Did You Work Outside of Academia Before Becoming a FT or PT Faculty?

[ciao_yall]

Yes. I worked in the private sector in finance and marketing before coming to a local CC to teach business.

While I worked with my share of non-ops and nutjobs in the private sector, I will say for certain that government employees have a reputation for a reason. How our local schools and public agencies manage to keep the lights on is kind of a mystery.

[RatGuy]

After I got my BA, I worked first for an oil and gas company in the MIS department, then later in the supply and materials department for a private hospital. The first was cushy and paid well, while the second was physically demanding and paid less. This was in a major city with a state flagship university. I randomly met a Dean at that unversity who recruited me for a new non-traditional master's program, and from there went to grad school for my PhD elsewhere. I was 30 when I started my grad coursework in the humanities. Had a VAP upon graduation, then my current position. Does that count?

[secundem_artem]

In high school, I spent 1 summer shoveling pig sh!t and another summer working for a pipe organ builder.  3 years bagging groceries.

Finished undergrad, got licensed, spent 5 years in practice.  That sucks.  Back to school - 4 more years.  Back to practice - still sucks.  Ran into the bosom of the university and I ain't moving.  Ever.

[polly_mer]

After reading through what people wrote that lists a lot of no-college-required, bill-paying jobs with far fewer professional class jobs, the more relevant questions in my mind for my faculty colleagues include:

* How recently did you work a job like the one your students want to get after they successfully complete their college education?

* Could you get a professional class job again (if you had to because your family would literally starve) with the skills, attitudes, and network you have now?

* Can you translate the frustrations of your current academic job along with previous experience in any professional class job into something that would help your students function as part of the professional class, regardless of their current major?

Mamselle has a good explicit explanation of a successful path that doesn't require a specific major.  My week has been astounding in terms of how much the job requires functioning in a rapidly changing environment with absurd levels of constraints and several sets of internal bureaucracies not adequately discussing individual big plans that affect thousands of people while still staying on track to get my highly-specialized, using-that-specific-PhD work done to meet the deadlines.

I think of the discussion on why are grades due so soon at the end of the term that evolved into how are faculty supposed to meet some other requirements like providing a meaningful graded assignment in the first two weeks or so of class and say, hey, that's my current life.  The most useful part of my professional life before academia was how to deal with far too many competing priorities that couldn't possibly be done in the time allotted.  The most useful part of my academic life that translates into my current job is how to deal with what to do in a bureaucratic system that doesn't have the various parts talk to each other so that a substantial portion of my time could be dealing with the bureaucracy and yet I still have to get job-specific stuff done within the time constraints much like a college term.

I remember a couple minimum wage jobs as a teenager being hard because there was almost no downtime (15-minute break once per 8h shift in addition to a 30-minute lunch break) and they were physically demanding enough that, like Backatit, I couldn't do them now at 40 hours per week for very long.  However, after a couple weeks on the job, most people of average intelligence giving a reasonable effort were proficient.

The increasingly-loud calls in many quarters regarding how professional class work will change in coming years related to additional automation makes me wonder what we as a society do when (a) we don't need nearly as many college-and-more educated people as can be legitimately sent through the system and (b) the average person falls below what's necessary to function in the professional class environment because it's too complicated.

[mahagonny]

* Could you get a professional class job again (if you had to because your family would literally starve) with the skills, attitudes, and network you have now?

I have a professional class job now. I'm a college professor. That is why I advocate for the work conditions that are the right fit for the worker and his work, and why I regard someone who fights the advocacy as an anarchist. a saboteur.

[Wahoo Redux]

The increasingly-loud calls in many quarters regarding how professional class work will change in coming years related to additional automation makes me wonder what we as a society do when (a) we don't need nearly as many college-and-more educated people as can be legitimately sent through the system and (b) the average person falls below what's necessary to function in the professional class environment because it's too complicated.

Well, there's this which argues that what we need are more college education in the soft skills because so much pattern / functionary work of the future will be automated.   

But the case against education is also being made at a time when the skills higher education was built upon are actually increasing in value.

