So you are an expert in a specific science. Your vast experience and experimentation in an exact field has put you in a level of your own, or perhaps at par with some of the world’s finest in the same category. Alright, humility included, you might not be in the league of the best however the knowledge that you acquired through long years of experience will tremendously help other people advance in the same endeavor. The question now is, are you willing to impart that wisdom down to the hungry youth of the academe, in short, do you want to be an adjunct professor?

An adjunct professor is a part time professor or instructor. One does not need to have a Ph.D. to be an adjunct instructor. To become one, the base requirement is to have a wealthy and in-depth experience and familiarity with the discipline to be shared. In fact, not having a degree creates a totally fresh atmosphere in the teaching profession. The learning experience that the students get veers away from your garden variety academic scenario – textbook accuracy – to a story-telling type of delivery, where the adjunct professor relates the lecture based on his/her personal encounter, the ups and downs, making it a livelier, true-to-life learning event.

And now you want to be an adjunct professor. The challenge is time management. You should be able to switch from your regular day job to your adjunct profession without any of those two endeavors suffering in terms of responsibility and service being rendered. Flexibility is the key. Your current company might not be too hot in allowing you to exert extra efforts outside company hours for fear that it might affect your job performance so make sure you are covered on that end. By computation, for an hour in the lecture circuit, at least three extra hours will be spent on preparation and research, checking on students’ papers, and self studying. Of course a considerable amount of this will be shaved when you get the feel of the job, and of course, you keep on repeating the same lectures, with very few variations, semester after semester.

Once you get started, always remember, make teaching a fun activity. If you feel anxious about talking in front of a large crowd of people who expects to make the most out of what you are about to say, look back at the days when you are the one sitting waiting for your professor to teach you something THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW YET. Yes that is it, they do not know anything and you will be making it worth their while to listen to you.