When do you go back and are you dreading it?

[Goshtrap]

I’m thinking of giving up my job and becoming a full time lecturer. I spent the Christmas period dreading returning to work and had that awful feeling in my stomach all day yesterday to the point I couldn’t sleep last night.

I did some visiting lecturing in the past and was offered a full time position off the back of it but it wasn’t right at the time. I have the qualifications and have found a few options to apply for, all are full time lecturing with no research. The thing is, what I’d really like to know is the sort of things I’d never ask in interview - like how much time do you actually get off, do you get a proper break for Christmas, are you pestered over the Christmas period, etc.

I’d really appreciate some honest advice on what it is really like, specifically the work/life balance, before I take the leap. I don’t know how much longer I can last in my current setup.

Hi I think there are a few things to consider. Firstly what type of institution is it? I work in a research intensive university and teaching only positions tend to be given all the admin etc to do. Also they tend to be expected to take on a lot of the pastoral support. So the actual teaching is great, but the other workload is hard.

The pastoral support can be very challenging as students are experiencing really tough times (wellbeing, cost of living etc) which means they need support that lecturers are frankly not best placed to offer. However many universities don't have enough central support so staff can feel obliged to try to help students in ways that damage their own well-being. I've been in the position of trying to get help for a student who told me she was suicidal and it was awful.

Finally, career progression can be really difficult. I mentor several women who are stuck on grades that don't reflect their experience.

In my experience you can get Christmas holidays etc but you need to be tough and set good boundaries.

If I were you I'd try to talk to some people in the institutions you are looking at and get information on their actual experience.

Thank you that’s helpful. Your pastoral experience sounds really tough and not something I’d given much thought to.

I’d be teaching professional qualifications so I’m not sure what the admin/pastoral balance would be there. I‘ll contact one of my previous tutors for some advice and hope they don’t mind giving me some blunt truths. I find in person people aren’t always as upfront about the negatives as they could be.

If it's professional qualifications then that may be a completely different experience. If you get a chance to talk to someone I'd ask 'if you were giving an induction to this role/place what are the things every new start should know' and 'if you were leaving what things would you not miss?' That tends to help people be a bit more honest!

Or just go for it and ask what are the dead dogs - the problems everyone knows about, but are too complicated or too embedded to change.

Good luck. If you like teaching then it would be lovely for students to have your enthusiasm

Lecturing on a teaching only contract is standard in most areas offering professional qualifications in HE. I'm in a health related field and in our place it's a very small minority with a research element to their contract.

It does make us very different from other parts of the university where the majority of lecturers have a significant research component and relatively lighter teaching load.

It used to be a really flexible career but this is getting more difficult as student cohorts exponentially increase and become more needy both academically and pastorally. Recruitment and retention of health academics is becoming problematic which means the staff student ratio has been equally problematic for some time. My leave is 28 days plus BH and the whole place closes down from Christmas Eve to New Year. I used to always keep an eye on emails and respond to urgent issues during leave - but I don't now as I needed to boundary my time to prevent complete burnout.

I was back (marking) yesterday. I wasn't dreading it but I am a bit nervous about a very high teaching load & new module in a new to me area this term. I am on a teaching only 0.5 contract. I reckon on average for that I do about 0.6 (I kept track of it once over a 12 month period and it averaged out to 22 hours a week).
I do get a proper break over Xmas and my summers are quiet.
In general, it's one of the best jobs I've had (my main previous job was as a school teacher). The main downside is feeling somewhat inadequate compared to those who do research (despite not really wanting to do research)