Life as a lecturer

samsamson

Hi guys,

I'm wondering if I could get some "real-world" accounts of being a lecturer in a 3rd level institution in Ireland. There's a lot of things I'm curious about and getting specific answers from Google has proven difficult!

For example, between lecturing and doing research, how many hours a week do you work?

Do you actually have a long summer break while the students are all off or do you spend it doing research?

Is it a stressful career?

Does doing research (a prerequisite for being a lecturer) actually add anything to your take-home pay on top of your lecturer salary?

Have you been able to choose what research you do based on your own interests, or have you been forced into certain areas?

I'd very much appreciate any details about what it's really like to be a lecturer, beyond all the assumptions that are floating around out there!

Thanks in advance!

Sam

Geuze

This info is about a typical IoT lecturer.

16-18 hrs teaching pw

70 days = 14 weeks annual leave

Research = no extra pay, but prestige, I suppose

AFAIK, automatic promotion from AL scale to L scale, after time served

Geuze

Uni lecturer - varies, so this is only a rough estimate

Teaching - hard to say, from 100-150 direct teaching hours per annum, but that could vary a lot

Expected to have a Ph.D.

Research - pressure from every angle to publish

Promotion - usually linked to publications

Projects / funding - pressure to apply for and win external funding

Supervision - expected to supervise Masters and Ph.D candidates

samsamson

Thank very much for taking the time to reply Geuze, that's some really interesting information!

ucdperson

Uni lecturer - varies, so this is only a rough estimate

a rule of thumb is 40 - 40 -20

40% of time on teaching, preparation, delivery, answering emails, grading, exam boards etc
supervison of MScs probably in here as well.
40% of time on research - publishing, but also refereeing, running conferences etc.
20% on admin - running programmes, library committees etc

obviously this can vary a bit

Have you been able to choose what research you do based on your own interests, or have you been forced into certain areas?

This question would need a very long answer, I suspect. It would differ greatly from discipline to discipline. For instance in the Science area there could be teams and big funded projects, so pressure to do what everyone else is doing. Arts or Law imight be quite different.

DeepSleeper

samsamson wrote: »

Hi guys,


For example, between lecturing and doing research, how many hours a week do you work?

Do you actually have a long summer break while the students are all off or do you spend it doing research?

Is it a stressful career?

Does doing research (a prerequisite for being a lecturer) actually add anything to your take-home pay on top of your lecturer salary?

Have you been able to choose what research you do based on your own interests, or have you been forced into certain areas?

I'd very much appreciate any details about what it's really like to be a lecturer, beyond all the assumptions that are floating around out there!

Thanks in advance!

Sam

From what I've seen on the edge of profession (I'm not a lecturer, but I have lectured on particular courses in the humanities), a full time university lecturer in the humanities will usually be working about 60hrs a week - the universities don't want to hear this due to European working-time directives and so they as their staff for a breakdown of their teaching/research/admin workload in percentage terms rather than in terms of real hours. However, the majority of lecturers work far in excess of 40hrs per week and are not entitled to overtime, extra pay for research undertaken or anything like that.

Summer breaks tend to be just a couple of weeks holiday and the rest is spent working - the long summer holiday is something of a myth in the areas I'm familiar with, but it may exist elsewhere.

As far as I can see it is a very, very stressful career - low budgets, ever rising student numbers and ever rising pressure to publish makes for lots of stress.

Most academics I know would research in their own areas of specialisation and would not be pushed into other areas.

Figerty

Geuze wrote: »

This info is about a typical IoT lecturer.

16-18 hrs teaching pw

70 days = 14 weeks annual leave

Research = no extra pay, but prestige, I suppose

AFAIK, automatic promotion from AL scale to L scale, after time served

18 hours average.. with a max of 560 hours of teaching per year.
Al to L progression is more than just time served. There are conditions and requirements that make it manageable.. If you can lecture/teach 18 hours per week then you are going to be tired at the end of the week.

There is usually a lot going on with course reviews, new programmes, exams, promotional work, corrections, admin work, and of course lectures!

