I'm a teacher at a university. I get paid (modestly) year round, but my actual job only requires me to be present in a classroom about eight months out of the year. I have so much "time off" that it seems like a perfect job for a writer. Right?
Of course it's not quite so simple. I don't really have four glorious months with nothing to do each year, but I still have significant time off when I can afford not to teach summer school. I often have a big project in mind, like writing a draft of a complete book or revising an entire book. Typically, August arrives, and I haven't done close to what I set out to do in May.
This summer, I knew I was going to have a tight schedule. I got married in June and then went on my honeymoon. I knew most of that month would be useless to get writing done, but I still set some large goals for myself. I wanted to return to the novel I wrote as my MFA thesis and do a final revision / polish and submit it to some contests and small presses. In particular, Autumn House Press has an annual contest with a June 30th deadline. So I thought, maybe I can take the end of May into June before the wedding craziness begins, and bang out a revision to submit.
I knew that goal was optimistic, but I thought it would motivate me. That's the thing with goals. It's easy to say, "I want to accomplish _____." But it's much harder to do it if there's no pressure to get it done. If I have the whole summer, I work a little here and a little there, and then it's August again, and I have to work on my fall syllabi. But if I say, "I want to accomplish _____ by June 30th, and after that, it's too late," I stand a better chance.
Surprise, surprise! I failed. The wedding stress took more out of me than I expected (though it was worth it!). Then came the honeymoon. And jet lag. I managed to revise half my novel by the end of June, which still felt good. Then July rolled around. I wasn't teaching, but I took a summer class for fun, and other factors of life occupied my time. By early August, I still had about a quarter of the book to revise. The problem was, it didn't feel urgent. The same doubts from when I worked on this book years ago resurfaced again and again: Why bother? Where am I going to send it if I finish this revision? Who will want to publish this? Am I wasting my time on something nobody else will ever read?
Then I found a new book contest from a small press. The deadline is Sunday. With less than a week to revise several more chapters, that goal is a tough one. But it's doable. So I'm back in gear. By Monday, I really need to focus on finishing prepping for fall classes, but for the next few days, I can focus on this book. And I think I'll have it ready by midnight on Sunday.
I wish I were the type of person who could more easily set a personal deadline and just stick to it. But it's nice to realize that there are so many presses and contests and journals out there, that I will be able to find external deadlines to keep me motivated.
Showing posts with label making a living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label making a living. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Sunday, May 2, 2010
On the Other Hand . . .
Friday I got word from one of the schools where I interviewed. It was four full weeks from the time I flew out there for the interview to the time I finally heard back from them. Four angst-ridden, nerve wracking, sour stomached weeks. And the final word is that they don't want me.
Now I'm down to one possibility left open, but I'm not feeling very optimistic about it. For some reason, I felt better about the interview at the school that turned me down than the more recent interview, and since the one I felt better about said no, that doesn't bode well for the other one. I'm just hoping it's not too much longer before I hear something official from them. Also, I have not heard anything from the Wisconsin fellowship, and their information says that they will contact the chosen few by May 1. That one doesn't really sting since I knew going in it was a pretty long shot. But not getting a job offer after waiting and hoping and daydreaming for so long certainly does.
So I'm thinking that I'll probably be doing the adjunct routine for another year. It's not so bad, of course, and it's great that I made it as far in the interview process as I did (I take that as an indication that I must be doing something right with my application materials anyway). But it's frustrating.
The upside, however, to not having a full-time job yet is that I will have more time to write. At the moment, I've only been assigned three classes for the fall, and they're all developmental writing. Now developmental writing is not easier to teach than composition, but it does take less time because the most time-consuming factor of teaching writing is grading papers and the papers for developmental courses are simpler and shorter and easier to evaluate. I'm estimating that three developmental courses will not merely be part-time employment but will be about half-time, taking about twenty hours a week or so. This will leave me with plenty of extra time to write. I could, of course, seek out a second job as I've had in the past, and that's tempting because the pay from three classes will pretty much be exactly enough to cover my expenses with little or no wiggle room. But I think the better choice would be to devote myself more to writing, to really get a steady routine set much more than I've had recently.
