[HN Gopher] Teach at a Community College
___________________________________________________________________
Teach at a Community College
Author : zandert
Score : 150 points
Date : 2023-04-23 07:14 UTC (15 hours ago)
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| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| tibbon wrote:
| I taught at a boot camp from 2013-2015 and it was one of the best
| moves of my career. I should find a community college to help at
| ssttoo wrote:
| While I wholeheartedly agree with "learning by teaching", one
| question I have is whether one _could_ teach in community
| college.
|
| May be just my CC experience of study field (music) combined with
| locale (talent-attracting city of Los Angeles) but I hear one
| needs to be a PhD these days to compete for a CC professor spot.
| routerl wrote:
| Yeah, you got it. This is the real answer.
|
| The glut of PhD's is at such a level that the last teaching
| jobs available to industry professionals have all gone to
| boomers who will stay at those jobs until they die.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| You think they love the job so much that they are NOT
| currently retiring ?
| prosaic-hacker wrote:
| I teach at a Vocational college the teaches entry level
| system administration. I am one of those boomers (1959) but I
| have no degrees above a Bachelors. I could not get out of the
| teaching because of ageism and assumed if-you-cant-do-
| teachism.
|
| I took this job 15 years ago because prospective employers
| looked at my then 30 year career and repeatedly said you
| cannot adapt to new tech and are too expensive. So I took my
| sysadmin, programming, and management skills and taught them
| to younger people who did get the jobs I was rejected for.
| Hopefully some of my work ethic will have rubbed off on them
| and when they hire they will do it with less "ism".
|
| Now I get to play with the newest tech and teach it.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Professor yes, adjunct no. My dad started teaching English Comp
| at the local community college and got me pulled in as well
| doing some computer science and information science classes. I
| started at the CC and did a few at the local state university.
|
| Most schools are not hiring tenure track staff, and use
| adjuncts and contract assistant professors for the less
| profitable teaching roles.
|
| I would imagine that music has a different dynamic, as lots of
| emerging professional musicians may be seeking those roles to
| get benefits, etc.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| I always say that I learned more while teaching technology
| classes in my local community than any individual student.
|
| Like this person, it helped hone my skills communicating
| technical ideas to non-technical people. Most importantly, it
| helped me understand others' limitations and abilities of mine I
| had taken for granted. As a result, I learned patience and grace,
| that sometimes it's better to show someone while doing it
| yourself, rather than expecting them to master it.
|
| I scheduled an AI class in the library this summer, because I
| think it's important. We'll see.
| thathndude wrote:
| Maybe this is IT-specific advice, but I did this (in another
| field). It did not end well.
|
| The students were great. But the administration of the school
| left a lot to be desired.
| zandert wrote:
| Definitely second that in my case. The students had troubles
| connecting to the school-provided Teams course and I had to
| deal with the justified complaints. Even though it was fully
| out of my controls
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I made this movie for a film class at De Anza College in 1990.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re2Oh4rxN6w&list=PL3F463A677...
|
| This teacher knew his stuff. He read us the poem "The Eensy-
| Weensy Spider" and when everyone laughed, he said, more or less,
| "If any of you can write a script half this good, you'll be a
| success."
|
| It was on Super-8. "Editing" consisted of cutting the film and
| taping it together, and then punching sprocket holes in the tape.
| k__ wrote:
| I worked as a lecturer at a private university for a semester.
|
| It was a nice experience, but payed really badly.
| black_13 wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| ZunarJ5 wrote:
| Thanks for this. I think I might look into it as I finish my
| degree.
| gravypod wrote:
| This is a dream of mine. I'd love to do it and help teach people.
| How does someone with a normal BS + industry experience get into
| this?
| jackthetab wrote:
| AFAICT, you don't.
|
| I reached out to the local CC years ago, with a resume of 20+
| yoe in industry; a list of educational clients including NASA,
| IBM; local clients, industry certs; etc.
|
| The response was "Impressive resume! Come back when you have a
| Master's degree."
|
| So, screw them...
| ignoramous wrote:
| 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. The feedback coming through
| wasn't real-time. I kept surprise open-notes tests to gauge where
| the class was lacking.
|
| Students have a very short attention span. It is hard to keep
| them engaged throughout the period. I always start by summarising
| topics from the previous class. I also spoke to them multiple
| times and at _length_ about concentration, but I guess the
| _length_ was also a problem.
|
| I believe some students are vehemently visual learners and prefer
| PPTs and videos. I shared links I thought were high quality with
| them via a Google doc and updated them every week.
|
| _Everyone_ used ChatGPT for assignments and some used it for
| preparing for exams.
|
| It was jarring to see some students be in a perennial state of
| distraction (and be slave to their smartphones).
|
| After the semester ended, with the money I earned taking the
| class (it wasn't much at all), I bought every student one among
| _Pragmatic Programmer_ , _Algorithms to Live By_ , _Deep Work_ ,
| _Outliers_ , _How Google Works_ , _Why We Sleep_. In the hope
| that it inculcates in them the habit reading books to progress in
| their careers.
| hgsgm wrote:
| How did you pick which student got which book? Some fell asleep
| in class? Some were HR?
| ignoramous wrote:
| I gave a brief overview of these books and let students
| choose in the order they were seated. And if they didn't get
| the book they wanted, I suggested that they could borrow it
| from their classmates or buy one for themselves (everyone had
| a paid summer internship lined up already). Previously, I
| used to gift _Thinking Fast and Slow_ but the replication
| crisis had me abandon it because at least two entire chapters
| (3 & 4) seem like pop-science now.
| dopeboy wrote:
| 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.
| aaabre2476 wrote:
| That's another advantage of community college courses, is it
| may actually be practical to implement that sort of
| discipline. It certainly isn't when it's you and a TA and 100
| students in a big lecture hall.
| tester457 wrote:
| I've only read Deep Work out of those books you mentioned, but
| the others must be great too.
|
| I envy them for having such an incredible teacher.
| e-_pusher wrote:
| Is your android internals course available somewhere? It is a
| topic I have been meaning to learn more and there is not much
| out there that is up to date.