According to one recent report, technology's transformation of the workplace is fueling demand for so-called human skills -- those that involve insight, creativity and other mental processes that cannot be easily automated. Advanced technical skills, which involve consistent procedures and patterns are, in contrast, far more vulnerable to automation.

If higher education can't teach these human skills -- of all things -- then what is the point? I believe higher education can -- in fact, it must. Rather than building a "case against education," experts like Caplan build a case against education as usual.

Polly's own link provides a similar perspective:

Even as some high-status professions face possible AI disruption, economists are generally optimistic about the future of employment. Few are predicting anything like the end of work as we know it in coming decades. The challenge, says Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor of management science and information technology at MIT, is finding ways to transition people away from work where machines are outpacing humans and into jobs where they will be most needed.

[marshwiggle]

The increasingly-loud calls in many quarters regarding how professional class work will change in coming years related to additional automation makes me wonder what we as a society do when (a) we don't need nearly as many college-and-more educated people as can be legitimately sent through the system and (b) the average person falls below what's necessary to function in the professional class environment because it's too complicated.

Well, there's this which argues that what we need are more college education in the soft skills because so much pattern / functionary work of the future will be automated.   

Part of the issue here is the range of abilities of students graduating even from the same programs. From most programs, A students have probably got a lot of the important skills they can use in lots of places. On the other hand, C students probably have very few. (The book Academically Adrift addressed this.) My personal guess is that it's something like a geometric progression in letter grades; i.e.

• An A student knows twice as much as a B student
• A B student knows twice as much as a C student

so the A student and the C student can hardly even be compared in terms of ability.

[tuxthepenguin]

the more relevant questions in my mind for my faculty colleagues include:

* How recently did you work a job like the one your students want to get after they successfully complete their college education?

Which of the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of those jobs are you referencing? They're not taking my class because they want to be my apprentice. They're required to learn certain material.

* Could you get a professional class job again (if you had to because your family would literally starve) with the skills, attitudes, and network you have now?

Probably not. Age discrimination is extreme in the private sector. I had several "professional class" offers though.

* Can you translate the frustrations of your current academic job along with previous experience in any professional class job into something that would help your students function as part of the professional class, regardless of their current major?

As long as it's related to the course.

[mamselle]

There are a few flaws in the idea that a grade determines everything a student can know about whatever is needed to get a job.

As in, Eddie James, who made mostly C's in second grade, could tear a lawnmower engine apart and put it together and used to ask kids over to his garage to watch him do it.

If even a few of those mad skillz stayed with him throughout his life, he's probably done pretty well for himself.

M.

[jerseyjay]

After reading through what people wrote that lists a lot of no-college-required, bill-paying jobs with far fewer professional class jobs, the more relevant questions in my mind for my faculty colleagues include:

* How recently did you work a job like the one your students want to get after they successfully complete their college education?

Few of my students want to be college professors--and if any of them wants to become one, it is unlikely he or she will. That said, if by this you mean a professional middle-class job that has decent benefits and pay, I think I have a job of the type most want. I would certainly put full-time professor on the "professional class" list.

The last time I had a non-academic professional job was five years ago, before going on the tenure track. And it paid less than I make now, and was harder work.

* Could you get a professional class job again (if you had to because your family would literally starve) with the skills, attitudes, and network you have now?

I could probably get my last job back, or one like it. The older I get, the harder it is to get any job other than those directly related to what I have. I assume this is true for many professionals.

* Can you translate the frustrations of your current academic job along with previous experience in any professional class job into something that would help your students function as part of the professional class, regardless of their current major?

Again, I think that being a professor is a professional class job, just like being a doctor, lawyer, or banker is. It probably makes less money, but it is a professional class job. My friends who have these jobs have similar experiences I have at work--with very different details of course.

[marshwiggle]

There are a few flaws in the idea that a grade determines everything a student can know about whatever is needed to get a job.

As in, Eddie James, who made mostly C's in second grade, could tear a lawnmower engine apart and put it together and used to ask kids over to his garage to watch him do it.

But that's the point. He probably didn't take a course in the second grade about lawn mower repair. Kids weren't coming to his garage to see him do the things he got C's in.

If even a few of those mad skillz stayed with him throughout his life, he's probably done pretty well for himself.