I wrote my last post about reconsidering how much weight to give writing in my life and maybe swinging the balance toward my teaching, but in the wake of my recent rejection, my thoughts are shifting again. Part of the equation is the long-term goal. A full-time teaching position at a community college certainly satisfies an important short-term goal, which is to make a decent living and pay off my grad school debt, but it doesn't really further my long-term goals of writing and eventually teaching higher level courses. It doesn't work against those goals exactly, but it doesn't put me much further down the path. But if I work more on my writing and manage to publish more, that will be the best way to work toward eventually becoming a creative writing teacher. So maybe, even though in the short term it's tough to just barely squeak by paycheck to paycheck, it's worth focusing more on the long-term goals.
There are a few other little things to be positive about at the moment. One, this semester is almost over. It's been one of the toughest semesters of my life, primarily because I've felt so up in the air the whole time about the future. But there were other issues too, like canceled classes because of snow and rain, which then threw off the groove for the semester so it was close to the end by the time anything felt routine.
Two, I'll have about three weeks off once this semester is over. I'm looking forward to this greatly. I will have to do some preparation for my summer courses, sure, but there won't be any papers to get back immediately or anything like that, so it's going to be actual time off. I haven't had any time off like this since I moved to Pennsylvania nearly two years ago; I've been working two jobs most of that time so when I had a break from school I still had to work the other job, so sometimes I worked seven days a week, and the most I ever had truly off was a few days at a time.
Three, I've got the Advanced Placement English Exam reading coming up in June, and I'm excited to do that. It should be fun to travel somewhere I've never been and to network with colleagues and just have an interesting new experience.
Four, my summer classes look like they should both work out. Last year my summer class was canceled at the last minute due to lack of enrollment, but this year one class already has enough and the other is right on the edge, so I'm hopeful that they'll both happen. If they do, that will mean I'll easily make it through the summer without having to dip into my savings, so then if my budget is super tight in the fall with only three classes, I won't have to deplete my savings just to get by each month.
On a whole, things could certainly be worse than they are. And even if nothing works out right now for full-time employment, I got some interviewing experience under my belt, and I should be an even stronger candidate for similar jobs next year. And maybe by then I'll have some more publications on my CV as well.
Now I'm down to one possibility left open, but I'm not feeling very optimistic about it. For some reason, I felt better about the interview at the school that turned me down than the more recent interview, and since the one I felt better about said no, that doesn't bode well for the other one. I'm just hoping it's not too much longer before I hear something official from them. Also, I have not heard anything from the Wisconsin fellowship, and their information says that they will contact the chosen few by May 1. That one doesn't really sting since I knew going in it was a pretty long shot. But not getting a job offer after waiting and hoping and daydreaming for so long certainly does.
So I'm thinking that I'll probably be doing the adjunct routine for another year. It's not so bad, of course, and it's great that I made it as far in the interview process as I did (I take that as an indication that I must be doing something right with my application materials anyway). But it's frustrating.
The upside, however, to not having a full-time job yet is that I will have more time to write. At the moment, I've only been assigned three classes for the fall, and they're all developmental writing. Now developmental writing is not easier to teach than composition, but it does take less time because the most time-consuming factor of teaching writing is grading papers and the papers for developmental courses are simpler and shorter and easier to evaluate. I'm estimating that three developmental courses will not merely be part-time employment but will be about half-time, taking about twenty hours a week or so. This will leave me with plenty of extra time to write. I could, of course, seek out a second job as I've had in the past, and that's tempting because the pay from three classes will pretty much be exactly enough to cover my expenses with little or no wiggle room. But I think the better choice would be to devote myself more to writing, to really get a steady routine set much more than I've had recently.
I wrote my last post about reconsidering how much weight to give writing in my life and maybe swinging the balance toward my teaching, but in the wake of my recent rejection, my thoughts are shifting again. Part of the equation is the long-term goal. A full-time teaching position at a community college certainly satisfies an important short-term goal, which is to make a decent living and pay off my grad school debt, but it doesn't really further my long-term goals of writing and eventually teaching higher level courses. It doesn't work against those goals exactly, but it doesn't put me much further down the path. But if I work more on my writing and manage to publish more, that will be the best way to work toward eventually becoming a creative writing teacher. So maybe, even though in the short term it's tough to just barely squeak by paycheck to paycheck, it's worth focusing more on the long-term goals.