| nortonham wrote:
| >I found it very hard to know when to go fast and when to go
| slow, what to skip and what to include. The feedback coming
| through wasn't real-time. I kept surprise open-notes tests to
| gauge where the class was lacking.
|
| Teaching is a skill. Over time you would be able to gauge these
| things easier.
|
| Or you could do what some of my HS teaches and college
| professors used to do, and basically teach it how you see fit,
| and put the onus on the students to seek out help if they need
| it.
| ankaAr wrote:
| i was teaching robotics years ago for schools (elementary and
| intermediate). A big tech company gave to me the materials and
| the place to do that. Then schools choose a date to come and we
| have the classes. The schedule was completed almost a year in
| advance. For the schools was free.
|
| Was one of my best experiences, and yes, the payment was very
| low, but i was teaching.., maybe 10 hours a week.
| spicyusername wrote:
| I looked into this, as I'm starting to burn out of working in the
| industry.
|
| The community colleges in my area require a surprising amount of
| prerequisites and pay _dismally_. Even with 15 years of industry
| experience, I'd need at least a year or two of additional
| schooling (while not being paid) to earn a paltry few hundred
| dollars per credit hour per semester while teaching.
|
| Hard sell to not get paid for a few years to then take a 75-90%
| pay cut.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| The irony being I know lecturers who teach at actually
| prestigious universities and make decent money and have none of
| the useless requirements satisfied.
| hgsgm wrote:
| PhD and postdoc include on the job training as a teacher.
| grogenaut wrote:
| But does not give you the certifications/course work. Which
| the cc likely requires.
|
| I went to take an EMT class. I was required to show I
| passed high school algebra. I couldn't get my hs
| transcript. The cc wouldn't accept my college transcript
| because the lowest math I took in college was calc two.
| Same for English comp. I tested out of that in college so
| much lowest comp class was 350 - tech writing.
|
| I had to take 2 hours of online tests to show the
| competency. For a class that didn't even require either.
| znpy wrote:
| In fairness, if community college paid more they would probably
| be way more expensive for students
| bane wrote:
| > The community colleges in my area require a surprising amount
| of prerequisites and pay _dismally_.
|
| Exactly. They want quality education provided by people who see
| it as a social giveback. The pay is almost an honorarium.
|
| Many CC professors are seniors in industry or professors at
| other local universities who do it really to give people a
| chance or to help with career mobility within their industry.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I'm not in tech but I'm qualified to adjunct/teach some other
| subjects and this is it. I'm even a good teacher. But why would
| I do it when I'm making more and I'm treated better working
| _retail_?
|
| My local CC just posted a part-time librarian job I would jump
| on if it paid more than 21/hr. Fuck that - I could do better as
| a waitress or bartender. If they want to use my experience and
| education they can pay for it; God knows they're charging the
| kids enough.
| porknubbins wrote:
| I thought community colleges were just a fraction of the cost
| of 4 year colleges? In my state at least CC are free to local
| HS grads. I think in a lot of cases you would have to do it
| out of a desire to teach rather than as an profit maximizer.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > rather than as an profit maximizer
|
| We're not talking about profit MAXIMIZING, this is planning
| your own exploitation.
|
| You would have to be supported by someone else or be
| independently wealthy to take typical CC jobs.
|
| In the US in my area, I'm pretty sure you'd be better
| teaching K-12 because the unions are bigger / stronger and
| hence the benefits and job security are greater.
| Mezzie wrote:
| This, basically.
|
| I would happily teach at a CC for ~40-50k. I consider
| having my basic economic needs taken care of a necessity
| to being a good teacher - there is a correlation between
| poverty/economic stress and agitation, irritability, etc.
| Being in constant stress is _not_ going to be conducive
| towards teaching well. If I have to work 2 jobs, I 'm
| going to not spend my time grading thoroughly, I will
| choose the quick and easy route to curriculum development
| instead of tailoring the curriculum, etc. Oh and forget
| time for office hours or student emails; have to go
| deliver groceries or work at a car wash so I can make
| rent.
|
| I'm not going to take a job where I'm not given what I
| need to be good at the job - it's terrible for me and
| it's terrible for the students. The only 'winner' is the
| institution.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I genuinely would like to teach - K-12 _or_ higher ed.
|
| I will not work somewhere where I am expected to put in
| extra hours for no extra pay, allow people to physically
| and verbally abuse me, _and_ doesn 't pay enough for me to
| make rent and bills.
|
| I don't expect a CC to pay amazingly, but if they want good
| people they should at least make sure that they offer a
| better deal than jobs who only want a GED and right now
| they aren't. Plus the salaries are skewed: I could get a
| good paying job at my local CC... in the development or
| 'business' side of things. But not to actually teach. If
| you can pay data analysts 70k there's no reason to stiff
| your educational staff. It says a _lot_ about the values of
| that institution.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > I will not work somewhere where I am expected to put in
| extra hours for no extra pay
|
| So you'll never teach K-12 without giving up that
| restriction.
|
| People often joke about how teachers have summer off, 2
| weeks at Christmas, fall break, spring break, etc. but
| don't talk so much about the hours of work they do at
| home every night grading or doing lesson prep, or the
| hours of time they put into advising or coaching
| extracurriculars, as well as required professional
| development that normally has to be done on their own
| time.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Yeah, that's why the 'and' is emphasized. I can see why
| that's the case (grading takes a variable amount of time,
| so does advising, and required PD to keep teachers up to
| date is very reasonable). I wouldn't mind doing that if I
| were paid enough to be secure, but you want me to do that
| _and_ probably have to work a second job? No.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Almost anybody who is teaching is doing it out of a desire
| to teach. It's certainly one of the lowest paying ways to
| put years of experience/specialized knowledge to use.
| roflyear wrote:
| CCs aren't charging kids much.
| Mezzie wrote:
| 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?
| achates wrote:
| 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.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| 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.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Was the tuition subsidized to a greater degree prior to
| the price increase?
| Mezzie wrote:
| Yes. Which goes back to 'if my community doesn't value
| teaching, why should I do it?' In that case, I'll use my
| background and skills to help those in my immediate
| circle and their children - people who do value it. Or
| make use of other skills I have that are more valued even
| if I like doing them less (I would prefer to teach over
| code but shrug).
|
| If society heavily implies "teaching is stupid and has no
| value" then of course fewer people are going to be
| teachers. How many SWEs would keep doing the job if it
| paid 20k a year, required reporting to multiple people,
| asked for a Master's+, and involved verbal abuse? I'm
| guessing most people who like to code still wouldn't take
| that job; they'd do something else and code in their free
| time.
