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Teach at a Community College

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Re: Teach at a Community College

#91

Post by gabereiser »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #88
gabereiser wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see an update. 2016 doesn't seem like long ago but in the labor markets and advent of TikTok I'm curious to see what the industry (higher ed) looks like compared to trade schools w/ TikTok channel on the side or something. I've met a ton of folks who, like me, decided to sail off into the sunset and started a youtube channel and now that's all they do and are thriving. I decided against the channel and in…

> I've met a ton of folks who, like me, decided to sail off into the sunset and started a youtube channel and now that's all they do and are thriving. I wonder how much this is additional jobs, or how much it replaces jobs cut from traditional media companies.

Nielson knows I'm sure. That's a very good question. I'm sure the answer is just as complex. A mix of replaced jobs (or lets say, restructured jobs) into social media platforms vs traditional media (broadcast, print/web) over additional jobs in the sector.

Re: Teach at a Community College

#92

Post by pxc »

throwaway426079 wrote: post #44
culopatin wrote: post #43

I tried. Programming classes in my CC were SO bad it made me want to help. They wanted someone with a PhD and it paid 38k… non starter. The kind of PhD that’s willing to take that in a field like computer science is a very unique kind of person that doesn’t have better opportunities for whatever reason.

Might also be someone who already had a career and wanted to do some teaching at the end of it

At the CC system I went to, it was fairly common for underpaid associate professors at nearby community colleges to teach some of their usual university courses at the community colleges for extra income. It's still a lot of work for them, but I think when you teach a familiar course at an additional school, you can save a lot of prep work so it's a little bit more like teaching another section of the same course than taking on a whole new one.

Re: Teach at a Community College

#93

Post by the_only_law »

neilv wrote: post #37

There's sometimes a stigma, which we should get rid of. First, I had great instructors at Portland Community College. Also, in addition to what I learned there, an area company (Tektronix spinoff) happened to put a job post there for a co-op student, and it turned out to be a great company, doing big things, which launched my career. After later working and then going to fancy-pants schools, one day a professor disse…

The problem, at least in my experience is that the quality of community colleges seems to vary wildly, and you can’t really shop around too much when it comes to education.

Re: Teach at a Community College

#94

Post by anonymouskimmer »

cle wrote: post #64
neilv wrote: post #37

There's sometimes a stigma, which we should get rid of. First, I had great instructors at Portland Community College. Also, in addition to what I learned there, an area company (Tektronix spinoff) happened to put a job post there for a co-op student, and it turned out to be a great company, doing big things, which launched my career. After later working and then going to fancy-pants schools, one day a professor disse…

> When I'm hiring, I see a lot of MIT/Stanford/Ivy on resumes, but I also pay as much attention to resumes from people who went to other schools, or who took some other path through their circumstances. I agree wholeheartedly. As another datapoint, over the years I've worked with many people from "top" schools like MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Ivies, etc. Generally they have not been strong engineers. I don't real…

> I don't really have a good understanding of why, but it's just something I've noticed.

Have they ever worked at the bottom? Working at the bottom of your discipline ensures you learn basics in a non-theoretical manner.

I was once interviewed by someone who asked me a question about restriction enzyme digestion. He didn't like my answer so rephrased whatever the question was along the lines of "what's the unit defition of a restriction enzyme?". Which I answered along the lines of "One unit is the amount of enzyme that digests the substrate DNA in one hour. But you always use more enzyme.". The unit definition is theoretically true, but it's irrelevant for most bench work. You (almost) always use more enzyme because: 1) your DNA is usually not the test substrate DNA, 2) the enzyme is not fresh at the supplier where it was tested (enzymes degrade in functionality over time, even when stored properly), 3) due to stochastic effects or other mechanisms (such as denaturing) some minimal amount of DNA may remain undigested, and an extended digest or digest with additional enzyme can help maximize digestion, and 4) enzyme is cheap compared to your salary and having to redo things. I unfortunately didn't get the job. Maybe I would have if I had said the unquoted part (but still probably not, he was just one interviewer out of many).