There are a few other little things to be positive about at the moment. One, this semester is almost over. It's been one of the toughest semesters of my life, primarily because I've felt so up in the air the whole time about the future. But there were other issues too, like canceled classes because of snow and rain, which then threw off the groove for the semester so it was close to the end by the time anything felt routine.
Two, I'll have about three weeks off once this semester is over. I'm looking forward to this greatly. I will have to do some preparation for my summer courses, sure, but there won't be any papers to get back immediately or anything like that, so it's going to be actual time off. I haven't had any time off like this since I moved to Pennsylvania nearly two years ago; I've been working two jobs most of that time so when I had a break from school I still had to work the other job, so sometimes I worked seven days a week, and the most I ever had truly off was a few days at a time.
Three, I've got the Advanced Placement English Exam reading coming up in June, and I'm excited to do that. It should be fun to travel somewhere I've never been and to network with colleagues and just have an interesting new experience.
Four, my summer classes look like they should both work out. Last year my summer class was canceled at the last minute due to lack of enrollment, but this year one class already has enough and the other is right on the edge, so I'm hopeful that they'll both happen. If they do, that will mean I'll easily make it through the summer without having to dip into my savings, so then if my budget is super tight in the fall with only three classes, I won't have to deplete my savings just to get by each month.
On a whole, things could certainly be worse than they are. And even if nothing works out right now for full-time employment, I got some interviewing experience under my belt, and I should be an even stronger candidate for similar jobs next year. And maybe by then I'll have some more publications on my CV as well.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Making a Living II
I've been thinking a lot about money recently. Primarily this is because I've been going through the job hunting process. This is the third year in a row I've sent out applications in the hopes of finding a full-time college teaching job. Each time I apply, I think about the difference a full-time position will make to my financial life, and I hope and dream while trying to keep those dreams reasonably in check. This year, however, is different from the past two since I've actually made it beyond the paperwork stage to the interview portion of the process. I take this as a good sign, so I've been letting my daydreams wander a bit further.
And here's the thing: people talk about how little teachers get paid and how worthless a master's degree is. And there's something to be said for those positions. Considering the education required to teach at the college level (comparable to lawyers and doctors), it is not necessarily the best gig in the world. Adjuncts in particular have a tough situation. Depending on the school, they might make two or three thousand dollars per class or only a bit above minimum wage, which is hardly what one would expect for a profession requiring an advanced degree. However, it is still possible to make a fairly nice living as a teacher.
If I land one of the full time positions I'm up for, my income will increase significantly over what I made last year working two part time jobs (a difference of at least ten thousand dollars, plus benefits). In fact, if I get offered the best paying of the jobs, my new income could be close to double what I made last year. So I've been fantasizing about what it will be like to have that much more money coming in. Last year I made more than any year before, but considering I have debts to pay off from grad school, I'm still just getting by. But if I'm offered the best paying job I'm up for, then I will suddenly have enough money to start making considerably higher payments on my loans. In fact, I suspect that instead of taking about a decade to pay off my loans, I could be debt free in four or five years. At that point, I would be making far more money than I would need to just get by. I could then start thinking about larger purchases like a new car or a down payment on a house or laser eye surgery to correct my poor vision.
In the past few years I haven't fantasized much about big expensive things like those. I figured I'd probably live in a small apartment throughout my whole adult life and basically get by comfortably enough but always have to be careful with my spending and always wish I had a little bit more. I figured that without a family to take care of, I'll always do fine compared to those around me trying to support kids, but, still, I'll never be wealthy. But the truth is that even if I don't land a full time job this year, I probably will land one next year or the year after, and by the time I hit forty, I will likely be making quite a nice living. I won't be able to buy a mansion or anything, but I will be relatively wealthy in the sense that I could afford things like nice vacations or a decent car or retirement savings.
Furthermore, teaching has decent job security. When I moved to Pennsylvania a couple years ago, I moved here because I wanted a cheap place to live, not because I actually had a job here. Within a few days of arrival, however, I was offered two classes at the local community college. If I did not have my degrees, I might have spent weeks or months looking for some random office job or a retail position paying minimum wage, but instead I was hired right away. Even though the job isn't secure in the sense of having a long term contract (I don't know semester to semester how many classes I'll be offered or whether those classes will get enough students to go or might get canceled a week before they begin), it's still secure in the sense that there will always be a need for English teachers. And, of course, once I'm a full timer, I'll have one year contract with a high likelihood of having the contract renewed year to year or landing tenure down the road.
