Teaching Careers

One obvious alternative to a research career is teaching. I have been teaching laboratory courses at a local college for the last two years. This is really a lot of fun, doesn’t take up too much time, and is a great way to supplement my post-doc salary. I enjoy it so much, in fact, that I’ve considered applying for teaching positions at liberal arts colleges. But when I thought more about it, I realized this probably wasn’t for me. In these positions, you usually have to teach 3 and sometimes 4 full courses a semester. The definition of a course is different from school to school, so this could mean as much as 4 full lecture courses with labs. It’s a lot of work for me to get together the half hour lecture that I give at the beginning of lab. I can’t fathom preparing 12 hours of lecture a week. I certainly can’t imagine doing it well while also supervising undergraduate research in the lab.

It seems to me that this system if fundamentally broken. Everyone knows that it takes much much longer to prepare for a lecture you’ve never taught before than one that you taught last year. So what’s the reasoning in starting a junior faculty member out with 4 new courses, instead of letting them build up to the full course load over a few years? But if you can prepare lectures and grade papers at light speed, then this might be the career for you. Of course, landing one of these jobs isn’t easy. If you’re not one of the chosen few, or if you like teaching but don’t want the pressure-filled race for tenure, high school teaching might be a better option. Private schools will hire PhDs right out of graduate school. Often biology teachers have the option of continuing their research and teach college level courses. Public school teaching, on the other hand, requires licensure. Normally, this would mean getting a Masters of Education, but many states have routes to licensure for PhDs that don’t require going back to school. I love teaching, but I don’t think any of these options are for me. That doesn’t mean it’s not a great option. Many have found deeply rewarding careers going down these paths.