Anyone worked as an Adjunct college professor

[Anonymous]

How is it? Might start teaching Arabic at NVCC on the weekends. The pay is $3900 for the semester. It's a five credit class so that I will be getting paid about $240 a week.... What is the workload like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it? Might start teaching Arabic at NVCC on the weekends. The pay is $3900 for the semester. It's a five credit class so that I will be getting paid about $240 a week.... What is the workload like?

Following. How did you get this position? Was it advertised? Do you have a PhD or Masters? Have you heard of people teaching with a Master's degree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it? Might start teaching Arabic at NVCC on the weekends. The pay is $3900 for the semester. It's a five credit class so that I will be getting paid about $240 a week.... What is the workload like?

Following. How did you get this position? Was it advertised? Do you have a PhD or Masters? Have you heard of people teaching with a Master's degree?

Masters. It was on Career Builder I think for most subjects you need a PHD.

[Anonymous]

I did it and it worked out to a minimum wage job. Make sure you're not just counting your teaching time but also the time for prep, office hours, and grading. It's hell being an adjunct and I'm so glad to be tenure track at my current position.

[Anonymous]

If you're doing it for the money, there surely are more effective ways to earn $3K with your master's degree.

If you're doing it because having it on your resume helps you advance in your full time job, I've had friends who were successful with this tactic. Hopefully you also enjoy teaching and advising students.

[Anonymous]

I've taught online courses for 10 years now, bring home about 20k/year doing it. Definitely a time suck in the beginning and not worth the money, but once you have your syllabus and materials fine tuned it's really a good deal!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did it and it worked out to a minimum wage job. Make sure you're not just counting your teaching time but also the time for prep, office hours, and grading. It's hell being an adjunct and I'm so glad to be tenure track at my current position.

Same here. I did it for five years and never moved beyond adjunct. At one point I was teaching at 4-5 different places trying to piece together full time work. It was stressful for not a lot of money. Between driving all over the place (DC, Glen Echo, Wheaton, Hyattsville) in one week, not to mention the preps for each course/school, it was pretty awful. Also, I was teaching students at every level, from kindergarten-graduate students. Now I have one full time job loosely related to my field within the federal government and while it's not as interesting (and not what I wanted-I wanted to be a professor) it is so much less stress with more money for less work.

OP, if you don't really need the money and are doing it for fun and experience, then go for it. But it can be very difficult to make a living as an adjunct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did it and it worked out to a minimum wage job. Make sure you're not just counting your teaching time but also the time for prep, office hours, and grading. It's hell being an adjunct and I'm so glad to be tenure track at my current position.

Same here. I did it for five years and never moved beyond adjunct. At one point I was teaching at 4-5 different places trying to piece together full time work. It was stressful for not a lot of money. Between driving all over the place (DC, Glen Echo, Wheaton, Hyattsville) in one week, not to mention the preps for each course/school, it was pretty awful. Also, I was teaching students at every level, from kindergarten-graduate students. Now I have one full time job loosely related to my field within the federal government and while it's not as interesting (and not what I wanted-I wanted to be a professor) it is so much less stress with more money for less work.

OP, if you don't really need the money and are doing it for fun and experience, then go for it. But it can be very difficult to make a living as an adjunct.

Yes. For a part-time gig for a bit of $$ or experience, it's fine. Don't expect it will lead to anything. Don't put in more than one hour outside prep per contact hour (less if you can manage it). Don't expect to be treated well (you won't be a true member of the department, you might not get an email account or parking pass, or even dry erase markers or access to computers / copiers, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Go,read some of the adjunct hell threads on the Chronicle of Higher Education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've taught online courses for 10 years now, bring home about 20k/year doing it. Definitely a time suck in the beginning and not worth the money, but once you have your syllabus and materials fine tuned it's really a good deal!

This is me as well. I'm 6 yrs in. I make about $5K per course as I get a supplement because it's a math course. The nice thing about math is it doesn't change. When I first started, it took an incredible amount of time. Now my course notes are written, my lectures are done, I have a large test bank, and detailed rubrics. As I become a more experienced teacher, I adjust my notes to communicate the material in a better way to the students.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I've been doing it for a while. Pay and benefits are obviously not good, but if those are not a deal breaker in your family, it's really good work. For me it allowed me to continue doing something I love while allowing for the flexibility I want with little kids. My students are a mix, and I find the older students may struggle more with concepts but are very hard workers and eager to learn.

[Anonymous]

Community colleges are generally fine with MA-level qualifications. 4-year colleges will expect the terminal degree. As others have said, much of the work with teaching is at the front end. Once you have courses prepped, and can merely tweak them, the time commitment is much less (other than the usual bursts with grading).

[Anonymous]

It's great- if you don't need money

Like PP said, it works out to about minimum wage.

My DH did it for a while before he got a tenure track job.
The workload is about 2x the hours of the actual class (so if you teach 3 hours per week, you put in another 6 hours of prep and grading)

My Mom and a couple of her friends did it after retiring, just to keep their minds sharp.

[Anonymous]

I did it for five years but it was not for the money.

I will say teaching at the community college level compared to the private university level was far more rewarding from a personal standpoint. I think the CC students were far more appreciative than the private university students.

[Anonymous]

I'm doing it. The pay isn't great but I can schedule my classes during school hours, be with my kids after school and take summers off. I teach at a CC.