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| I've always seen these jobs as targeting people who could be
| retired but want something to do. Pay isn't great, but they
| offer very flexible hours for straightforward work. It
| engages you mentally (which the older you get, the more
| you'll appreciate).
| topkai22 wrote:
| I think it's also a prestige thing. Getting to call
| yourself "professor" has status for some, even at a
| community college.
| Mezzie wrote:
| That's the _ideal_ /stated desire (and historically this
| was more likely to be true and it does hold true in some
| cases: graduate school adjuncting is more likely to be of
| this sort), but the economic incentives and overproduction
| of graduate degrees relative to the jobs requiring them
| have _functionally_ made adjuncting the service class of
| academia.
|
| And just because the hours are flexible doesn't mean the
| pay isn't an issue: Employment perks are relative and
| flexible hours are way more common than they used to be.
| For most people who qualify to be adjuncts, they could also
| freelance (which I _do_ do) and get both payment and
| flexibility.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>librarian job I would jump on if it paid more than 21/hr.
| Fuck that
|
| hmm I wonder if you also protest the high cost of education?
|
| >> God knows they're charging the kids enough.
|
| looky there you do... how ironic. Community Collages do not
| charge high rates, they are purposely designed not to, and in
| many states are statutory limited on what they can charge
|
| Many of the Adjuncts I know do it not as primary income, but
| as secondary income, and they do not do it for financial gain
| they fine other value in it like the original story./
| Mezzie wrote:
| They're cheap comparatively. They also cost over 3x what
| they did 20 years ago and pay _non_ teaching staff well. If
| it were truly about not having any money, I 'd expect
| support and admin staff to _also_ be low paid, but they 're
| not. I don't want a lot of money, but I need enough to be
| secure and therefore able to devote my attention to my
| work.
|
| > Many of the Adjuncts I know do it not as primary income,
| but as secondary income, and they do not do it for
| financial gain they fine other value in it like the
| original story.
|
| Where do they adjunct? You see more of this at grad level
| or higher-level undergrad course adjuncting.
|
| I also have major problems with the exploitation of
| vocational awe that happens in higher ed. If they don't
| need the money why accept pay at all? Why not make it a
| volunteer position? Surely there are enough retirees that
| adjuncts could be replaced with volunteers if the money is
| not a concern?
| [deleted]
| aaabre2476 wrote:
| Most of the time it's professors from universities that are
| financially well off already and who like teaching, often
| nearing retirement.
|
| If you need another fancy job on your resume or a big
| paycheck then it isn't for you. It certainly does a good job
| filtering out instructors that only care about their own
| advancement and don't give a shit about teaching the courses,
| which is unfortunately a significant percentage of the people
| that teach university courses.
|
| I'd go as far as to say academia in general isn't for you if
| you want to get paid the big bucks. If you aren't professor
| emeritus or department chair for a large CS department, then
| it is never going to be competitive with industry. That
| should be obvious, but I guess for some people it isn't.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Teaching at community college is community service, not a
| career.
| spicyusername wrote:
| Many forms of community service don't ask that you bankrupt
| yourself to contribute.
| 300bps wrote:
| I taught a non-credit course on Novell Networking at a local
| college back when I was a Certified Netware Engineer.
|
| Will never do that again. 10% of the class picked it up
| quickly. 80% of the class picked it up. 10% of the class would
| never understand the material and dragged the rest of the class
| down asking incessant questions.
|
| The money was a joke and I hated it.
| [deleted]
| bluedino wrote:
| Being on the student side of this, it seems like half of the
| class was there because of their employer.
|
| Some people were "learning new skills", and attended as a
| requirement. They just sat on their phones the whole time.
| Zero intention of learning or being employed in this
| capacity.
|
| Then there were the people with zero computer skills that
| shouldn't have been in the class, and took up the entire two
| first days with how to sign into their student account, use
| and RDP session...
|
| Hopefully after the first couple weeks all of those have
| dropped out.
| pc86 wrote:
| Hopefully the instructor in those cases is willing and able
| to just flunk the students who aren't trying, or just
| aren't capable of handling the material.
| grogenaut wrote:
| I saw some of these during a machining class near Boeing.
| Most were actually trying to learn but it felt like high
| school with them fucking around on the machines. Some were
| real serious which is who I talked to.
|
| The worst were the folks who were literally of the opinion
| that they just sat through this bullshit like a mushroom
| and they'd check the boxes to move up one grade at the
| union. One of these was a dude who constantly complained
| out loud about the math. Machining feeds and speeds is
| based on the surface feet / minute or your metric
| equivalent of the speed of the outer diameter of your
| cutter. So pi is used a lot. The equation is on every wall.
| 5 minutes in while everyone was signing paperwork I had
| reversed the formular for every variable. Page 3 of the
| book does that for you and makes pi 3 for ease and safety.
| This was the math the guy complained about. We had to do it
| 5 times total. 7 classes in this dude still had not brought
| in a calculator and the laziest kid in the class mocked him
| for it. This same guy who couldn't / wouldn't do the math
| spent an hour at lunch explaining his intricate scheme to
| basically work 14 days each year for the next 2 years
| before exiting out to part time and then retirement with
| his full benes. So he could do it, but he just wanted to
| sit at home playing guitar and drinking and subjected the
| rest of is this complaints. Also he hogged the professors
| time a lot.
|
| There were some others who did not have the math skills to
| do offsets/ zero setting on depth of drill holes. But when
| the professors could give them the time they could usually
| come up with a way to explain it. That guy wanted to learn
| but also felt that once he was certified his job was to
| read a book until the machine went into fault mode, so the
| training got him an easier job. He didn't actually need to
| understand any of the training to hit a button when a light
| went red.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| As someone who might be tempted to someday attempt a
| community-service teaching assignment, the lessons I'd take
| from this are:
|
| 1. Accept only a for-credit class.
