Any higher education teachers/lecturers here?

[jofeb04]

Hiya,
I'm hopefully starting my degree in Sept (starting on 2nd year) in Psychology and Social Welfare.

I would love to go onto the PGCE, and to either teach within A Levels in a school or college, or to become a lecturer within a university setting.

Been discussing this with my lecturers at the moment, and they are being very positive about working in the university.

So, what is the job like? My main concern is that I am not an academic sort of person iykwim. I am hoping that it is simply because they are so confident about what they say, rather than being a certain type.

(Apologies for cross posting, was not sure on best place to have thread)!

A PGCE would set you up to teach in a school or college. You could do a PGCE FE (to teach in FE or 6th form colleges) or a PGCE in secondary which would allow you to teach 11-16 or 11-18. Psychology is usually offered at A-level and sometimes GCSE so lots of school psychology teachers also offer another subject like citizenship, PSHCE, health and social care. To be a university lecturer (and usually to be a university teacher) you will need a PhD. Lecturers are usually appointed on the basis of their skills in academic research and are expected to contribute to the research funding and output in a department. University teachers are there to teach and usually do a bit of research on the side. I used to be a university teacher and am now a secondary chemistry teacher. University teaching is quite possibly the worst job in the world in some respects, your collagues in research look down on you as you're not a proper academic. You get lumped with all the coure admin as you don't have a research group to look after and the pay is pants. My teaching pay is double my salary when I left the university (a v. good university at that). You say you are not a academic person which suggests that university teaching/lecturing may not be the best choice for you. I hope all this info helps.

Hi, just read your post, I'm a FE lecturer and love my job, I find it very rewarding. I did my PGCE with the plan to teach in a Secondary School, however after completing my PGCE I couldn't find a Secondary post in my area, so began working in FE, planned to stay there one academic year then start looking for jobs in secondary again. Loved working in FE and Im still in same job five years on. The students keep me young, I enjoy researching the subject I teach and colleagues are great too (well most of the are), all the same , its hard work, especially the marking on evenings and weekends.

Hi, I'm a university lecturer. You say you aren't 'academic', do you mean that you wouldn't want to do a PhD, write papers, attend conferences, publish, etc? Most universities would appoint a full lecturer only if they were both suitably qualified and research active (i.e. willing to combine their teaching with publishing, fieldwork, conferences). This is because funding for departments now depends on competitive assessments of their research performance and income (the RAE), and the non-research active colleagues aren't included, so tend to get sidelined. As kritur says, for 'university teachers' the pay and conditions are often poor - you would get a better deal teaching at 6th-form college. If you're interested, you could have a look at some of the discussions about these matters on the website of the HE lecturers' union, UCU.

Just to agree with the others! If you're not academic, in that sense, then you're probably better off teaching 6th Form. I personally find it a good option. With 'A' level teaching, every lesson can be intellectually challenging and stimulating, students take responsibility for their studies and it is genuinely a nice age to teach. Only downside is that if you're in FE (as opposed to a 6th form college) then the money can be pants and you'd get more in secondary.
HTH