So let me start out by saying being an adjunct professor isn’t my primary job. When I tell people that I am an adjunct professor for a community college they often focus their attention on the “professor” portion of my title rather than the “adjunct” portion. This is probably because most people don’t know what it is and how it differentiates from other teaching faculty members.
What is an Adjunct?
An adjunct professor is a specific type of non-tenured higher education faculty member that focuses purely on teaching and, in most cases, works full-time within their field of expertise. “Adjunct professors usually have no expectation of tenure. They generally have a teaching load below the minimum required to earn benefits (health insurance, retirement benefits). In contrast with tenure-track professors, adjuncts do not usually have individual offices or a place to store possessions.”
Take me, for example: I have been working in my industry of software technology for a little over 5 years and I teach computer information systems courses that are based off my education and/or my industry experience. I love teaching but I don’t think that I would like to make a living out of it. Instead, I would prefer to teach this material on the side and work full time as a Software Product Specialist, something i’m currently doing right now.
For more information on the different types of professors in higher education take a look at Wikipedia’s list of professors which provides details about the differences.
What are some of the Benefits of being an Adjunct Professor?
Interactions with students
I would have to say this is my ultimate reward: interacting with students that appreciate what we do as adjuncts. During the introductory classes of my courses, I always tell students about my fulltime job outside of teaching. The students who are interested light up! I remember when I was a student trying to decipher what area of computer science or software engineering I wanted to get into.
I talked to a lot of professors to gain some kind of insight to what to expect from various disciplines within the field, but to be honest none of the professors i spoke to or did research with really helped me make this decision. These faculty members are really smart, intelligent, and focused, which can be great for students who want to get into academia but for students like me who is interested in industry conversing with them made me more confused about my future than ever before.
The faculty members that really helped me identify my calling were not actually professors; rather, they were people working in industry within the university.
These professionals ran the technology of my school and had vast application knowledge from the years of working there. So, I decided to take student positions in various IT departments, and after talking to them and even working together with these individuals I really gain a real world understanding on what to expect working in my first job. I loved it, and I’m hugely thankful for the wisdom.
When I looked at going to graduate school, I made sure that the schools that I applied to had some world class adjuncts in their faculty group–so that I can continue to gain real, direct and applicable knowledge. Students generally look to us more for answers because we are in positions of their dreams; we are working professionals applying our skills that we learned in college.
Applying real world examples to textual concepts
Adjuncts have experience of taking what they know and applying it to their careers. Since, we have this knowledge we are able to decipher what concepts should be understood to a higher degree than others. I remember intensely studying to really understand a lot of theoretical concepts in my math and computer science courses back in my undergraduate studies.
During that time, I really didn’t grasp why these concepts were necessary. Now that I work in industry, I can see these concepts used in real time. Now that these concepts and examples are fresh in my head, I can provide similar examples for my students to practice and learn on their own, emulating what is actually happening in the real world. Student want to hear about your industry war stories. This can provide a more applicable experience, so that when they get their jobs in their respective industry they will have some understanding of what to expect.
Side hustle
Coming out of grad school my goal was to pay down my massive student loan debt fastas well as some credit card debts I accumulated along the way. By having two sources of income, it makes it easier to conquer these financial goals. I am a huge advocate for young professionals working toward financial freedom, so, if you are a working professional and love teaching this could be your ticket toward that freedom.
There are also some challenges with becoming an Adjunct
Scheduling conflicts
There will be times where you won’t be able to teach the classes you would like to teach. This could be because there weren’t enough students, a faculty member who is more senior wanted to teach that course that semester, or the class that is being offered to you occurs during the time when you are at work. For some, this is a deal breaker. But a little bit of flexibility can go a long way. I was fortunate to teach courses that most faculty members did not want to teach. I did this by talking to administration well in advance to see if they can accommodate my schedule.
It didn’t always work out, but most of the time by planning ahead you can get lucky. Also, depending on how flexible your full time position is, you could potentially talk to your manager and work out a flexible schedule that will accommodate your courses. Scheduling conflicts can be difficult to accommodate—but there’s usually a solution for dedicated & resourceful individuals.
Non–tenure
As stated before Adjuncts are non-tenure track professors. This means you do not get nearly as many benefits as if you were working full time. If this was your only job, you’d have to secure insurance or other benefits on your own. But, since most adjuncts are also working professionals or married with someone who has insurance this isn’t a big issue.