Again, compared with doctors and lawyers, teachers are not incredibly well paid, but compared with a lot of other jobs, they are. In addition to teaching, I worked at a bookstore until it closed a few months ago. I'm fairly certain that even as a part-time teacher, I made more than the manager of that store. I know a few people who work office jobs that don't require a college degree, and they make enough money to get by on those jobs, but not as much as I'll probably make teaching college. The truth is that teaching makes a lot of sense as a career not only because it's rewarding and challenging and keeps one thinking about the basics of writing on a regular basis and all those other reasons, but it also makes sense from a purely financial standpoint. I'm thirty-one years old, and the most I've ever made in a single calendar year is about $27,000 (which is still about twelve thousand more than one could earn making minimum wage, assuming one could ever actually get a full-time minimum wage job). But I expect I will make more than that this year and more again next year, and there's a pretty good chance that by the time I retire, I'll make six figures (that's counting on raises and promotions and the ever decreasing value of the dollar). But without my degrees, I would probably be doing the same kind of random office job I had when I finished college, which paid eleven dollars an hour about a decade ago and I'm guessing wouldn't pay much more than that today.
And here's the thing: people talk about how little teachers get paid and how worthless a master's degree is. And there's something to be said for those positions. Considering the education required to teach at the college level (comparable to lawyers and doctors), it is not necessarily the best gig in the world. Adjuncts in particular have a tough situation. Depending on the school, they might make two or three thousand dollars per class or only a bit above minimum wage, which is hardly what one would expect for a profession requiring an advanced degree. However, it is still possible to make a fairly nice living as a teacher.
If I land one of the full time positions I'm up for, my income will increase significantly over what I made last year working two part time jobs (a difference of at least ten thousand dollars, plus benefits). In fact, if I get offered the best paying of the jobs, my new income could be close to double what I made last year. So I've been fantasizing about what it will be like to have that much more money coming in. Last year I made more than any year before, but considering I have debts to pay off from grad school, I'm still just getting by. But if I'm offered the best paying job I'm up for, then I will suddenly have enough money to start making considerably higher payments on my loans. In fact, I suspect that instead of taking about a decade to pay off my loans, I could be debt free in four or five years. At that point, I would be making far more money than I would need to just get by. I could then start thinking about larger purchases like a new car or a down payment on a house or laser eye surgery to correct my poor vision.
In the past few years I haven't fantasized much about big expensive things like those. I figured I'd probably live in a small apartment throughout my whole adult life and basically get by comfortably enough but always have to be careful with my spending and always wish I had a little bit more. I figured that without a family to take care of, I'll always do fine compared to those around me trying to support kids, but, still, I'll never be wealthy. But the truth is that even if I don't land a full time job this year, I probably will land one next year or the year after, and by the time I hit forty, I will likely be making quite a nice living. I won't be able to buy a mansion or anything, but I will be relatively wealthy in the sense that I could afford things like nice vacations or a decent car or retirement savings.
Furthermore, teaching has decent job security. When I moved to Pennsylvania a couple years ago, I moved here because I wanted a cheap place to live, not because I actually had a job here. Within a few days of arrival, however, I was offered two classes at the local community college. If I did not have my degrees, I might have spent weeks or months looking for some random office job or a retail position paying minimum wage, but instead I was hired right away. Even though the job isn't secure in the sense of having a long term contract (I don't know semester to semester how many classes I'll be offered or whether those classes will get enough students to go or might get canceled a week before they begin), it's still secure in the sense that there will always be a need for English teachers. And, of course, once I'm a full timer, I'll have one year contract with a high likelihood of having the contract renewed year to year or landing tenure down the road.