|
| 2. Demand a "weed-out" midterm, to be held before the last-
| drop date.
| nortonham wrote:
| I feel like that would be the case no matter the school and
| no matter the subject.. In any class there are some students
| who just don't care, or are out of their depth.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Seems like the classs was extremely success (90%!) and a
| simple fix would be to take questions outside of lecture.
|
| But it does sound like a good choice to not do it if you
| don't like teaching.
| neilv wrote:
| 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 dissed community colleges to me. I thought the
| professor was wrong and out of line, so I talked constructively
| with them about that. But I still felt bad, and didn't need the
| stigma in those particular circles, so I removed community
| college from my Web CV.
|
| When I was finally making a LinkedIn, I found one of my
| instructors from community college on there, and wrote them a
| note, thanking them, and telling them how helpful and important
| their teaching had been to me.
|
| Maybe the next day, I realized I'd left community college off my
| LinkedIn, and the instructor might've seen that. So I added it
| back on, and have kept it on.
|
| Community college is for people who want to better themselves,
| and, for whatever reason (I suspect usually involving
| socioeconomic circumstances) they aren't (yet?) at a more
| expensive college or university.
|
| 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.
| the_only_law wrote:
| 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.
| bane wrote:
| I grew up pretty poor and never had hope that I could go to
| college...so I never tried in high school, and never took my
| SATs and was resigned to a life in lower paying non-career
| jobs.
|
| After a few years of this, I remember interviewing at a larger
| company for a position in their IT department. I didn't get the
| job, but the interviewer gave me life changing advice, "why
| don't you just go to the local CC?". I had no idea that was
| even an option, so I looked into it, the cost was cheap, it
| allowed for flexible part-time schedules, and I started my
| journey.
|
| I ended up dual majoring, graduated from the CC, moved to a
| state Uni graduated with a BS, and later worked through an MS.
| It absolutely transformed my life. I'm the first person in my
| entire family to have been educated to this level.
|
| I also grew up in an immigrant heavy area and met many
| wonderful people from around the world at the CC, who also all
| went on to get BSs and MSs and move through successfully better
| careers at major companies. CC was their entry point into the
| American dream.
|
| Still, that stigma hung with me until I had an experience where
| I was able to move past it. I was invited to a be part of a
| business team to build a product to sell to an overseas
| customer. Everybody introduced themselves and their
| backgrounds, some were very impressive, and a couple of them
| even had graduated from the Ivys. It clicked then, even with
| all of this impressive education and experience, we were all
| working at the same place on the same effort and I _deserved_
| to be there.
|
| Ever since then, whenever somebody tries to edu-shame me or
| another person, I always reply with "and yet we're all working
| in the same place" and that shuts it down immediately.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Agreed. Community college probably lifts up & allows people to
| better themselves more than most 4 year universities.
|
| My dad put himself through community college then did 2 years
| at a university with some work in between. He was the first of
| his family / only one of his generation to go to college.
|
| These days given cost & competition, most people going to a 4
| year university come from a family that has already done the
| same and is following the prescribed path.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Community College is for people who are busy getting things
| done. The stigma around community college is that "You weren't
| good enough for 4-year, let alone Ivy League" when simply
| that's not true and a stereotype.
|
| I started at a community college. This was a long time ago now
| but I remember having to dance a precarious line between
| explaining where I went to school and explaining what I know.
| To this day when people ask me where I went to school, I riddle
| off a long explanation on why that kind of thinking isn't
| helpful and instead should be asking yourself, "What don't I
| know?". I've been to a 4 year college. I've been to an Ivy
| League school. The humbleness and "Let's do this" attitude of
| community college is still the best education I got. Don't feel
| bad for having these things on your resume, show them with
| pride. If _YOU_ see someone applying for your positions and
| they are proudly showing their community college, I 'd
| definitely want to talk to them over someone spoon fed from
| Harvard. Show me the people who take initiative. Regardless of
| where they went to school. I'm hiring for aptitude and
| attitude, everything else can be taught.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Also for people looking to get the best value for their
| tuition dollars.
|
| Many colleges (often by law) have to accept local community
| college transfer credits. A freshman can save thousands by
| taking prerequisite/introductory math, science, and other
| courses at a community college and then transferring to a
| traditional college or university to complete an
| undergraduate degree.
| pxc wrote:
| > Also for people looking to get the best value for their
| tuition dollars.
|
| I'd like to add that one of the ways community colleges
| provide educational value is by putting you in a classroom
| made up of more than just teenagers and 20-somethings who
| came to college directly from high school. For a lot of
| subjects, the quality of discussion is improved a lot by
| having parents, veterans, people who have had varied or
| multiple careers, people who have survived various
| hardships... people who have seen and contended with more
| of life.
|
| It makes a big difference in a class on childhood
| development to have classmates who are parents of kids of
| various ages, or who have worked for a long time in
| childcare and education. It makes a big difference in a
| class on death, dying, and grieving to have classmates
| whose experiences with death, aging, and grief are not
| limited to the passing of one or two relatives two
| generations apart from them. It makes a big difference in
| various job-oriented classes to have classmates who already
| work in the field and are studying in order to specialize,
| pursue a certification, or round out their skillset.
|
| The student bodies of community colleges are way, way more
| diverse than those of universities, and that makes them a
| lot more interesting in certain ways, especially for
| discussion-oriented classes and subjects that address human
| life and experience outside of narrow, academic contexts.
| aaabre2476 wrote:
| There are networking benefits to this as well. You are
| significantly more likely to meet people already working
| in industry at the CC than at a university.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| >Community College is for people who are busy getting things
| done.
|
| FiveThirtyEight has a great article from 2016 that agrees
| with you. [0] It also debunks a lot of the myths of higher
| education, like the myth that students are mostly majoring in
| humanities:
|
| >What few journalists seem to understand, Goldrick-Rab said,
| is how tenuous a grasp many students have on college. They
| are working while in school, often juggling multiple jobs
| that don't readily align with class schedules. They are
| attending part time, which makes it take longer to graduate
| and reduces the chances of finishing at all. They are raising
| children, supporting parents and racking up debt trying to
| pay for it all.
