How to become a college professor – Do you need to go to school?So, if you’ve read all of that and you’re still interested in becoming a college professor, then I’m sure you’re curious as to what someone actually has to do in order to become one. As you may have guessed, teaching in a college means that you have to do a good deal of learning in a college yourself. The first thing that you need to do is finish high school.
That's close to twice what I make. Of course, I'm not a "professor," I just have most of the responsibilities of one, so.
ReplyDeleteAnd that, of course, describes somewhere close to 40-70% of the actual professoriat (including the lecturiat, the adjunctariat, etc., etc.). Since the number is lower than some I've seen, I'm guessing it's the average salary for full-time teaching staff (including people in full-time, non-tenure-track jobs). I'm pretty sure it doesn't include part-timers, who, of course, make up somewhere around 40-50% of the teaching work force (I'm basing that guess on a figure of c. 70% for non-tenure-track faculty as a whole, and c. 30% for full-time non-tenure-track faculty).
DeleteI'm even full-time! But I'm classed as "staff" even though I teach classes and work directly with students on academic things.
DeleteYay, I make the average! Barely!
ReplyDeleteMe, too -- as long as you include summer teaching. If I want to maintain the cheerful feeling, I also need to ignore the local cost of living, which plagues even my tenure track colleagues (whose entry-level salaries begin somewhere in the neighborhood of this average, I believe, and there's a reason for that -- i.e. that we'd never persuade anyone to move to area to work for our university if they didn't, because aspiring proffies, even those desperate for work, have discovered zillow).
DeleteNow why do I suspect that I could find that exact same article -- or at least substantial chunks thereof - with other professions plugged in and a few details changed if I clicked around on that site?
ReplyDeleteStill, I'd be interested to know where they got their number, which strikes me as more realistic than many I see (well, more realistic as long as one is averaging the salaries of full-time college professors, who probably still make up at least 50% of the faculty. So, hey, even odds that after 20+ years of school and several more decades of experience you'll make something that resembles a decent middle-class salary in many part of the country -- not a bad gig if you can get it, but there's always that c. 50% chance that you won't).
Every time I see a fucking moronic article like this, I want to tell the 12-year-old author to stop publishing clickbait for just a few minutes so he can read Stephen Jay Gould's article, "The Median isn't the Message."
ReplyDeleteFor starters.