Summer Work for Professors Not Teaching Then
A professor writes in hoping for some suggestions regarding summer employment.
[image by Sarah Illenberger]
My department has limited our summer teaching and some of us are wondering: what do lower-paid philosophers do in the summer if not teach, if they need to supplement their annual income? There are research grants (internal and external), of course, but not many people will get those. We are off contract in the summer and so could do other work.
I suspect that of particular interest would be types of work that make use of the types of skills philosophers tend to have, but outside-the-vat ideas would be welcome, too. Tips on how to find the kinds of positions discussed would be useful, too.
Suggestions, readers?
If the aim is truly just to supplement income, then working ANY job that pays well for a short time is what one should do/take regardless of whether it utilizes one’s particular academic skillset. In fact, it’s good for philosophers to do other sorts of work for insight if they’ve never done it before. Wasn’t it Wittgenstein’s work in aeronautics that helped him think about language problems?
Can you give some concrete suggestions?
Have you considered aeronautics?
Bartending offers many affordances for philosophers in need of a gig.
A symposium of humanity at its heights and depths, a bar is where men and women meet and mate. Conspiracy theorists are engaged and political pundits are voluble.
Critical thinking is appreciated, even by the inebriated.
Public philosophy pro publica!
Tips need not be fully declared.
Insights may well be shared.
– Former Bourbon Street bartender with a B.S. in Philosophy, summa cum laude
During my undergrad and part of my grad studies, I would take summer jobs with Mercedes-Benz, working on the assembly line. Until recently, they had a policy of letting their permanent workers take their (generous European) vacation days whenver they liked and hire temporary replacements. So jobs were available. Pay was good, especially if you got a night shift position. I don’t know if these particular jobs are still available, given the German automotive industry’s current crisis.
I did SAT prep during the summers in graduate school. Setting aside moral qualms, I was compensated well, I had a tremendously enjoyable time in the classroom, and I got invaluable teaching experience. In many cases, the work was just close-reading pieces from the Economist, NYRB, LRB, and the like. It was _far_ more valuable than teaching or TAing summer philosophy courses, in every way other than the CV lines.
Different gigs pay different, and so much depends on your region. But my summer earnings as a UC-grad student got to about ~3x my rest-of-year earnings as a UC-grad student. My colleagues included other grad students—but also faculty from local high schools, community colleges. Especially if you’re near a major metro area, this might be worth considering.
I did SAT/ACT prep one summer in grad school – was not compensated well, especially considering the amount of prep it required, wondering if your case is a rarity.
I suspect that there is _tremendous_ variation in these jobs. I did critical reading, and I had very little prep work. In fact, I think one of the key skills I learned was the ability to teach a close-reading text without having substantially prepped it (and sometimes, by necessity, I had to teach a text wholly unprepared). I think the essay / writing people had more, especially in grading.
And I think it matters a lot how much the place teaches test-specific ‘strategies’. We had very, very few of those strategies. Mostly just: read sophisticated writing, closely; repeat, repeat, repeat.
Bartending. Many of your classroom skills will transfer nicely, and many of those skills may be enhanced in the process.
Are there other universities/colleges in the area that you could adjunct for?
You know there are at least two, but I suspect (I’ll check) the the teaching fills pretty quickly, even with rates of about 3k a class. When we get to teach in our university we get a percentage of our salary for summer teaching, so it’s pays about twice that. It’s been an invaluable supplement and I now realize why some people make sure to include “may offer summer teaching” in their hiring contract.
I’d suspect my typos are why I need to find work. Sorry! Phoned it in. It is interesting to think if a department uses adjuncts then they have given up their chance for lucrative summer teaching, as the adjunct/s then get dibs on it, needing it more. Thanks so much for all of this good advice on this post.
While in grad school I once graded standardized history exams for the state of MA. It was mostly middle and high school history teachers doing this, but because I’d taken a lot of history classes as an undergrad I was accepted. It was extremely dull – sort of the “white collar” equivalent of repetative factory work – but not hard. I know some people who, while professors, have graded AP exams of various sorts, too. The availability of this work will vary and might have more to do w/ your undergrad degree than your philosophy PhD, though.
LSAT test prep is also a possibility, in addition to SAT/ACT prep. I also did that a bit. All of these things, though, will be a bit boring, so I might think that if you can find a job doing “outdoor work” of some sort – maybe river raft guiding or something, if you have any background – might be more fun, and in some ways perhaps even useful.
You might consider getting on rover.com or a similar app and working as a dog walker or a pet sitter. As an added bonus, you’ll be able to spend time outdoors getting some exercise yourself, and walking in the park with your rover dog can put you in a reflective and meditative mood that my help your writing.
I work at a bike shop during the summer and it’s great – highly recommend. I particularly like the bit of structure, the ride to and from work, and the people. I agree some of the other comments that if you enjoy the outdoors there are probably a variety of seasonal opportunities that align relatively well with academic schedules.
Temp paralegal jobs. Sign up with a couple of temp employment agencies and hopefully they’ll call you. After receiving my Ph.D. in 1999, I was able to support my family for one year with this kind of work, having failed to get any full-time or part-time jobs in philosophy. To be honest, it’s quite depressing. Most likely, you won’t get to work on any glamorous cases and use your formidable analytical reasoning skills but just perform menial tasks like data entry, making copies, comparing two boxes of documents and making sure that they are identical, etc. But I earned decent money, so no complaints. An assignment can run from one day to several months.
One might consider evaluating grant/project proposals, especially if you are in EU. Translation work presents another opportunity, as does authoring a textbook, both of which would leverage one’s philosophical expertise. However, as many others in the discussion, I would suggest exploring opportunities beyond academia and building upon other skills sets and experiences. Ideas: flipping cheap houses, working as a driving instructor, making functional bookshelves, yard maintenance, and landscaping, … all this will relax your mind and give you a break from research- and teaching-intensive work.
I do gig work with a tutoring company that helps mostly Chinese high school students interested in philosophy working on independent projects or preparing for essay contests. Its pays well and offers quite flexible hours.
Feel free to shoot me an email and we can chat if anyone is interested.