Anyone moved in to lecturing from another career

[DragonTrainor]

I'm considering a move from my current profession to teaching post grad students. I've never done any kind of teaching before so interested in others's experiences or advice if you have anything to share

did you find it difficult at first?
is it tiring?
what are your hours like?

Yes! Biggest issue for the first 3 years or so was imposter syndrome!

Some of it down to folk like the poster upthread!

From the “shop floor” with years and years of experience and qualifications during which training and teaching scores of new starters in the industry. To then go onto an academic role with all that accompanies that was a huge learning curve all while undertaking teaching qualifications was tough, but doable.

Hours a very long, from experience, it’s never just the teaching/lecturing aspect but the other soft skills needed due to social, emotional and resilience skills of the students… adult students. That was an eye opener because of duty of care and very time consuming.

Even the kindest, thoughtful and patient person with one one seemingly harmless phrase or comment can offend and create a whole storm of complaints which is extremely distressing and unsettling (a colleague) so the revelation there was being very guarded and careful of every word spoken.
There is SO many rules and regulations too, mind boggling!

Definite regret for taking that path.

Good luck though!

Thanks for your comment. It's really helpful as an insight into what it's really like.

You say you regretted it and I'm sorry to hear that. Did you go back to your previous profession or something different?

Wasn’t me but a relative, stuck with it but moved from university lecturing to on line university lecturing as it was WFH, but still up until midnight trying to keep up with the workload some days.

Yes I have done this although a long time ago now, onto a Teaching & Scholarship contract. My institution has a broad definition of scholarship so a lot of what was professionally required CPD falls into this category, at the same time as general L&T pedagogical development which is standard part of any teaching role.
Will you be supported through a HE teaching qualification of some sort? Will you have a lighter teaching load at first while you get used to the new environment and new expectations? How much course or programme admin will you be expected to pick up - these are the biggest time consuming tasks and can be quite thankless at times.

In years past I would say it was less stressful than my professional career but I don’t think that’s true anymore, I work longer hours with much less support and lower pay than any of my former colleagues who stayed in the corporate world.

I would research very carefully before taking the leap

Thanks that's really helpful

I understand I would be supported in gaining the qualifications but as to the other questions, I don't yet know.

I see that the salary is significantly less than what I could expect to earn if I stay in practice so that is a consideration, especially if the workload is similar or even more onerous.

Research the provider very very very carefully. A lot of the private providers are appalling, some are frankly dodgy - this is unlikely to be the only one: https://wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/dfe-turns-off-the-funding-tap-at-the-oxford-business-college/

DH has done this for physiotherapy. It’s a different rhythm from NHS work but has largely been positive for him and our family. From my perspective term times are pretty busy but at least there’s a routine. When there’s no teaching it’s more variable and a bit more flexible but there’s a lot to do in term of marking and content creation. Not to mention exams/interviewing/doing his own fellowship and masters.
The surprise to me was that he can take annual leave in term time with notice but obviously is encouraged to take most of his holiday in non-contact times. Which is more flexible than teaching at school level.

I would advise checking pension and pay banding very carefully before making the leap.

DH did this, moving from corporate to teaching.

Overall I’d say it’s been positive- he was always stressed out to the point of burn out in the city, regularly doing 15+hour days, accounting for every 6mins.

So moving has meant the pace has slowed a lot… but his salary is less than half of what it was!

Sometimes it’s very full on, especially marking season. You’ll be told you need to do x scripts by y date… and then suddenly be given another 25 hours worth half a day before they’re due in

He loves some bits. Sometimes (not always!!) he gets really engaged students who go the extra mile and are interested and interesting and generally make teaching a joy… and other times you get a group of students who clearly haven’t done the pre session work or reading, who will not engage in discussions and sit there mute, and make it painful as it’s supposed to be a group workshop not a lecture, and he wonders why they’ve bothered spending ££££ on professional qualifications when they don’t want to meet him halfway. Wrt to the students that do put the effort in, he loves teaching them and regularly gives up his time to help them if they ask for it, for both course matters and career advice etc.

