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I have recently finished my MS in biology and will be beginning in a PhD program this upcoming semester. I was recently offered an adjunct position at a community college to teach a summer course. It is an 8-week course requiring 8 contact hours per week (4 lecture and 4 lab). I have read/been informed that it is reasonable to expect 2-4 hours of prep work per hour of class time, considering the course is slightly outside of my area of focus and it would be my first-time teaching (outside of guest lecturing and tutoring). When accounting for the time needed to grade, respond to emails, etc., I am worried this single course could turn into a full time obligation (i.e., ~40 hours a week).

I am already working part-time as a research assistant for the university and am working on drafting a manuscript from my thesis work to submit for publication at the end of this summer. I would also like to spend some time with friends and family prior to starting my PhD, as I will be moving ~7000 km.

In the past, I have been advised by professors/researchers to make sure I don't take on too much simultaneously and to rather focus on the top few priorities. I have a tendency to spread myself a bit thin at times.

I am worried that by accepting this position I might be doing just that. I don't want to begin my PhD feeling like I have already been burning myself on both ends for 2-months prior. However, I am equally worried that by turning down the position I will be missing out on 1) an opportunity to grow as an academic by learning and teaching a course in my field that is outside of my usual comfort zone and 2) a strong CV builder.

My questions are:

-Is it reasonable to expect a demanding course to take 2-4 hours of prep time per 1 hour of class/lab time for a first-time instructor?

-Would passing on such an opportunity likely limit my growth as an academic/student or job prospects following the completion of my graduate studies?

-How much teaching experience will be expected upon completion of my PhD (or how much would 'extra' teaching stand out)? In other words, is this such a good opportunity that I would be 'silly' for letting it pass?

(For more context, I am interested in a career in research and plan to apply to R1 or R2 universities but would like to keep the option to work for other types of universities open. I will be a TA for at least 1 year during my PhD.)

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  • Please limit you inquiry to one question per post, otherwise it might get closed due to not being focused enough.
    – Sursula
    Commented May 28 at 7:34
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    Unless you really need the extra money, to me teaching this course on top of everything else you'll be doing this summer sounds like too much for only teaching one course for one summer session. Missing from the information you provided is how much teaching you can reasonably expect to do in your Ph.D. program. In my field and in the U.S. most students will teach several courses before finishing their Ph.D., and so one additional course (especially a summer school course, which probably ranks lower for experience than an academic year course) would not provide much of an additional advantage.
    – Dave L Renfro
    Commented May 28 at 13:53

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I have a tendency to spread myself a bit thin at times....I am worried that by accepting this position I might be doing just that.

Most definitely. You are considering:

  • Teaching a course outside of your expertise for the first time. Preparing the lectures alone will easily take 20+ hrs/week. Hopefully the labs are already planned and you can use an online (auto-graded) homework system; otherwise, those activities will also take a lot of time. You are right to suspect this could be a full-time job in itself.
  • Working as an RA -- presumably at least 20 hrs/week, otherwise it's not really worth doing
  • Preparing a manuscript based on your thesis work -- presumably at least 10 hrs/week

I recommend that you choose either the teaching or the research, not both. It is true that research is more important than teaching generally, but frankly you are 5+ years pre-PhD, so I think this choice will have little effect on your long-term career. So, I would choose whichever one you are more excited about.

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This type of teaching experience is not very useful to your CV, I think, even at teaching-focused institutions down the road. If you'd like to pivot towards teaching experience during your PhD, there should be some opportunity past the one year of TAing.

If you want to be competitive for R1/R2 tenure track jobs down the line, then (1) They will almost exclusively care about research and (2) You will almost certainly also have to do a postdoc after your PhD. So there is even more time on the back end to pivot towards teaching if that's what you decide to do.

You shouldn't make lists of questions, but they are short. To the less important ones:

  • 2:1 prep:lecture ratio is on the short side for new classes in my experience, even for reasonably experienced people. That's especially true if you don't have a syllabus, lesson plans, or other materials available already. 3:1-4:1 sounds plausible, you'd probably be on the longer end if you're totally new.
  • Teaching expectations vary by job type, but... frankly, for R1/R2 tenure-track jobs in STEM, I think they barely matter at all. That's from experience at department meetings discussing hiring. Keeping a research program going and getting grant money is considered substantially harder than becoming an adequate teacher.
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