Grading and class preparation
This work can steer many away from the adjunct job. In most cases, Adjuncts do’nt get paid for the time spent grading or preparing for classes. This aspect of the job takes up extensive amount of your time. Be prepared to not have Sundays, a timeframe usually reserved for prepping for the week and grading assignments and tests. However, as you start gaining experience from courses, you will improve efficiency handling the extra work for these courses, especially if you teach the course every semester.
How to become an Adjunct:
Develop the following 3 characteristics
1. Public Speaking
Without this skill, it will be quite difficult to profess knowledge to students in a way they will be understood. It takes practice and patience to get to the level at which one can speak comfortably in front of students. Luckily, there are many ways to improve and even perfect your public speaking. You can watch videos and rehearse in the mirror. You can also enroll in public speaking courses, or even hire a coach, potentially. Ultimately, you want to be able to expose yourself to as much public speaking practice as you can. Practice makes perfect!
2. Patience
If you remember back in the day when you were a college student, there were likely many classes that you did not understand anything the professor was saying for weeks, then all of a sudden you are motivated to learn material that was covered weeks before because the midterm is coming up. The more compassionate professors walked you through everything yet again because: empathy.. But, let me tell you, experiencing these interactions as the professor requires great patience to not say things like, “Why did you not ask me this three weeks ago?” or “Sure, I would love to explain this for the millionth time.” The truth is, we do not have any idea what is going on in our student life, so it’s absolutely necessary to build your patience muscle.
3. Thorough understanding and passion of subject matter
This is a no brainer. You can’t teach anything about which you have no understanding. Professors are qualified because they have years of academic or work experience. But these qualifications can be accelerated with dedicated time. In my short time of being an Adjunct, there was one course that I took on that I was not extremely knowledgeable about. I took the summer to gain advanced expertise by taking courses, talking to experts in both academia and in industry, and discovering other outlets to gain not only a great understanding but also insight on the subject matter–the latter of which students really desire when taking a course. If you don’t have knowledge, start building it on your own. You can’t teach what you don’t know.
Find ways to practice or gain experience
Ok so now you have the public speaking, patience, and knowledge down. The next thing you need to do to make you a qualified candidate is to gain experience. Depending on where you are in your career, there are many ways to gain experience teaching. Here are a list of a few:
- Become a TA
- Tutor
- Teach online courses
- Practice setting up curriculum
- Be a contributor to subject matter forums
- Go get your teaching credential
This is crucial primarily because education employers want to know you have what it takes and you are passionate about teaching. If your sole purpose of becoming is the monetary or social incentive, then this is not for you. There’s more to teaching success than money & prestige.
Network
Once you’ve acquire experience, reach out to employers and see if there is a need. My grad school friend found out I was teaching on the side and wanted to know my secret to success. I told her I didn’t have one. After a great conversation with my college dean, I discovered there was a need for a Computer Information System course professor. I told him I was interested, went through the interview process and landed a job as an Adjunct. So, the very next day my friend went to her academic advisor at her old undergrad institution and expressed interest in teaching a courses and, to her surprise, they were actually looking for someone to teach a course in Marketing – a topic she absolutely adored. If you have the experience, apply, but if you want to land a job, apply and network.
According to research conducted by LinkedIn, 85% of all jobs are filled by networking!
I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten job opportunities either for teaching or software engineering by purely having conversations with people with similar interests. There are essentially two ways that have helped me land opportunities to teach. The first is reaching out to the department heads via phone or email. As mentioned before some opportunities are not shown in job listings for one reason or the other. Department heads and Chairs are well aware of these vacancies, and they can give you a definitive answer.
Going to teaching conferences and organization meetings can help land you opportunities as well. This year I went to the Online Teaching Conference. I met professors, and administrations staff that were looking for adjuncts; many of which did not even have a posting up for their position. There are a lot of teaching organizations that get together in your local area as well. These are beneficial to find opportunities and meet people that you can potentially grow with professionally.
Conclusion
Adjunct are professors with experience in the real world. I am proud to be an Adjunct professor because I get to not only teach material that I am passionate about, but I also get to tell these engaged students about all the experiences that I have/had working in industry. It is a rewarding feeling that I don’t plan on separating from. I think one of my highlights was going to my RateMyProfessor.com page or reading an email sent by a student and seeing that I made a difference in a their life. Who knows maybe those students that I have taught would go on and do great things beyond my wildest dream, and it will be all because of the impact that I made several years back in one of my classes.