He teaches 3 days per week approx (changes every 10/12 weeks- something to be aware of when juggling childcare). The other two days he works from home doing lesson prep/marking/answering student emails or having personal tutor meetings etc. When he’s home he usually works 8-530ish, but he has the scope that he can usually shift things about if he’s not got any online meetings, eg he might have a medical appointment at 930 and can nip out for an hour, so long as he gets what needs doing done. He’s able to do the school run a couple of times a week which was completely unheard of previously.

It’s given him a much better work life balance (as a comparison he only saw our eldest at weekends when he was working in the city), but it’s a huge financial hit.

I have friends who’ve done this from health and arts sectors. I’d say they found academia a bit odd and unboundaried but flexible, creative and for the arts person relatively stable and well paid. Sounds like the pay won’t be the draw for you.

It’s pretty common in HE to start teaching with little or no experience, and gain quals as you go. I started teaching in week 2 of my PhD, had no formal training until 5 years later. You’re mainly employed for subject expertise first, for better or worse, and learn on the job. This is also true for all the other parts of academic teaching work - writing course materials, pastoral support, course management, student complaints and appeals, marking, the many and varied admin tasks that will come your way. Places are also dependent for survival on maintaining student numbers year on year so there is a lot of pressure around recruitment, retaining students, and making sure students are happy that you might not anticipate. Also many places don’t have good support systems so you are often responsible for eg all of the course management and admin on your own.

If you are good at organisation, working quickly and efficiently, setting up your own systems, and have strong boundaries around working hours that really helps. I’ve never worked these long hours people say are essential to do academic jobs, but the workloads are pretty full on and tend to expand in unexpected ways. If you don’t have a PhD as well then your options for progressing or moving in academia will be limited outside of teaching roles in your professional practice area. But you do have a lot more autonomy over your time than most corporate jobs.

Thanks I've never done it as I said so I'm asking people who have. Obviously I will find out more directly from the provider when I meet with them. It's up to them to decide if I'm suitable for the role and meanwhile I'm finding out what I can. I'm not sure what your hostility is about.

Not hostile, just a wee bit surprised that the only questions you ask of a group of academics are to do with your hours and whether it's tiring.

Not questions about:

• how a novice who's never taught might go about training to teach adults at a postgrad level

• How to develop a mindset and skills to impart knowledge to presumably pretty experienced practitioners

• What are some of the adjustments to go from being a practitioner to teaching

• How you might go about developing skills to enhance student learning

• What are some useful pedagogical approaches to teaching professional practice to postgrad adults (who are quite a different cohort to teach than 18 yo undergrads)

• What reading/books might help you to learn about enhancing and facilitating others' learning

Just because you can do your job as a practitioner, doesn't mean you're a good teacher. It takes thought & training.

So that's why I said I wouldn't be interested in employing you: your posts show veryu little interest in or curiosity about pedagogy and learning about how you might start to convert from a practitioner to a teacher. THey're not the same thing & they require quite different skills.

You’re mainly employed for subject expertise first, for better or worse, and learn on the job.

This is certainly not the case in my department & discipline. Our postgrads and all sessional/new tutors have compulsory training and mentorship before they're inflicted on undergrads, much less premium paying postgrads! All of us (from postgrads to senior professors) do peer and mentor teaching observation, regular teaching CPD and are given feedback on our teaching, as well as participate in twice-yearly discussions of our teaching strategies & philosophies/approaches.

There's some bad practice out there - but second-hand info about bad practice is not the best advice, obviously.

Thanks for your detailed response. That's helpful and yes the advertised salary is almost half of what I would be looking at for a role in practice but then I'm assuming there is some scope for the pay reviews and promotion.

It's interesting he works three days teaching and the other two days from home doing the other stuff and that's exactly what I need to find out in terms of what my week would look like.

I'm asking these questions of Mumsnet but it doesn't mean I'm not looking into the other things elsewhere or from the people I'm thinking of taking a job with. Fortunately I would have no interest in working for someone like you. You are very judgmental. You've formed an opinion based on very limited information and you've commented on this thread purely to be put me down rather than give any constructive support at all.

It also seems your experience is not in the sort of teaching I'm looking at so maybe that's why you're struggling to understand.

Thanks for your time but I'm sure there's something more productive you could be doing

Thanks again everyone who had given me constructive feedback or shared experiences. Clearly I am new to this and it does help.