Re: Teach at a Community College

#95

Post by pxc »

photochemsyn wrote: post #57

A lot depends on your local educational system. Community colleges in California, for example, have suffered large budget cuts and many teachers have been laid off over the past few years so it's not a very attractive career. A program with few offerings is not attractive to students, either, so budget cuts tend to lead to enrollment drops: https://www.communitycollegereview.com/blog/california-commu... A main issue,…

> Another problem is that public high schools do such an atrocious job at instruction that community colleges have to pick up the slack, so you have schools teaching basic algebra and simple reading/writing skills (i.e. 9th grade level etc.) to young adults whose primary education was a disaster. It's a pretty sad state of affairs, at least in the USA.

One of the advertising slogans of the community college I got my 2-year degrees from was literally 'no entry requirements', so offering remedial coursework was really important there.

When I tutored (math and computer science) there, I liked working with the remedial students. They were just as motivated as anybody, and it was satisfying to see concepts fall into place for them as we went along.

Those remedial courses can also be nice for advanced junior high students, or students at high schools that are crummy in specific STEM subjects, if their parents have the resources and time to get them there. Sometimes a dual-enrollment program also means that those students can get high school credit for those classes, and use them to skip certain classes at their high school or graduate early.

Re: Teach at a Community College

#96

Post by jacooper »

> I stumbled upon this job posting for a teaching position at the local Community College. My biggest motivation was money. Having some extra money is always needed, especially as a student.

They allow students to teach? Bachelor students?

Re: Teach at a Community College

#97

Post by anonymouskimmer »

yummypaint wrote: post #45
neilv wrote: post #37

There's sometimes a stigma, which we should get rid of. First, I had great instructors at Portland Community College. Also, in addition to what I learned there, an area company (Tektronix spinoff) happened to put a job post there for a co-op student, and it turned out to be a great company, doing big things, which launched my career. After later working and then going to fancy-pants schools, one day a professor disse…

Totally agree. For me the most important metric is to what extent a person has made use of the opportunities available to them. I would hire a passionate and engaged community college grad who has hobbies before someone who went to a "top" school but only has grades to show for it.

> For me the most important metric is to what extent a person has made use of the opportunities available to them.

We aren't all entrepreneurs, social butterflies keyed into what others are doing, or undecided and thus open to any whims of life made available to us. Some of us had plans and ideas, but lacked the feedback or mentoring to pursue those plans and dropped out, became depressed, or whatever for large chunks of our young adulthood. That doesn't mean we aren't now great at what we do.

Re: Teach at a Community College

#98

Post by dpkirchner »

Mezzie wrote: post #51
roflyear wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CCs aren't charging kids much.

In comparison to other higher ed institutions, you're right. This one in particular (I grew up in the region) has still seen its in-state tuition grow by 300%+ in the past 20 years. Where's the money going?

Was the tuition subsidized to a greater degree prior to the price increase?

Re: Teach at a Community College

#99

Post by anonymouskimmer »

achates wrote: post #66
Mezzie wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In comparison to other higher ed institutions, you're right. This one in particular (I grew up in the region) has still seen its in-state tuition grow by 300%+ in the past 20 years. Where's the money going?

Right, I just looked it up and the largest community college in my city now charges about the same as I paid to go to the nearby state university 10 years ago. It's clearly not going to the instructors. It must be a combination of new construction and administrative bloat.

Or less state funding: https://www.highereddive.com/news/state-funding-for-communit...

> States are giving four-year colleges $63 million less in fiscal 2021 than they did last year, a 0.1% decline. Meanwhile, they’re cutting funding to two-year institutions by $457 million, a 2% decline.

> Enrollment losses and pandemic-related expenses are buffeting community colleges’ budgets as these schools face cuts in state support.

Re: Teach at a Community College

#100

Post by dopeboy »

ignoramous wrote: post #35

I taught Celullar Networks and Android Internals at my alma mater just this past semester and can relate with TFA. It took 4 to 6 hours of prep to deliver a one hour class. Preparing from existing course materials available online or from YouTube and Wikipedia was the fastest as opposed to going through the text books. I found it very hard to know when to go fast and when to go slow, what to skip and what to include.…

I've taught HS kids for ~4 years so not quite the same demographic as yours. That said - and I know folks object to doing this - you have to play disciplinarian _and_ teacher. Set a firm culture around no phone usage and kick anyone out who uses one.

Kudos to you for going back to your alma mater and teaching. That's something I want to do, too.

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