M.

Absolutely. People can get decent employment doing things they are particularly good at, whether because of innate talent and/or interest, or formal training. But formal training that someone only did "meh" at is not going to get them employed to use that skill.

[Caracal]

Absolutely. People can get decent employment doing things they are particularly good at, whether because of innate talent and/or interest, or formal training. But formal training that someone only did "meh" at is not going to get them employed to use that skill.

Doesn't most of this apply to people who want to get some sort of graduate degree? Obviously you can't usually get into a good medical school if you had mediocre grades in pre-med classes and English programs aren't usually going to be interested in people who got Cs in English. But really how many undergrad majors could be described as formal training for a particular field?

[marshwiggle]

Absolutely. People can get decent employment doing things they are particularly good at, whether because of innate talent and/or interest, or formal training. But formal training that someone only did "meh" at is not going to get them employed to use that skill.

Doesn't most of this apply to people who want to get some sort of graduate degree? Obviously you can't usually get into a good medical school if you had mediocre grades in pre-med classes and English programs aren't usually going to be interested in people who got Cs in English. But really how many undergrad majors could be described as formal training for a particular field?

My point was that, as I indicated upthread, if an employer needs workers with "soft skills", such as "oral and written communication", do you think an English graduate with a C has good written communication skills? Not likely.

[Kron3007]

Absolutely. People can get decent employment doing things they are particularly good at, whether because of innate talent and/or interest, or formal training. But formal training that someone only did "meh" at is not going to get them employed to use that skill.

Doesn't most of this apply to people who want to get some sort of graduate degree? Obviously you can't usually get into a good medical school if you had mediocre grades in pre-med classes and English programs aren't usually going to be interested in people who got Cs in English. But really how many undergrad majors could be described as formal training for a particular field?

My point was that, as I indicated upthread, if an employer needs workers with "soft skills", such as "oral and written communication", do you think an English graduate with a C has good written communication skills? Not likely.

I have seen the use of grades to recruit students and employees fail too many times to put much stock in them.  What good grades really means is that the student is good at performing the tests we put in front of them.  They likely do know the subject material better than most C students, but it is s poor criteria to use for selecting grad students or employees IMO.  In many cases, I would prefer the C student who worked through university and knows how to turn a screw over the A student who has never had a real job and may or may not be resourceful.  The best is when you find both qualities in one person, but it is not always easy to spot.

Regarding the OP, I took a year off after high school and worked on a farm to save up cash.  While I enjoyed aspects of the job and was somewhat sad to leave (although I stayed on part time through much of my undergrad) I cant imagine still being there.  It really had little upward opportunities and physically I dont know that I could still do it, but perhaps I could if I had not left.  Other than that, I worked periodically between degrees in construction and in research programs as a tech.

So, I have not really held a job most of my students would be training for (other than faculty), but that is not overly relevant.  I am not training them for a job, simply teaching them about specific topics.  Regarding if I could get a job in the field, I have had offers, so yes, I could.   

[Wahoo Redux]

My point was that, as I indicated upthread, if an employer needs workers with "soft skills", such as "oral and written communication", do you think an English graduate with a C has good written communication skills? Not likely.

I wonder how much time you've actually spent in front of the classroom, Marshy.

There are many reasons students get Cs and Ds as well as As and Bs.

I have given very good writers Cs on their work because, frankly, they don't care all that much to do the hard work.  They are perfectly good communicators, and will do fine in the working world, but they simply want the piece of paper and don't particularly care what grades they get; their focus is the job they will get down the line.  On the other hand, I have givens Cs to people who are overcoming personal issues, cultural issues (such as poverty or abusive households growing up), who were poorly trained in the secondary schooling, who have a learning disability diagnosed or not diagnosed, or some combination of all of these----most of these people have taken advantage of rewriting options on my syllabus, my help during office hours, and writing centers to work up to A and B-level work. 

And sure, sometimes one gets the student who really should be looking for some other pathway in life.  Seldom are the "poor communicators" English majors in my experience; these are people who read and like to write.  In fact, I am generally overjoyed when I get an English major in one of my classes.

You're just puffing stereotypes that don't really exist, Marshy.