It’s not second hand info- I have had an academic job for 14 years. I do think many places have tightened up but it really was five years before anyone observed my teaching. I had good student feedback so reckon no one thought it was necessary to intervene. I certainly never had any training for the admin/management side and learned how it all works on the job. The friends I was thinking of who came from other sectors didn’t have teaching experience and were employed as subject experts. There’s no need to be so dismissive about experiences that are different to yours.

I’d echo @Porlewparticularly in terms of learning on the job. My experience has been that there’s an offer of shadowing for a week or two and then you have to sink or swim trying to learn the ropes. When I started years ago it was the same but we were better staffed and had more professional service support - so finding your academic feet was more gentle. Any new starters now are facing teams with less staff, more work and ever decreasing morale.

Yeah I definitely agree @damekindness on sink or swim! The training model for academic jobs is bananas IMO - a standard PhD in my field prepares you for almost none of the work involved in a lecturing job. It didn’t even prepare me that well for the way that my sort of research is done post doc - I’ve never again conducted a study on my own and written it up as a book. So I feel like I’ve learnt basically everything on the job, beyond two semesters of a teaching in HE course that was quite poor quality. My first lecturing job was 90% teaching and I can’t think of another profession that would recruit staff who are only formally qualified to do 10% of their job.

I don’t think not asking those questions here demonstrate little interest in pedagogy. She may well have sought those answers out elsewhere. 🤷‍♀️. She sounds like she knows she’ll do her teaching qualification once she’s started working so probably happy those sort of topics will be covered during her pg cert. Maybe she already trains up junior colleagues so is actually fairly confident that with more experience and a teaching qualification she’ll be ok at this.

I work in a University but in an admin role after deciding not to take the academic route due to the issues others have mentioned. I'm also in a profession like accountancy. Might this be an alternative option? I took a big pay cut from the corporate world but have much better balance. I have a friend who did BPP lecturing but quit when she had young kids as it was a lot of evening and weekend work as many of the students worked 9-5 and studied outside these times. I guess this may not be the case for the role you are considering. My friend did say the job itself was good and she didn't work loads of overtime.

@DragonTrainor I'm a senior lecturer/programme lead. I’m on a teaching only contract, though expected to do around 200 hours of scholarly activity a year. I moved from industry to HE in my late 30s.

i think the thing I found hardest was how demanding and sometimes needy the students can be. I feel like 10% of the students take up 90% of my time sometimes! I’m continually trying to lower their expectations 😁. Ive had students complain because they emailed on a Thurs evening and by Friday lunchtime I haven’t responded, no thought that I may be teaching, etc.

I think last year on paper my teaching commitments were 170 hours for the year of face to face teaching. I suspect this coming year it’s going to be more due to redundancies in the team.

I have never worked at a weekend, I always take my annual leave, i normally manage to turn my laptop off at 5pm, though I admit I do some very early starts. And will sometimes check emails again about 9pm.

I do love the variety of the job, I love that it stretches me. My subject is always changing so I’m always having to update teaching materials and I enjoy that. I like watching the students develop. I feel I’m making a difference and really love that. I’m passionate about supporting them.

i have no clue about how financially stable private universities are. Tread carefully and see if you can find their financial statements, etc. especially if they have a lot of overseas students as numbers of these students has dropped dramatically. I do know people in the sector who have got new jobs and within a few weeks of starting been put at risk of redundancy.

That seems an incredibly small amount of teaching, especially for teaching only. I do way more than that as a 0.5 on a standard academic contract (I.e. teaching and research).

Really? I’d say it’s standard amongst my colleagues, certainly in my school? How many hours do you teach? My workload planner is at over 100% (just). And I thought the workload planners were set out to a nationally agreed standard?

A lot of my time is taken up with programme lead stuff I guess, as well as some other school wide duties.

Thank you. Yes I train and mentor junior professionals just out of HE.

Thanks this is useful to know.

I worked for BPP and it was a good job - I have no complaints at all except the (full time) pay was rubbish coming from private practice but you can earn well as a freelancer for them (£75 per hour and min 2 hour lessons). You can do several back-to-back 2-hour lessons per day if you wanted a full day. You have all the materials you need for the lessons in advance so no need to create anything.