<p>I have my undergrad BA in Political Science and I'm strongly considering my future as a teacher/professor. I know I need grad school but am I limited to just studying/teaching political science? My goal would be to teach history/current events at the high school level or sociology/history/political science at the community college level. What steps do I need to take? Tips for apps and guidance would be very appreciated!</p>
<p>Two very different paths.</p>
<p>If you want to teach history at the high school level, you need to get certified in secondary school social sciences (grades 7-12, usually). In most states, you also need to have a certain number of credits in history, which is usually equivalent to a major. In the old days you could get an academic MA in history, get a history teaching job and get certified as you taught. These days, though, social studies jobs are impacted in many areas - so the best way to do this is to get an M.Ed in social studies teaching in which you can ALSO earn the history credits. You’ll need a history degree, though; you won’t be competitive for history teaching jobs without a history degree.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of a program where you can get an MA in history and an M.Ed in social studies education: <a href=“http://clasweb.clas.wayne.edu/history/JointMA-MED”>http://clasweb.clas.wayne.edu/history/JointMA-MED</a></p>
<p>And here’s one that combines the curriculum of a history MA with teaching courses needed for initial certification: <a href=“http://www.uic.edu/depts/hist/TeacherEd/degrees.html”>http://www.uic.edu/depts/hist/TeacherEd/degrees.html</a></p>
<p>If you want to teach at the community college level in either of those fields, you need a PhD.</p>
<p>Yes, people will say that you can teach at the CC level with a MA. And technically, they are correct. But in the social sciences and humanities, the field is so saturated that every job is competitive, and even community college teaching jobs these days get hundreds of applicants. Thus, if you have only an MA, you will be competing with applicants who have PhDs - sometimes from top or mid-ranked institutions - and teaching experience and publications or books.</p>
<p>So you need to get a PhD to be truly competitive. But you ALSO need to get teaching experience as the instructor of record, preferably with community college students, while you are pursuing the PhD. Community colleges do not often hire people who have no teaching experience as the instructor of record (meaning you design the syllabus, the assignments, the exams, etc.) You’d want to get experience sole teaching at least 3 different classes, if you can, because that way you’ll have less work to do as a new community college professor (called “new preps”, or new preparations of classes you’ve never taught before). CC professors typically teach 4 or 5 classes per semester and most also have summer course teaching requirements, too. If you can get experience teaching online or hybrid classes, all the better, as many CCs prefer people with those experiences. Lastly, you’ll want experience with diverse and non-traditional students - low-income, ethnic minority, older students, parents, and high school cross-registrants.</p>
<p>This is pretty easy to get, TBH. Most CCs always need adjunct professors, so in your last 3-4 years of your grad program you can teach as an adjunct at a CC. I have several friends in humanities PhDs and most of them have taught or are teaching one or two classes at a CC.</p>
<p>You’d have to get the PhD in the field in which you wish to teach - so if you want to teach sociology, you’d need a PhD in sociology. The caveat here, though, is that PhDs are usually done at research universities and you will be required to do research/scholarship in order to finish the program. Furthermore, your professors will be elitists - usually without realizing it - and will expect you to want to pursue a job at an R1 university or, at the “very least,” at a regional research university or elite liberal arts college. Expressing a desire to teach at a CC may earn their ire and may also make some professors not want to advise you. So you have to tread carefully with it, unfortunately.</p>
<p>On the one hand, I would advise history as it is more often taught at 2-year colleges. On the other hand, history is a much more competitive market than political science or sociology. And PS and soc are often taught at CCs, too.</p>
<p>I do want to add, though, that an alternative IS to get an MA in your field, work a different day job, and then adjunct as a CC professor at night or on the weekends. Also, some people do find full-time, tenure-track jobs at CCs with MAs, but that’s becoming increasingly uncommon.</p>
<p>My dd has been considering teaching on the college level in the past few months. Friends who have their PhDs have discouraged it because they say there is no $$$ in it. Unless you consult and write…is this true?</p>
<p>Well, it depends on what you mean by $$$.</p>
<p>Assistant professors (years 0-6 of the career) average about $58,000 per year in salary. Associate professors (years 7 through ~12-15) average about $68,000 and full professors (15+ years) average around $90,000.</p>