The structure is more tightly controlled than the uni sector and the pay scale is comparable if not slight higher at the lecturer end in the Uni.

Research can be carried out and depending on the funding hours can be bought out. There is no blocking although things are begining to move in that direction. Courses run from Level 6 to Phd. So there is a massive range.. more university than the universities in many ways!

In the IOT sector you are primarily there to teach... if you can't teach then you are a manager!

ulysses32

samsamson wrote: »

Hi guys,

I'm wondering if I could get some "real-world" accounts of being a lecturer in a 3rd level institution in Ireland. There's a lot of things I'm curious about and getting specific answers from Google has proven difficult!

For example, between lecturing and doing research, how many hours a week do you work?

Do you actually have a long summer break while the students are all off or do you spend it doing research?

Is it a stressful career?

Does doing research (a prerequisite for being a lecturer) actually add anything to your take-home pay on top of your lecturer salary?

Have you been able to choose what research you do based on your own interests, or have you been forced into certain areas?

I'd very much appreciate any details about what it's really like to be a lecturer, beyond all the assumptions that are floating around out there!

Thanks in advance!

Sam

I have been a lecturer in a university for the last number of years so I can provide some answers to your questions if you are still interested.

Firstly, the working week is long and challenging. You will have teaching duties, administration and research. For example, I am teaching on five modules this semester which is 10 hours teaching. These lectures are to undergraduates and postgraduated. Some modules have nearly 200 students and all of them hand up two assignments per module. You can do the maths on that yourself.
I am involved in two research projects with expected outputs in academic journals in 2016. This is enjoyable but time consuming and pressurised in terms of outputs. It is not a given that your outputs will be published.

In terms of time it varies from week to week. My wife has commented that I would normally surpass 40 hours by Wednesday night on a normal week. I don't count the hours but she does!
I don't get extra pay for research. Summers are spent on research and preparation for the coming year. There is certainly less pressure in summer but there is still plenty of work.

evolving_doors

There was an in-depth Q&A in the 'Ask Me Anything' forum a while back with a University Lecturer.

HERE

Red Alert

I've seen both the University and the IoT sector (where I currently work), and the differences between them on a day to day level are quite drastic. University has discipline-specific research as a key focus, with teaching in many cases a major but secondary concern. You'll usually be lecturing 1-2 modules at a time, and in related areas to your research if you're lucky. A lot of the specifics in terms of teaching hours at a University are fluid - in many departments there is not an absolute specific number of teaching hours for example. Due to the FEMPI and other measures, many university posts are "cover" for leave or teaching buyout associated with research projects, which usually means that permanency is not immediately available. The academic holidays are more a break from teaching than a holiday as such: I found that most of my research output was done in those few months.

The IoT sector is quite a different kettle of fish. Teaching is the main focus, and with anywhere between 18-21 hours you'll have little time for much else. There is a more obvious level of managerial rigidity and certain processes are more bureaucratic than at University. Discipline-specific research is mainly carried out only by those who have specific percentage of their time allocated for that purpose, although many staff like myself would be carrying on a personal side strand of research as time permits. There is also varying degrees of educational research ongoing also, which in ways is more compatible with the IoT's core mission.

I have to admit I love my job in the IoT: I genuinely love teaching and enjoy working with students who have a lot of life factors against them. Progression from AL to L scale is dependent on time served and postgraduate qualifications, and is generally automatic once you've met the criteria. The key problem with the IoTs, like the universities, is that many of the contracts being given out are downright unfair. Capricious application of rules to avoid CIDs are driving away some of the best staff, and many under 40 have no immediate path to permanency.

Geuze

Red Alert wrote: »

Progression from AL to L scale is dependent on time served and postgraduate qualifications, and is generally automatic once you've met the criteria.

This is an attraction of working in an IoT - more or less automatic progression from AL to L.

Whereas in some/many unis, you must apply for progression, submit a detailed CV, and be interviewed.

Figerty

Geuze wrote: »

This is an attraction of working in an IoT - more or less automatic progression from AL to L.

Whereas in some/many unis, you must apply for progression, submit a detailed CV, and be interviewed.

And perhaps be favoured in the process sometimes..