Somebody asked me the other day whether I was still teaching after I left my university job in Japan last year. However, their actual question seemed to be Are you teaching full-time as your main job? which of course is a solid No.
I thought about the best way to answer, and finally replied with Yes, but not as my main job.
Whille I get most of my income from editing jobs these days, I worked as a teacher for a long time, first as a tutor and substitute teacher in New Hampshire, then at a private school in Japan, then in grad school teaching undergrad essay writing, then again in Japan. I worked other jobs in between, of course, but over my working life I’ve definitely spent more time teaching than doing anything else.
Teaching is fun and interesting to me because I enjoy tackling the problem of how best to present material to students, and how to help them build their ideas in interesting ways. The editing and coaching work I do uses a lot of those same principles as I help writers express their ideas in the fullest, clearest way possible, on their own terms.
In the interest of continuing this ever-expanding chronicle of how I and other creative people make their money, this week I wanted to talk about my teaching gigs, how I got them, and how they fit into my regular work routine. Part 1 will cover just my university job, and for Part 2, next week I’ll talk about some other teaching I do on the side. Enjoy!
Online MFA Program Mentoring
Last week marked the end of the semester at WCSU (Western Connecticut State University), where I teach online in their creative writing MFA. I got the job after working with the program director on a webinar we did last spring, and based on my experience, he thought I might be a good fit to teach a graduate-level course on editing. It sounded like a great opportunity, so of course I signed on.
One reason I was really interested in the program was that I wouldn’t be teaching a big course, or even a small one: instead, I’d be working one-on-one with individual students online, two students in the fall, and one student in the spring.
I was interested in the one-on-one online model because 1) It meant a lot less grading, 2) It meant a chance to talk more in depth with individual students, 3) It offered more flexibility in scheduling meetings, and 4) It meant a lot less grading. (Did I mention that there’s less grading involved with a job like this? Because grading can take a REALLY long time!)
Since this way of teaching was new to me, I naturally had a lot of questions, which I sorted out by asking the boss (who was SUPER helpful!) and looking at example syllabi online. I had to design the course syllabus based on a template, which I did easily enough (I designed my own syllabi when I was teaching in grad school, and I’ve seen enough of them over the years to know what to add in!).
Talking with MFA students about writing and editing, while technically a new experience, used a lot of skills I already had. Each week I meet with the individual student(s) for an hour over Zoom to talk about some assigned reading. Before each class, I had the students write and submit a two-page response an hour before each class that I used to guide our talks that week. The students seemed to enjoy this format, and it suited my schedule because I could read the books in advance at my own pace, then prepare for our meetings the same day, rather than constantly spending time on lesson prep.
As an added bonus, I got to delve more deeply into the writing process by reading some new stuff (most notably Peter Ginna’s book What Editors Do, which covers the editing world astoundingly well). This helped me sharpen my own skills and broaden my own experience while also getting paid (!).
The Perils of Adjunct Work…
All that aside, on a more practical level, I work for WCSU as an adjunct, which means I make WAY less than a full professor and my job isn’t guaranteed from semester to semester—an employment situation I pointed out the extreme flaws of in MFA Thesis Novel.
Universities have shifted a LOT of their teaching work (particularly teaching first- and second-year students) on to adjuncts over the years, simply because adjuncts are paid lower salaries and don’t have benefits like health insurance. These adjunct teachers are often overworked and teach part-time at multiple universities just to scrape together enough money for a living wage.
Many adjuncts have tried and failed to gain tenure-track professor positions that pay the money they deserve to be getting (remember that these people have PhDs, or at least a master’s degree), and even full-time lectureships that offer health insurance aren’t as common as they should be. Add into the mix that many adjuncts have heavy student loans from grad school, and you’re looking at a recipe for financial disaster, as in the adjuncts on food stamps phenomenon.
I had mixed feelings about taking on an adjunct position because of this widespread exploitation, though I felt better about it once I realized the differences in scale. As I may have mentioned above, remember that mentoring individual students also comes with WAY less grading, which means that I’m making more per hour working with one or two students than I would working with a class of twenty who all have to write three essays per term. The same goes for the other faculty as well, because the program is structured differently than a typical college department focusing on undergrads. In my case, I make almost as much working with individual students as I do with editing clients, meaning that it’s a good deal for me (and I imagine everyone else too??).
Finally, online adjunct mentoring jobs like this one also seem more clearly designed for people like me, rather than people who are looking to teach full time and who juggle multiple adjunct jobs at different colleges. I don’t feel like my labor is being exploited, and I’ve even joined the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) union through the university, which has been a really cool look behind the scenes at how labor movements and demonstrations happen with the goal of creating better working conditions for everyone.
Final Thoughts
Adjuncting makes a good side gig when you can fit it into your work schedule, and especially when it overlaps with the work you’re doing already (in my case, writing and editing). If you’re a creative person looking to make some side money, you might consider what skills you have that you could teach at the college-level that people would be interested in learning. Often, these jobs might not be posted anywhere, so getting them might depend on who you know (as it did for me!), or you might even try visiting different colleges in your area and asking about available opportunities.
I still have mixed feelings about trying to work in academia full-time (call it trauma from grad school?), especially because how difficult these jobs can be to get. All told, though, if you can find a position that works for you and your schedule, a part-time one might be worth looking into.