How to Become a College Professor

Full-time, tenured college professors must hold doctoral degrees - Ph.D.s. They supervise graduate students, conduct research, write textbooks, give lectures and teach from 3 to 16 hours per week. For an individual who loves communicating knowledge and conducting research in a chosen field, this can be a dream job. However, competition is increasingly fierce today for dwindling numbers of those positions.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Realize that you must hold a Ph.D. in your field to even apply to be a tenured professor at a university or four-year college. To obtain a Ph.D., you will have to study for a minimum of six to eight years beyond the bachelor's degree. Decide if you want to make that commitment.

2. Maintain a high grade point average so that you can receive your bachelor's degree with honors and be admitted to the graduate school of your choice for your master's degree.

3. Consult your counselor for the best academic route to take toward obtaining a Ph.D. and any teaching credentials you might need. You should know where you would like to obtain the Ph.D. so that you can take all necessary prerequisite courses.

4. Complete the master's degree, keeping your writing skills sharp and your grade point average high so that you will be admitted into the doctoral degree program of your choice. Your Ph.D. dissertation will take about three years to complete; its quality will determine if you will be considered seriously as a possible full-time professor.

5. Apply for a full-time university teaching position after you have your Ph.D., but not until after you also have some published writings of high quality. You'll also need to have some teaching experience as a part-time or assistant professor.

6. Understand that if you are lucky enough to be accepted to a tenure track, there will be a mandatory seven-year trial period before you receive tenure. After those seven years, you may be asked to leave. To prevent that from happening, devote your time to improving the quality of your teaching and your publications, since they are both critical to your being approved for the permanent position.

Tips & Warnings

• Decide if your dream is to spend all your time teaching. A tenured professor spends more time on research-related work than on actual teaching. But full-time teachers at two-year colleges spend their working hours teaching and preparing for classes, and those positions often require only a master's degree. Just be aware that some competition from unemployed professors can exist there.
• Check with universities and four-year colleges about their policies for hiring teachers with master's degrees for certain part-time or temporary positions.
• Consider receiving an advanced degree in a field that needs more full-time professors, such as business, engineering, health science or computer science. These fields can also offer job security in the private sector if you are unable to find a university teaching job.
• Realize that there is fierce competition among teachers wanting to become full-time, tenured university professors. Concentrate on doing only excellent work throughout your undergraduate and graduate years if you want to stand out.
• To save costs, universities are continuing to hire part-time professors, who do not receive the benefits of full-time faculty.
• Don't count on filling the position of a retiring professor. Many of those tenured positions are remaining unfilled.

Who Can Help Sponsored

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[angelknight]

on 11/19/2009 I have been teaching as an adjunct (part time instructor) for five years. Even for most adjuncting positions, a masters and 18 credit hours is the norm. This is why my most liberal art doctorates require a minor as well as major. For me to move into a full time slot, I would really need an MFA or a PhD or 10 years of full time field experience. Many community/technical schools also have field experience requirements. Start looking for work early, so you can find out what is required of you in your field.

[lifelerner]

on 11/4/2009 Sorry, my previous post was partially cut off. Here is a repost of the missing part:

In my opinion, that makes light of the whole purpose. In other words, an education doctorate in curriculum or administration (the two most sought) cannot teach reading, math or science courses for educators UNLESS they have at least 18 hours in each specific area. No doctoral program covers that kind of scope unless, for example, a person gets a doctorate in reading instruction.

[lifelerner]

on 11/4/2009 Two comments on the post. First, I am just finishing my doctoral studies and beginning work on the dissertation. My school does not allow students to begin the dissertation process until AFTER all doctoral coursework is completed. Some aggressive students have been able to shave off a semester during coursework but the dissertation timeframe requirement is a minimum of one year after coursework. In other words, three year minimum at my university. Secondly, you are not admitted into the program with anything less than a Masters. I am amazed at some of these posts that state that people are bypassing the Masters and being admitted into doctoral study programs.

One final comment. I have begun looking at teaching at a university and am discovering that they want a minimum of 18 hours of coursework specific to the class content regardless of doctorate work. In my opinion, that makes li...

[chemistk]

on 7/1/2009 The length of time required to complete a PhD degree really depends on how hard you work and how lucky you are. Some people work the typical 9-5 8 hour day whereas others work 12 hour days + weekends. Those who rush to complete their graduate studies and try to ask their professors to let them graduate earlier may not be as well prepared for future work compared to those who have 6-8 years of experience. Plus, there are always the gifted scholar who will always have that one step ahead of us no matter how hard we work.

And! Yes, there are people who complete their PhD degrees in 3 years (mostly in the UK), but employers do take into account a 3 year degree relative to a North American 5 year degree and any appropriate publications within that time period.

[sweetchica86]

on 2/24/2009 It is also misleading to say one must obtain a master's degree first. I'm a graduating senior now, and I'm about to enroll in a Ph.D. program for this coming Fall semester. On top of that, I know plenty of people who've completed dissertations in less than 3 years. This sounds more like someone explaining his or her personal experience becoming a professor rather than discussing the essentials to becoming one.