|
| >"One little thing goes awry and it just falls apart,"
| Goldrick-Rab said. "And the consequences of it falling apart
| when they're taking on all this debt are just so severe."
|
| >Students keep taking that risk for a reason: A college
| degree remains the most likely path to a decent-paying job.
| They aren't studying literary theory or philosophy; the most
| popular undergraduate majors in recent years have been
| business and health-related fields such as nursing.
|
| [0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-
| harvard/
| gabereiser wrote:
| 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 instead continue to work via starlink. For
| younger generations, what's the outlook on higher ed vs
| doing your own thing?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I have met nobody who is making substantial money from
| Youtube or other social media. Is it not true that you
| need huge subscriber and view numbers to make money? I
| compare it to making money as a professional athlete or
| musician or other celebrity profession. Yes you can do
| well (even really well) but the odds are much more likely
| that you'll make peanuts.
|
| Edit -- I did think of one person I kmnow personally who
| is probably making some money from YouTube, but he was a
| well-known author and public speaker before that. YouTube
| became an additional channel for things he had already
| invested many years in creating, it was not something he
| launched into as an alternative to or replacement for his
| day job.
| trogdor wrote:
| >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.
|
| That is very surprising to me, and I am a reasonably-
| successful YouTuber.
|
| For nearly everyone, YouTube is not a viable career path.
| It's not even a viable path to making money. _Any_ money.
|
| YouTube is the most saturated market that I know of.
| There are almost no barriers to entry, and your
| competition is everyone else on the planet who has a
| YouTube channel, plus, to some degree, the entire
| entertainment industry. Success on YouTube requires hard
| work, but hard work doesn't guarantee even a bit of
| success. To succeed on YouTube, you don't just have to
| create great content; you have to create content that
| people want to watch _more than everything else that is
| available to them._ That, obviously, is very hard. And
| even if you do it, a significant luck component remains.
|
| Why did you "decide against the channel?"
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > 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.
| gabereiser wrote:
| 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.
| nortonham wrote:
| I'm not surprised that many students in CC's are in fields
| related to health care. When I considered a career change
| into health care community college offered the easiest path
| to that.
| nortonham wrote:
| >Community College is for people who are busy getting things
| done.
|
| Exactly. Now that I am older, having the option to return to
| school while working is so helpful. Too add to that,
| community colleges generally offer one off classes, or
| certificates in certain fields that are really useful.
| tcbawo wrote:
| I read somewhere recently that the purpose of prestige/Ivy
| League schools is to provide the very wealthy and the very
| talented/ambitious the opportunity to mix, where you won't be
| able to tell the difference.
| gabereiser wrote:
| This would be the unspoken part, spoken out loud.
| nortonham wrote:
| That has mainly been the purpose of the wealthiest schools.
| Elite sends their kids to the same schools, to be prepped
| for a role in society similar to the one their parents
| have/had. They're finishing schools essentially.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Then there are schools like Rose Hulman or Curtis Institute
| of Music that specialize hard. They're very prestigious,
| but you also have to know about them to even think about
| going to them.
| prismatix wrote:
| I agree with you.
|
| I took a somewhat roundabout way of going to a 4-year (first 2
| years), then a community college for a year, and back to a
| different 4-year (last 2 years). In my experience, most of my
| community college classmates seemed to actually want to be
| there. They were motivated to learn and not just "get a
| degree". It's not that the university students didn't want to
| learn, its just that they were the ones who "knowledge comes
| easy" to; But, even then, a lot appeared immature, took the
| education for granted, had everything paid for by parents, and
| were perhaps guilted into to being there by parents, society,
| etc. Even in the last 2 years I noticed this.
|
| Community college students were typically more mature, paying
| their own way, some having families and full-time jobs. And to
| top it all off I actually knew my professors in community
| college. I never once met 70-80% of my professors in the
| university. Maybe things would've been different at a smaller
| 4-year university, but community college felt just like that --
| a community.
| [deleted]
| cle wrote:
| > 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 really have a good understanding
| of _why_ , but it's just something I've noticed.
|
| The folks who've struggled through non-traditional routes have
| been stronger engineers. They may not be as strong on the
| theory side, but they have some intangible "street smarts" or
| something that makes them overall more effective. Some
| combination of focus, grit, scrappiness, etc.
|
| There have been some engineers who are from top schools who
| _do_ have those traits but IME they aren 't as common.
| brazzy wrote:
| > The folks who've struggled through non-traditional routes
| have been stronger engineers.
|
| My guess is because those are the people who really had the
| persistence and ambition to overcome obstacles and adversity.
|
| Those who didn't have that on a "non-traditional rout" would
| have been much more likely to drop out, whereas someone going
| to a top school is more likely to have family expectations as
| their prime driver, which doesn't translate as well to
| workplace performance.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > 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).
| aaabre2476 wrote:
| When you've got a prestigious school on your resume you don't
| need to worry as much about improving your skills to get
| hired. They don't have to put in as much effort to be
| marketable to employers, so they don't in some cases.
|
| Anecdotally, my interview/application rate went from
| something like 5% to more like 25% when I finished my B.S. I
| previously only had a C.S. associates degree and a year or so
| of credit at university in an unrelated program from just
| after high school. By the time I enrolled in the B.S. program
| I had ~3 years of industry experience and a promotion on my
| belt. None of that (including my contributions to major open
| source projects, and other code samples that to this day I
| still think are high quality) made as big of a difference for
| hiring managers as the scrap of paper from a university. I
| didn't learn a damn thing and had to pay ~$20,000 for the
| privilege, lost out on time with my young son, etc. It's
| worth it for the security of knowing you will always be able
| to find a job on short notice, but it's also massively
| frustrating. I wish there was a B.S. equivalency exam of some
| kind that was taken seriously.
|
| Anyways, here are some of the advantages I see in hiring
| community college grads instead of or in addition to bootcamp
| grads, the other major way companies hire non-traditionally:
|
| 1. The students did have to put in at least a solid ~2 ish
| years and had to work on the fundamentals. A big one here is
| being able to step through code mentally, which is something
| we often forget has to be learned.