Again, compared with doctors and lawyers, teachers are not incredibly well paid, but compared with a lot of other jobs, they are. In addition to teaching, I worked at a bookstore until it closed a few months ago. I'm fairly certain that even as a part-time teacher, I made more than the manager of that store. I know a few people who work office jobs that don't require a college degree, and they make enough money to get by on those jobs, but not as much as I'll probably make teaching college. The truth is that teaching makes a lot of sense as a career not only because it's rewarding and challenging and keeps one thinking about the basics of writing on a regular basis and all those other reasons, but it also makes sense from a purely financial standpoint. I'm thirty-one years old, and the most I've ever made in a single calendar year is about $27,000 (which is still about twelve thousand more than one could earn making minimum wage, assuming one could ever actually get a full-time minimum wage job). But I expect I will make more than that this year and more again next year, and there's a pretty good chance that by the time I retire, I'll make six figures (that's counting on raises and promotions and the ever decreasing value of the dollar). But without my degrees, I would probably be doing the same kind of random office job I had when I finished college, which paid eleven dollars an hour about a decade ago and I'm guessing wouldn't pay much more than that today.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Making a Living
One thing that I suspect many of us don't fully appreciate when we head off to grad school to study writing is how difficult it can be to actually make a living. I knew that it would be tough or unlikely that I would manage to pay rent and buy food and essentials solely from writing, but I more or less assumed that once I completed my graduate degrees I would be able to land a full time teaching job. Even when I was directly told that wasn't necessarily the case, I don't think it fully sunk in. Now I realize just how difficult it is. I've read statistics that even a majority of folks with Ph.D.s in English cannot find full time professorships. As I look for jobs, I realize that I don't even meet the minimum requirements for most full time positions.
At the university level, they want substantial publication credits, which I don't have yet, or a Ph.D., which I don't have. Many universities require a Ph.D. even to teach the basic composition courses. At the community college level, they want experience. I'm currently in my seventh year of teaching, but the first five years were in grad school, which I've come to understand doesn't count for much. The key number at the community college level seems to be three to five years, and I'm in my second year at the community college. The notion that I will someday have a full time job is not unrealistic. I suspect it's within the next five years. But that's much longer than I expected it would take when I was in grad school.
I remember a professor in grad school who was talking about being a professor and what a noble calling it was and how nobody should pursue that life just for the money because there are so many other jobs out there where one can make much more money. I thought at the time he was full of it, and I still do. Those of us who spend years in grad school essentially don't have other marketable skills. Sure, I can work retail, but that pays far worse than teaching. It's not like my MFA qualifies me to work on Wall Street. The reality is that many of us who earn MFAs need to teach for a living because we don't really have other reasonable options.
But the nice thing is that even though I don't have a full time job and adjunct teaching doesn't really pay a professional wage in proportion to my level of education and experience, it's still a decent paying part time job, or at least it can be (I guess I'm lucky enough to have landed a position that pays toward the high end of the adjunct scale). For 2009, I will have made more money than I've ever made in my life. My taxable income will be about double what it's ever previously been. So that's not all bad (of course, I've essentially been on or below the poverty line my entire adult life). But even so, it still feels like I'm getting a bit ripped off. I teach four classes a semester. Full timers at my school teach five. If I had a full time position, I'd make close to double what I make now, plus I'd have benefits like insurance. That's a ridiculous difference. Plus, there's the factor that I'm technically part time, but teaching isn't like other part time jobs. I have to take my work home with me. I'm emotionally invested in the progress of my students. I work weekends. I stay up late at night grading papers. But the reality is this: what other choice do I have?
I think there are a couple of ways to think about this pickle. One is to realize that my efforts now will (I hope) pay off in a few years. It often sucks to be an adjunct. But in a few years, when I land a full time job, I'll be in a much better position. If I were to abandon teaching in favor of a better paying low-level office job, I could do that and probably make more money right now. But there wouldn't be much future in that. If I were to get a $10 an hour job filing paperwork or answering phones, I'd be okay, but ten years from now, I'd still only be making $11 an hour or something. But if I put up with the hassles of being an adjunct for a couple more years, I could be making double what I make now, maybe triple or quadruple. My professor was totally wrong: it does make sense to get into teaching for the money. Although the money isn't great now, I'm sowing the seeds that will grow in the future.
