What can a final year PhD student do to prepare for teaching mathematics at a university level, despite complications due to mental health?

Question

Background:

I'm a third-year PhD student in the UK (where doctorates last a minimum of three years and a maximum of four). I have taught at least one undergraduate tutorial of about 20 students each term since September 2022. Unfortunately, I have schizophrenia, which involves avolition, meaning that some days I cannot get out of bed, much less teach a tutorial; I made about a third of my tutorials in the spring term this year.

I spend a lot of time on Mathematics SE. I have about 47 thousand reputation points. Most of that is from answering questions.

My goal is to be a research-track mathematician. That entails teaching at a university level and supervising projects. I want to stand out, teaching-wise, as a candidate for an academic position in spite of my current (and likely ongoing) mental health.

The Question:

What can a final-year PhD student in mathematics do now, in my situation, to prepare for teaching at university?

Answer 1

You are likely to really struggle with a lecturer role. As others have said, reliably delivering lectures is a core requirement of the role. Unfortunately, as you say, research and lecturing are generally both requirements of higher level academic positions.

Your most realistic route may be looking into research technician/associate type roles, and applying for research fellowships. You may be able to find interesting work on projects other people have funding for, and if you can land a research fellowship you would be able to pursue some of your own research too. For example, the London Mathematical Society has early career research fellowships which specifically limit teaching to a maximum of three hours a week.

Theoretically you could try finding a position where you share a teaching load with another academic, where they handle face time and you handle async stuff like marking, but this may be a hard sell to an institution. You may also be able to supervise individual student projects, as it is likely to be less of an issue to rearrange 1-1 meetings.

Negotiating unusual roles like this will go a lot better if you have made good contacts with a high opinion of your research potential, so you will need to work extra hard at giving people a good impression, communicating clearly about any delays in your work, and producing good work. There is also a lot of stigma about schizophrenia, so you may find it helpful to make sure you appear extra polished and professional when you do interact with people.

Finally, I highly recommend joining UCU (the University and College Union). They will be able to give you advice and support with things like negotiating reasonable accommodations.

Answer 2

I have schizophrenia, which involves avolition, meaning that some days I cannot get out of bed, much less teach a tutorial; I made about a third of my tutorials in the spring term this year.

As Bryan mentions, this is a bit beyond "reasonable accommodations" for a lecturer. Presuming this is unpredictable, it would not be reasonable to have to pull in a colleague to lecture for you on a given day

Thus, if you want to stand out, I would suggest you search for experience teaching online, asynchronous classes. In this setting, you would record lectures, and respond to student work on mostly your own schedule.

I'm not very familiar with UK academia, but the comments tell me the Open University (>100,000 undergraduates) and Birkbeck, Unviersity College London would be the places to look for this sort of job in the UK.

If you can demonstrate you are effective in this context, you can apply to universities that offer intro-level asynchronous courses that you could take the lead on.

Answer 3

Have you considered a research institute?

I don't know how they work in your country, but in some places in Europe they are essentially academic research without the teaching. It may provide better flexibility.

Answer 4

The way university teaching is typically organized means that getting someone to cover for your lectures isn't really feasible. If you are likely to miss lecturing more than once or twice a term on short notice, a usual lecturing role wouldn't really work out. Note that the core requirement is to deliver the lecture, so if you can get to the point where even on a bad day to can do maybe 2h of work, it becomes much more feasible to arrange things. Your research you can do whenever.

You might find a position specific for asynchronous teaching, but that means restricting yourself to a small fraction of positions overall on an already very harsh job market. If you have the chance to develop substantial online teaching material this could at least give you an advantage if such a position does get advertised.

Finally, you should consider applying for CNRS in France. These are permanent positions awarded purely on research merit. It is common for CNRS fellows to also do some teaching, but this is an extra rather than a core job duty.

Answer 5

It is difficult to "stand out" in anything until you gain experience and so, hard for someone in the early career. In a different field, Venus Williams turned tennis pro at age 14 and was an immediate success. But, she had an immense amount of experience as a junior. Something like 900 wins, IIRC.

As with most other things, one learns best by doing and you suggest that this is your math philosophy also, which is good. And most of us do poorly at the start, though we probably don't recognize that until later (as I did not, being too rigid initially).

There are books on teaching math at university level, though I've never used any such. Some turned up by an internet search are probably a good place to start.

I think the most important aspect of my own teaching philosophy (40+ years of experience) is that every student that wants to learn can succeed on their own terms. That doesn't mean full marks for everyone, as they need to put in the effort. But nothing in my teaching/grading regimen should stand in their way.

The next most important, IMO, is answering questions with minimal information to get students over a block rather than to give them an answer. But yes, provide channels to answer questions as they arise, even when not face to face.

If your students describe you as "tough, but fair" you are probably doing a good job ("probably", not necessarily).

And, I tried to learn to emulate those professors that I had that I thought did the best job in driving my own education. I've had a number of mentors along the way, one very important one was even in a different sub-field. I tried to emulate him and the others, though it took a long time to find my own way.

My best guess is that most of us learned to teach in just this way: trying to emulate our mentors and those whose guidance we valued.

This is all independent of health issues, which need to addressed differently, but specifically.

At a minimum, though, you need to assure coverage when you can't be there, for whatever reason. I once (over several years) was involved in a practice called "pair teaching" in which two of us covered the course and were always present for class sessions. One of us would take the lead at any given moment and the other would observe and comment as necessary. Perhaps you could explore that idea though it would require some variation and the assent of the university.