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I was reading the Notices of the AMS, and saw an advertisement for a part-time adjunct position for the "Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals" (https://ep.jhu.edu/about/teachforus/) in the Applied and Computational Mathematics (ACM) masters program. A lot of their courses are taught online.

Has anyone taught for this program as an adjunct, and can you share your experience?

Edit: I am currently a postdoc in theoretical mathematics (in the US). I consider trying to gain more experience teaching applied mathematics or computing in the hope that these experiences will help me get a permanent position in applied mathematics/computing in the future.

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    Focus on a permanent position. This would, I think, be less valuable than another postdoc if you can't come up with something permanent.
    – Buffy
    Jan 8, 2021 at 16:35
  • If you already live in or near Baltimore (or another city with a large university) you might try to work up something collaborative with the applied math folk. No money involved, just a sharing of ideas and maybe a project you could attach to.
    – Buffy
    Jan 8, 2021 at 17:06

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This answer is not specific to JHU and I have no experience there. But it might be useful background. An adjunct position is not a career and it is almost always poorly paid. Those people generally, who live off of such positions typically do "adjunct" for several institutions, have terrible overall teaching loads, and are still poorly paid.

The "ideal" adjunct for universities like JHU is someone who is already employed in industry (say), especially in research there, and who just wants a nighttime activity to keep them engaged a bit with academia and may love teaching. You would probably earn a small stipend per course, but, given that the salary of such a person is usually about double that of the full time faculty, it would probably not change your lifestyle. A retired person from industry who meets the qualifications and who wants to do something interesting, might find it worthwhile.

If you "sort of" fit that description it would be worth applying. If you are desperate for any (any) employment, then my might want to apply.

OTOH, some adjunct positions have union protections that the faculty doesn't have.

Whether it might lead to a permanent position depends on the institution and its rules. I think that at most you would get a small boost in a later application for a tenure-track position provided you fund a way to interact with other faculty. But it isn't really a path to such a position at that institution.

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