The second thing I think I have to consider is that it might be useful to reevaluate my efforts. I'm working a part time job. A full time professor at my school is expected to teach five classes, advise students, attend faculty meetings and so forth. I'm only expected to teach four classes. So if a full time position is forty hours per week, then my job should be less than thirty. I'm at school in the classroom or office hours about eighteen hours a week. So I shouldn't reasonably spend more than about ten additional hours grading papers or doing prep work. If I spend more time than that, then I'm really a bit of a sucker, working on my own time rather than the time I get paid for. But that is how I've regularly worked. I ordinarily spend much more time than that because I care about my students and I want them to succeed, and how much they get out of my class depends on how much work I put into the class. But is that fair? Should I care? Is it reasonable to expect me to put out that much effort for the amount I'm being compensated? I honestly think I should do less work. Maybe what this means is that I should collect fewer drafts of papers so I have less work to do at home. I should write fewer notes on students' work and adopt a simpler rubric for grading, where all I have to do is check a few boxes. The advantage to me would be obvious, yet I feel like my students would suffer. But then again, If I reduced my efforts I think my students would probably get a comparable experience to what they get from other teachers. I've often had grateful students say how nice it is to get such detailed feedback from me, which leads me to believe they aren't getting that elsewhere, and I've had students say that in their other writing courses, the teacher's expectations seem to be nothing more than that a student hand in a paper that is typed, that the quality of thought and skill are not full evaluated. If I lowered my standards and made my life easier, I think I would then be a fairly average teacher. Maybe being average is fine. After all, I'm not being paid to be above average.
I don't know. I can probably do some of that, streamline my process a bit to make my life easier. But I don't know if I could ever fully detach myself from my students. I really wish I could. It would be nice not to think or care about them. But I do care.
Anyway, back to the main point. The need to make a living is a giant obstacle that has to be overcome. The greatest thing a writer needs is time to write, but when one is trying to pay bills, it becomes tough to find enough time. Maybe the issue really is just that I have to put up with the unfortunate situation now and things will be easier down the line. If I can manage to publish enough in the next few years, then maybe I'll actually land a full time creative writing professorship some day. And then I'll be able to teach fewer classes, make enough money just from teaching where I won't have to worry about additional income in the breaks between semesters, and basically it will feel like I've got tons of time to write. But actually reaching that point is tough.
I think one of the toughest things for me to accept about the dreaded real world that we all must enter when we leave school is how hard it is at the beginning. I always figured it would be easier at the start and would get harder as one went throughout life, but I actually think it's the opposite. When one is young, one still has all the expenses of an adult life, but one has less ability to make an income that will fully cover those expenses. I figure my basic needs won't substantially change in the next ten or twenty years, except that I have loans to pay off now that will be paid off then, so basically I need more money now than I will need in ten years. Yet my earning ability will likely be far higher in the future than it is now. Right now I'm barely scraping by, but if I have a full time professorship in ten years, I'll have more money than I need. It just seems unfair that I can't swap out my situations and make that money now and then comfortably live on less then.
At the university level, they want substantial publication credits, which I don't have yet, or a Ph.D., which I don't have. Many universities require a Ph.D. even to teach the basic composition courses. At the community college level, they want experience. I'm currently in my seventh year of teaching, but the first five years were in grad school, which I've come to understand doesn't count for much. The key number at the community college level seems to be three to five years, and I'm in my second year at the community college. The notion that I will someday have a full time job is not unrealistic. I suspect it's within the next five years. But that's much longer than I expected it would take when I was in grad school.
I remember a professor in grad school who was talking about being a professor and what a noble calling it was and how nobody should pursue that life just for the money because there are so many other jobs out there where one can make much more money. I thought at the time he was full of it, and I still do. Those of us who spend years in grad school essentially don't have other marketable skills. Sure, I can work retail, but that pays far worse than teaching. It's not like my MFA qualifies me to work on Wall Street. The reality is that many of us who earn MFAs need to teach for a living because we don't really have other reasonable options.
