Teaching at Community College

by Chad Agrawal

Teaching At Community College

If you're looking to earn a teaching certificate or degree you are likely aware that there are several options you could pursue when it comes to teaching jobs.

Many young college grads are interested in reaching out to younger students, so they opt to teach on the K-12 circuit.

Some like the idea of molding young minds while others feel like they can relate to the high-school crowd and use their own recent experience to help these kids get to college themselves.

Many teachers have to decide if they want to work in public, private, or charter schools, as well as whether they want to go with traditional educational systems or if they prefer a particular style such as Montessori.

And then there are those that prefer to teach at community college.

And if you want to teach in a community college setting, using your knowledge and skills on behalf of students that might need a little extra help getting to the university level, then there are a few steps you'll need to take.

Tips For Teaching At Community College

The first thing you should probably do is attend a community college yourself.

How better to figure out what community college students need than to spend time in their shoes, viewing the experience through the eyes of a student?

There are bound to be many parts of the experience that you enjoy, as well as some changes you'd like to see made in this educational setting.

When you become an educator yourself you may have the opportunity to emulate the aspects of your own experience that you found appealing and potentially even implement changes for the better so that the students you teach will get the very best you have to offer as an instructor.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as finishing out your own time at community college and then applying for a job.

If you want to become a full-time professor at the community college level you will almost certainly have to obtain a master's degree, including a set number of graduate-level courses in the subject you prefer to teach.

Of course, the requirements for hire vary from one community college to the next, so you really need to call the schools you're interested in working at to determine the educational goals you're going to set for yourself.

But if you're going to make a career out of teaching at community college, you can pretty much plan on a master's degree at minimum.

From there you really need to think about the type of coursework you're interested in teaching.

At the high-school level (or lower) you may need to have enough general knowledge to teach several subjects, but this is not the case in community college.

You will probably be confined to a particular discipline such as English, Math, Science, and so on.

So while you might obtain a master of public administration with the eventual goal of going into educational administration somewhere down the line, you'll also need to think about what coursework you want to focus on as a teacher in the meantime so that you have enough classes under your belt to be eligible for a teaching position in that discipline (a bachelor's degree in a core subject will generally qualify).

And don't forget that many positions for teaching at community college are part-time and adjunct positions.

On top of that, funds to hire full-time faculty are limited.

So don't be surprised if you are unable to nab a full-time position right off the bat.

This post was written by Chad Agrawal

Chad Agrawal is the founder of CCTS, helping students transfer from community college to Ivy League, tier 1 or anywhere else by following this community college guide.

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