fun maths.
Cons
The TAs are supposed to attend office hours, attend and answer questions during class Monday-Friday which is 3 hours. PLUS, you have to grade homework everyday and an exam every weekend. AND you're supposed to talk to the students on discord!!! I don't mind the work, but they expect you to give detailed feedback and basically hand hold the student through every problem. When I graded, I checked their answer and gave some positive comments, I didn't go through every step and tell them where they went wrong because even at AOPS we aren't expected to do that. This is competition maths and the students need to learn to solve problems on their own with only little guidance or they will not learn. So, basically I was ambushed by the instructor into a break out room during office hours. He made fun of my grading and it was humiliating. "You told the student they had the right idea, when dropping a perpendicular WASN'T the right idea. If they aren't on the right track.. they KINDA need to know that." The student did have the right idea by drawing a diagram, and this is grading we are talking about. There's no reason to treat someone like this. So, after I was humiliated, the instructor had the audacity to complain to the management and I was put into a meeting (where he didn't even attend ) and an email was sent to me making fun of my grading even more. I am a very good grader. I literally work for AoPS and have been grading for 10 years. But this program made me feel like I was inadequate. Lastly, the person in charge of the TA's gave several TA's a hard time when they were doing nice things, like posting extra material to help students do better on contests. He expects detailed feedback on the exams when solutions are provided to the student. Overall, I left the program feeling like there was something wrong with me, when I work very hard and care a lot about the students.