Post Secondary Teaching

[Tck13]

Any college professors out there? I'm curious what the field is like, how hard it is to become a college prof. and what it's like to teach at that level.

I'm interested in learning more about teaching Literature and / or Religion / Mythology.

 

[dfagdfsh]

haha, good luck.

edit: anyway everyone is gonna come in here and say it's impossible. what's your undergrad degree in and whats your gpa?

 

[imschatz]

Well .. you usually need a Ph.D. to teach post-secondary - at a minimum master's degree .. and the fields you listed, are extremely difficult to get into, and any decent jobs in those fields are staffed by minorities or women.

Good thing is .. in those fields, if you're willing to put in the time, regardless of your grades you can find a school that will admit you into the Ph.D. program. So it's not impossible, but that lifestyle would suck. Long hours, very bad pay (think $20k/year or less to do the Ph.D.), and once you're done you'll enter a **** labour market and be fighting for every dollar.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by Teger

haha, good luck. edit: anyway everyone is gonna come in here and say it's impossible. what's your undergrad degree in and whats your gpa?
My Undergrad is in Merchandising and Design and my GPA was around 3.5 overall and 3.75 in my major.

Originally Posted by imschatz

Well .. you usually need a Ph.D. to teach post-secondary - at a minimum master's degree
Yeah, this is what I'm considering. The best job prospects according to bls is for those with PhD's.

Originally Posted by imschatz

. and the fields you listed, are extremely difficult to get into, and any decent jobs in those fields are staffed by minorities or women.
And this is what is stopping me from going much further. Everyone says that the fields that I'm looking into are extremely competitive and it's very difficult to find a teaching job (full time, anyway). It's even worse to try to teach some kind of fashion course which would be easy to do with my experience. It might be available part time if I want to commute to Philly or NYC for a class but it's not really worth my time and effort.

Originally Posted by imschatz

thing is .. in those fields, if you're willing to put in the time, regardless of your grades you can find a school that will admit you into the Ph.D. program. So it's not impossible, but that lifestyle would suck. Long hours, very bad pay (think $20k/year or less to do the Ph.D.), and once you're done you'll enter a **** labour market and be fighting for every dollar.
The job market is what I'm worried about the most.

 

[DaveB]

If you have any interest in accounting it took my school 3 years to find a candidate with semi-competent teaching skills and a PhD. On the other hand my geography teacher said that there were 300 other applicants for the position he got. Is there any chance you have an interest in an area of study that is more in demand for teaching positions?

 

[Gibonius]

I'm a chemistry professor (teaching only). It's a very different situation in the sciences, the teaching jobs are competing against industry and research for the best candidates. I got hired right after my PhD, with almost no teaching experience and no specific teaching education. I make something like 40% more than the humanity professors who started at the same time I did and have better hours. That said, I could be making about double in industry (and am working on doing so). That option doesn't really exist in the humanities, so the pay in teaching gets depressed considerably.

This is not much help for you, unfortunately, just relating the other side of the story.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by DaveB

If you have any interest in accounting it took my school 3 years to find a candidate with semi-competent teaching skills and a PhD. On the other hand my geography teacher said that there were 300 other applicants for the position he got. Is there any chance you have an interest in an area of study that is more in demand for teaching positions?

Originally Posted by Gibonius

I'm a chemistry professor (teaching only). It's a very different situation in the sciences, the teaching jobs are competing against industry and research for the best candidates. I got hired right after my PhD, with almost no teaching experience and no specific teaching education. I make something like 40% more than the humanity professors who started at the same time I did and have better hours. That said, I could be making about double in industry (and am working on doing so). That option doesn't really exist in the humanities, so the pay in teaching gets depressed considerably. This is not much help for you, unfortunately, just relating the other side of the story.
I've heard about what both of you are saying. It seems like the fields that I'm interested in are very competitive and coveted but Math and Science have shortages or at least need people more so than the Humanities. I've had several people say the same thing that the two of you are saying. Problem is, I'm not sure I could be passionate about those subjects. I love literature, Religion, etc and would love to spend my time reading and talking about those subjects. Science and Math are interesting but I'm not sure that they're that interesting.