|
| 2. They are much more likely to actually like programming,
| given that they stuck with it for 2 years. I worry the
| shorter bootcamps sometimes aren't able to weed out highly
| intelligent people that nevertheless are going to end up
| hating the job, and that they are focused too much on front
| end web development that is flashier than a lot of the work
| many companies need done. So sometimes the candidate from a
| bootcamp may just like front end but hate more general
| programming.
|
| 3. You can't just copy code into a GitHub profile and have
| bootcamp instructors hold your hand through everything. If
| somebody with just an associates shows you code that isn't
| obviously some kind of brain teaser from a course exercise,
| you can bet they wrote it themselves without a lot of
| handholding. The code may suck compared to what you get from
| bootcamp grads, but it is significantly more representative
| of what the candidate will actually produce on the job.
|
| 4. I don't just hire web developers. There is no bootcamp I
| am aware of that teaches C programming or that goes through
| computer architecture and basic operating system stuff. All
| of that is covered by the local community colleges in their
| associates degree programs.
| [deleted]
| yummypaint wrote:
| 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.
| neilv wrote:
| Hobbies can be a complicated signal.
|
| Consider someone studying while also working to pay their way
| through school or support their family, vs. someone who has
| more free time.
|
| (I say this as someone with open source, which I wouldn't
| have been able to do, if I had anyone to support when I
| started the bulk of it. The open source helped get me a few
| very nice jobs, but I still would've had much of the skill
| and potential without that. So I don't want to over-fit, and
| exclude people with skills and potential, just because they
| had different circumstances than I did.)
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > 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.
| hgsgm wrote:
| What if my hobby is scholarship? Is knowledge and
| comprehension a bad hobby?
|
| Anyway it looks like you are filtering for rich people with
| free time.
| jacooper wrote:
| > 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?
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Notably absent from the article are the main things that _don 't
| appeal_ to certain people:
|
| You enjoy poverty wages and difficult co-workers. Also getting
| sick from students a lot. Also debates about in-person or online
| platforms.
|
| Source: Ex-wife is a tenured community college professor involved
| in governance as well
| westurner wrote:
| > _Learning to teach_
|
| To learn, teach.
| ipcress_file wrote:
| This is so true. You never understand a subject as thoroughly
| as you do after you've taught it. The act of distilling what
| you know and determining how to explain it clearly to others is
| as good for you as it is for them.
|
| Also, you have to learn a lot more than you actually teach in
| order to be ready for a range of possible questions.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| For contrast, there's also:
|
| _Those who can, do. Those who can 't, teach._
|
| Not that I 100% agree with that.
| lowken wrote:
| I want to community college for two years. Then I transferred to
| the University of Florida. Many of my community college
| professors were worlds better than their University of Florida
| counterparts.
|
| I don't put Palm Beach Community College on my resume but I
| wouldn't hesitate to recommend the community college path to a
| young person.
| 2b3a51 wrote:
| Some things that occurred to me while reading OA.
|
| I thought the page covered most things carefully and I suspect
| the students had a good experience.
|
| In the UK sessionally paid teaching can be just one class a week
| as an extra thing. There will be the dbs check and if you want to
| do this as a long term thing you will need to take a _basic_
| teaching qualification.
|
| Planning a course:
|
| Write down a series of sentences saying what the student should
| be able to do after the course. In the UK we call these 'learning
| outcomes'[1]. For something like the OA's example Introduction to
| HTML, CSS and Javascript you will end up with quite a few!
|
| Those learning outcomes will help you to devise a series of
| activities, see below. The outcomes can also help you to devise
| an assessment if the college requires that. Finally you can write
| a few sentences explaining what skills students should have to
| benefit from the course.
|
| Estimating time in class:
|
| Devise some practical activities for your students to complete
| tied closely to the learning outcomes (does not have to be 1 to 1
| mapping). Time yourself working through the activities - line by
| line. Multiply that by 6 or something like that. OA has worked
| out that instructions need to be fairly full.
|
| Then add time for the 'whole group' explanations (the bit where
| you stand up and explain stuff).
|
| IT classes:
|
| Your learning outcomes and activities will help you to list _all_
| the facilities you need. As OA found out Colleges can have quite
| locked down systems. Might be an idea to talk to technical
| support in the College through your contact there while planning.
|
| [1] http://www.bristol.ac.uk/academic-
| quality/approve/approvalgu...
|
| Above is just one I found doing a quick search. Seems pretty
| standard if wordy.
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| Anecdotal experience: my mom used to teach some adult classes
| in a UK college and while she loved the work she ultimately
| left because for every hour of teaching she had to do 4+ hours
| unpaid work (lesson plans etc) and prepare for endless
| inspections by people who knew a lot less about teaching than
| she did (she has 20+ years teaching experience).
| 2b3a51 wrote:
| The formal lesson planning has been cut back a bit these days
| (last 3 years or so). One of my employers went over to the
| 'five minute lesson plan' [1]. With a solid scheme of work
| (plan of the whole course) that works OK.
|
| I taught maths (basic level) and we had a team of something
| like 20 tutors so materials got produced and a common scheme
| of work got adapted as needed. All that cuts the work down,
| along with some amazing Web sites [2]. If you are the only
| teacher of a specialist subject, yes I admit the planning
| could be heavy the first time you run the course. Local
| management can be a factor sadly.
|
| Recent sad events in the UK news [3] I think will result in a
| change in approach from OFSTED. This will I think happen when
| the new OFSTED head is in post.
|
| [1] https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/5minplan/ [ I don't
| think we paid anything! And the differentiation bit is
| different for adult education]
|
| [3] e.g. https://www.skillsworkshop.org/ and
| https://corbettmaths.com/
|
| [3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-65207784
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| She used to teach a foreign language, so there was only one
| other teacher and yes management really was a problem. :(
|
| Good to hear that things have improved - it's been about 10
| years since she moved on to teaching privately.
| 2b3a51 wrote:
| The moment I saw foreign language I thought: better off
| in business sector
|
| Management can be abysmal. I've been lucky.
|
| Hope Mrs gbuk Senior is doing OK now.
| james-revisoai wrote:
| Can I speak to your mom? Apologies for the directness but I
| work with tech for UK colleges and would love to hear her
| view (and see if there has been change since).