<p>That varies wildly based on your institution, though. The assistant professors at my prestigious research-extensive university average $106,000, but these jobs are extremely competitive to obtain and also require stressful workweeks (80 hour workweeks are not uncommon if tenure is the goal). A full professor here averages $212,000, but that is literally the highest average for any university in the country. Also, at top research-extensive universities, you are expected to pay a certain percentage of your own salary out of your grants. If you don’t get grants, you don’t get paid. For reference, the grant success rate right now at the NIH is about 16.8%. You can see how this might be stressful, although some researchers really relish the challenge (my own adviser, up for tenure this year, has been extremely successful and has 3-4 large NIH grants right now).</p>
<p>However, if you go to a small mid-ranked liberal arts college - assistant professors at one average $57,000 and full professors average $100,000. Both of those are considerably above the median in the field, although not astronomically high. At another, they average $49,000, and the full professors average $79,000. Those are considerably below the median. It’s probably no surprise to you that salary corresponds roughly with the prestige and endowment of an institution. On the other hand, at these small teaching institutions you are expected to primarily teach. Although some research is expected of you, you generally don’t need to pay your own salary out of grants. (Research expectations go up as prestige goes up. A teacher at Sweet Briar or Rhodes would probably be expected to teach 3-4 classes per semester and not publish very much; a college professor at Swarthmore or Pomona, on the other hand, may teach 2-3 classes each semester and publish a paper or two per year, and is also expected to supervise undergraduates in research).</p>
<p>It’s generally true that professors don’t get paid what, say, a physician or high-powered lawyer or a senior accountant would make. But generally speaking, they make well above the median individual income in the U.S., and can generally live a middle to upper-middle-class lifestyle. Many of them also live in college towns where the rents/housing prices and cost of living are much lower than the expensive cities some corporate lawyers or engineers need to live in, and even in large urban areas, some universities (like mine) subsidize the cost of professors’ housing and/or provide special housing in the vicinity of the university.</p>
<p>Academics also don’t have the debt of those lawyers and physicians, though. A BigLaw hopeful will probably need to borrow around $150-180K to attend a top law school, and any physician will need to borrow ~$200-250K, unless they have wealthy parents. However, most reputable PhD programs are fully funded - your tuition is covered and you get an annual stipend with which to pay your living expenses. So yes, maybe you’re making $65,000 at your first professor position, but you don’t have to repay huge loans, and you’re in a lower tax bracket than your physician and lawyer friends.</p>
<p>It’s also generally true, though, that college teachers don’t go into the profession because they want loads of money. They go into the profession because they love teaching, they love mentoring students and/or they really love their field and want to push forward scholarship and research in it. So if your daughter has a passion for research and scholarship in her field and she also likes teaching and mentoring, it could be a good fit for her. Or if she really loves teaching and mentoring and likes research well enough, it could also be a good fit for her. If she dislikes one or the other, being a college professor is probably not a good fit, as the vast majority of them are expected to do at least a little of both (although there are plenty of small teaching colleges where not much research is expected - but in order to get the PhD you need to do 5-8 years of it, and you’ll still need a few papers to be competitive for those jobs and for tenure).</p>
<p>If you’d like to look at salaries interactively, the American Association of University Professors publishes a salary survey every year showing the average salaries at many institutions across the country.</p>
<p><a href=“Average Salaries of Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty at 4-Year Colleges 2013-14”>Average Salaries of Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty at 4-Year Colleges 2013-14;
<p>Your daughter may also be interested in browsing the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website to get an idea of the current conversations and challenges in the field. Most institutions have a subscription, so she should be able to access it for free through her college’s library if she’s still in college.</p>
<p>Thank you! She is a HS senior…</p>
<p>Teaching at a Prep School usually does not require teacher certification. To be a competitive candidate you should have a Master’s in your subject and some teaching experience. A Ph.D. Makes you more desirable and if you TA during Grad School that can provide the teaching experience. Prep School salaries vary considerably but many pay on par with prof salaries. I know many colleagues who realized that Prep School teaching was a more realistic career goal than college teaching, and professionally a cut above teaching in a Public School.</p>