But the nice thing is that even though I don't have a full time job and adjunct teaching doesn't really pay a professional wage in proportion to my level of education and experience, it's still a decent paying part time job, or at least it can be (I guess I'm lucky enough to have landed a position that pays toward the high end of the adjunct scale). For 2009, I will have made more money than I've ever made in my life. My taxable income will be about double what it's ever previously been. So that's not all bad (of course, I've essentially been on or below the poverty line my entire adult life). But even so, it still feels like I'm getting a bit ripped off. I teach four classes a semester. Full timers at my school teach five. If I had a full time position, I'd make close to double what I make now, plus I'd have benefits like insurance. That's a ridiculous difference. Plus, there's the factor that I'm technically part time, but teaching isn't like other part time jobs. I have to take my work home with me. I'm emotionally invested in the progress of my students. I work weekends. I stay up late at night grading papers. But the reality is this: what other choice do I have?
I think there are a couple of ways to think about this pickle. One is to realize that my efforts now will (I hope) pay off in a few years. It often sucks to be an adjunct. But in a few years, when I land a full time job, I'll be in a much better position. If I were to abandon teaching in favor of a better paying low-level office job, I could do that and probably make more money right now. But there wouldn't be much future in that. If I were to get a $10 an hour job filing paperwork or answering phones, I'd be okay, but ten years from now, I'd still only be making $11 an hour or something. But if I put up with the hassles of being an adjunct for a couple more years, I could be making double what I make now, maybe triple or quadruple. My professor was totally wrong: it does make sense to get into teaching for the money. Although the money isn't great now, I'm sowing the seeds that will grow in the future.
The second thing I think I have to consider is that it might be useful to reevaluate my efforts. I'm working a part time job. A full time professor at my school is expected to teach five classes, advise students, attend faculty meetings and so forth. I'm only expected to teach four classes. So if a full time position is forty hours per week, then my job should be less than thirty. I'm at school in the classroom or office hours about eighteen hours a week. So I shouldn't reasonably spend more than about ten additional hours grading papers or doing prep work. If I spend more time than that, then I'm really a bit of a sucker, working on my own time rather than the time I get paid for. But that is how I've regularly worked. I ordinarily spend much more time than that because I care about my students and I want them to succeed, and how much they get out of my class depends on how much work I put into the class. But is that fair? Should I care? Is it reasonable to expect me to put out that much effort for the amount I'm being compensated? I honestly think I should do less work. Maybe what this means is that I should collect fewer drafts of papers so I have less work to do at home. I should write fewer notes on students' work and adopt a simpler rubric for grading, where all I have to do is check a few boxes. The advantage to me would be obvious, yet I feel like my students would suffer. But then again, If I reduced my efforts I think my students would probably get a comparable experience to what they get from other teachers. I've often had grateful students say how nice it is to get such detailed feedback from me, which leads me to believe they aren't getting that elsewhere, and I've had students say that in their other writing courses, the teacher's expectations seem to be nothing more than that a student hand in a paper that is typed, that the quality of thought and skill are not full evaluated. If I lowered my standards and made my life easier, I think I would then be a fairly average teacher. Maybe being average is fine. After all, I'm not being paid to be above average.
I don't know. I can probably do some of that, streamline my process a bit to make my life easier. But I don't know if I could ever fully detach myself from my students. I really wish I could. It would be nice not to think or care about them. But I do care.
Anyway, back to the main point. The need to make a living is a giant obstacle that has to be overcome. The greatest thing a writer needs is time to write, but when one is trying to pay bills, it becomes tough to find enough time. Maybe the issue really is just that I have to put up with the unfortunate situation now and things will be easier down the line. If I can manage to publish enough in the next few years, then maybe I'll actually land a full time creative writing professorship some day. And then I'll be able to teach fewer classes, make enough money just from teaching where I won't have to worry about additional income in the breaks between semesters, and basically it will feel like I've got tons of time to write. But actually reaching that point is tough.
I think one of the toughest things for me to accept about the dreaded real world that we all must enter when we leave school is how hard it is at the beginning. I always figured it would be easier at the start and would get harder as one went throughout life, but I actually think it's the opposite. When one is young, one still has all the expenses of an adult life, but one has less ability to make an income that will fully cover those expenses. I figure my basic needs won't substantially change in the next ten or twenty years, except that I have loans to pay off now that will be paid off then, so basically I need more money now than I will need in ten years. Yet my earning ability will likely be far higher in the future than it is now. Right now I'm barely scraping by, but if I have a full time professorship in ten years, I'll have more money than I need. It just seems unfair that I can't swap out my situations and make that money now and then comfortably live on less then.
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