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| She left the college about 10 years ago. At the time all
| she used was a smart whiteboard - the 2 different colleges
| she worked at had different brands with different software
| interfaces on her PC and this was a real pain she said -
| just as she got used to one she had to change to another
| one.
|
| Apart from that she just made her lesson plans in Word
| based on a basic template that the college provided.
| james-revisoai wrote:
| Thanks for the info!
|
| Seems like besides iPads in the classroom, little has
| changed.
| MontagFTB wrote:
| While attending UCLA, hands down one of my favorite professors
| was an adjunct from Cal State Northridge. The content he taught
| was delivered clearly and came with a sense of how we would end
| up using the material in jobs after graduation. He was
| authoritative in a way that was different from the school's pure
| professors.
| fn-mote wrote:
| Paraphrase: teaching a few classes at a community college can be
| great _for you_ , in the _begining_ , but probably not long term,
| and it is probably not great for your students.
|
| You are doing something new, learning to communicate, potentially
| even learning some new material or a new perspective on something
| you know. At the very least, you get inspiration to create new
| materials (for teaching).
|
| This experience is not _great for your students_. You are being
| trained on the job. They are looking for training. You are
| learning from the mistakes you make teaching them.
|
| This isn't necessarily horrible. You teaching the class could
| still be better than the next best alternative. But the fact that
| CC (in the US, in STEM, IME) are not paying enough for this to be
| a viable career means that you will never stay long enough to be
| an experienced teacher who has figured out a solid approach to
| teaching the classes and students that you teach.
| aaabre2476 wrote:
| The people teaching at the community colleges don't tend to be
| new at teaching, since you need to already be financially well
| off to be able to do it. And the credential requirements are
| still high enough that you can't just walk in without at least
| a Master's and some level of industry experience that would
| allow you to easily make more in industry.
|
| It isn't a "bootcamp" for aspiring professors. Think of it more
| as a public service for professors nearing retirement who
| actually like to teach and interact with the students.
| yummypaint wrote:
| For comparison, going to school at a large research university
| will mean many of your classes are taught by TAs who are
| themselves PhD students right out of undergrad who may not have
| taught before or have any interest in teaching. They may also
| grade most of your work and provide most of your feedback, at
| least until the highest level classes. Someone who at least has
| industry experience with mentoring and giving feedback might be
| preferable.
| pxc wrote:
| > But the fact that CC (in the US, in STEM, IME) are not paying
| enough for this to be a viable career means that you will never
| stay long enough to be an experienced teacher who has figured
| out a solid approach to teaching the classes and students that
| you teach.
|
| This wasn't my experience in community college in the US at
| all. I had a lot of instructors, including STEM instructors,
| who were very experienced and were in it because they loved to
| teach. Maybe part of what made that viable is that a state
| university also had a satellite campus in the same town, so for
| many of them, teaching at the community college was not their
| only job. Some of them also taught at that university, and many
| of _those_ instructors also taught some identical classes at
| the two institutions.
|
| My differential equations instructor, for example, even had a
| 'hard mode' section of that class at the community college
| every semester, which he taught in an identical fashion to the
| 300-level (third year) version of the course that he taught at
| the university. He told everyone in it that they could switch
| to one of the 'easy' ones if they preferred, because after all,
| it was at the community college and could only be offered for
| 200-level credit there. But that section of the course was
| really popular among the STEM-oriented students at the
| community college, who wanted to challenge themselves, get a
| deeper understanding, work more with proofs, better prepare for
| further education, etc.
|
| Practical computing topics, like Unix systems administration
| and networking, were usually taught by people who still worked
| in industry and only taught 1 or 2 classes at a time. But
| sometimes those instructors had been doing that 1 class of
| theirs for a few years at least, and then their classes were
| really good.
|
| I'm not sure what made each instructor like that choose to
| stick around and teach at the community college for years and
| years, but there were quite a few of them.
|
| There were also some instructors at the same school who didn't
| know what they were doing or didn't give a fuck, basically high
| school redux. But I dropped all the classes I had with teachers
| like that.
|
| There were a few gen eds that were taught by PhD students
| there, just like at a big university. But in those cases, they
| usually had already finished a master's degree, and the class
| was 12-20 people instead of 40-200. I found those classes to be
| pretty good, too.
|
| Overall I would say that in my experience, the quality of
| education for _intro_ -level courses and general education
| requirements is higher at the community colleges I went to than
| it was at the four-year university. (The in-major, senior-level
| courses at the university were phenomenal, though. Only a few
| of the community college courses rivaled those in quality,
| imo.)
| ZachSaucier wrote:
| You can do this sort of thing on a smaller scale but with similar
| results by volunteering for mentoring organizations like Underdog
| Devs, Vets Who Code, Operation Code, or another organization that
| helps underprivileged people try to get programming jobs.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I'm on an advisory board for the CS department at the local CC.
| They have a real problem hiring teachers, because their students
| end up making more than them at an entry level. And not just a
| little more, _a lot_ more. So anyone they hire to teach the
| material is poached almost immediately, or quits due to despair
| at the situation. Not sure how to fix this, but it 's a terrible
| situation for an educational institution.
| culopatin wrote:
| Does your CC require a PhD to teach basic COP classes?
| ModernMech wrote:
| No, it's a Master's or Bachelor's + experience that's
| required.
| dopeboy wrote:
| Can you ask them why they pay their teachers so little? I would
| think a CS lecturer is more valuable than your run of the mill
| admin.
| blandcoffee wrote:
| I don't dispute your claim (and am personally swayed of the
| argument of technical > admin in most situations) - do you
| have data that shows this disparity?
|
| Purely conjecture (which means absolutely nothing), I've
| always assumed that admin:faculty rates are similar, but the
| volume is where it matters (ie. 2x more admin:faculty in
| headcount).
| ModernMech wrote:
| What makes you assume run-of-the-mill admin at a CC are paid
| well, or better?
|
| Anyway, as far as the school is concerned, they can survive
| without a robust or effective CS department, but they can't
| survive without the admin, which is true. It takes a lot of
| work to run a college, and CS profs aren't the ones who do
| that.
|
| Paying more to better CS profs doesn't make financial sense,
| because they're not going to yield more students as a result.
| So they'd be dumping more money on a teacher to teach the
| same number of students. And no matter what they could pay
| them, it wouldn't be enough to offset what they could make in
| industry.
| 23B1 wrote:
| I taught at my local CC and it was a blast. I was relatively
| young at the time and more than a few of my students were older
| than me, so I probably learned a lot more than they did.
|
| I think HR (and frankly PR) departments would be very smart to
| connect themselves with schools in their area for tutoring or
| teaching at any level.
| tristor wrote:
| The pay isn't worth it, and you won't enjoy the company of most
| students. Instead, use VTO and guest lecture at the local
| community college or university. By guest lecturing you're time
| boxing your commitment, doing it for free, and the actually
| interested students will reach out.
|
| I've guest lectured twice and mentored 4 students met this way in
| their tech careers. Each class had 40-50 students in it but only
| one or two truly engaged with the material. Those engaged
| students will almost certainly have fantastic careers and are
| people you want in your network.
| jgrowl wrote:
| I paid off my entire college debt with my first paycheck. I lived
| at home and got my associates from a community college in
| Appalachia. I did well enough to get a small transfer scholarship
| at a state college to finish up my BS.
|
| You get what you put into it no matter where you go.
| culopatin wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway426079 wrote:
| Might also be someone who already had a career and wanted to do
| some teaching at the end of it
| pxc wrote:
| 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.
| culopatin wrote:
| Might be, but still limits your pool of candidates so much
| that you'll have to go with the first person that shows up.
| dazc wrote:
| The right candidate for this kind of job is unlikely to be
| motivated solely by money, so the fist person that shows up
| may not be that bad?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| 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, at least in the USA, is that college is extremely
| expensive so smart students who don't want massive debt or who
| can't tap parental wealth can do two years of work at a community
| college (with smaller classes) before transferring to a four-year
| school, saving tens of thousands of dollars along the way. Some
| community colleges have reoriented around this goal to attract
| students, but the tradeoff is that continuing education for
| adults and other vocational programs often get cut.
|
| 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.
|
| Note that teaching at a CC tends to require at least a Master's
| degreee in the field, and of course if you have large student
| loans the pay is to low to make any headway in paying them down.
| Incidentally, if you are planning to teach, LLMs have huge
| potential for new teachers to design a course with modern
| material. Of course grading students is going to be an issue and
| in-class testing is the only plausible alternative as LLMs can
| also write code and solve problems for students.
| pxc wrote:
| > 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.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > 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.
|
| My state's dual-enrollment program allowed dual enrollment
| for the final two high school years. Drawbacks of the program
| were that, if you used some of your electives in the first
| two high school years, you can't both graduate high school
| and take a STEM degree at the same time. In order to graduate
| high school you have to take an English/liberal arts heavy
| course load at the community college to fulfill the high
| school credit requirements. So at best you could get a high
| school diploma and a A.A. degree, but not an A.S. degree.
| Even then, in order to take only a single year of dual
| enrollment, I had to skip taking any physics course (HS or
| CC). Taking two years was a non-starter - I would have had to
| have skipped math and advanced Chemistry to do that.
|
| I would rectify the situation by either allowing dual-
| enrolled students to waive high school course requirements,
| and allow them to get a high school diploma just based on
| credits (or at least get a high school diploma as long as
| they also receive a 2-year degree). Or blatantly tell them
| that a high school diploma is irrelevant, _for them_ , as
| long as they have an associate's degree, and to go for the
| associate's degree instead of the diploma, and just let them
| walk with their high school cohort at high school graduation
| and hand them a dummy diploma.
|
| Also much better _individualized_ guidance counseling on dual
| enrollment.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > if you have large student loans the pay is to low to make any
| headway in paying them down
|
| The Public-service loan forgiveness program has been revamped
| to make it possible to get loan forgiveness now. Most people
| whose sole income is adjuncting at a CC aren't going to be
| making any payments. Of course the side effect of going the
| forgiveness route is that it can lock you into a low-paying
| public job for years.
| aaabre2476 wrote:
| In many cases it's literally the same instructors at the
| community college that teach the first two years of a CS program
| at the universities. Don't waste your money sitting in a room
| with 100 other students while the instructor is forced to move
| through a rigidly scheduled curriculum that is totally at odds
| with what students are actually struggling with. They all seem to
| prefer teaching at community colleges as well.
| CrampusDestrus wrote:
| My only gripe with this is that academic carreers and working in
| the field are not really interchangeable.
|
| I would have loved helping people learn by teaching a few classes
| after graduating, but would any company have hired me after
| seeing that's the only thing I did in those years?
|
| I love helping people and making the world better, and if I could
| I would switch between teaching at college and working in the
| industry every few years, but unfortunately it's not really
| possible
| msrenee wrote:
| Some of the lecturers at my local community college have
| regular jobs and do a course or two a year on the side. It's
| not their full-time job.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| This past Thursday (April 20) was my 25th work anniversary
| teaching at a community college. And while I agree wholeheartedly
| with everything in this blog post, they were not the reasons I
| set out teaching in this space.
|
| 25 years ago, I knew I wanted to build great teaching skills and
| genuinely make a difference in people's lives. But after spending
| almost a decade in the university space (and teaching a few
| courses), I realized that my abilities would be better spent
| teaching job-focused IT and programming courses at community
| college for two main reasons:
|
| 1) University students often come from privileged homes and/or
| have more supports while attending school, which makes my role as
| teacher less valuable to their development, and
|
| 2) Most community college students are focused on landing a job
| at the end of their program, and I felt I would make a bigger
| impact working with this drive in the classroom, while keeping
| current with the industry.
|
| I should also note that it's very important to work in the
| industry while teaching for personal and academic development.
| I've taken on 1-2 extracurricular projects each year since 1998
| that were outside of my comfort zone, and I don't think I would
| have taught for as long as I did if I didn't do this.
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