The Abstracted Professor

Lately, TAE has talked with Mrs. TAE about my desire to possibly teach some classes. This may stem partially from an over-blown sense of self-importance; I am brilliant, I must share that brilliance.

But I also think it doesn't hurt that TAE's mother was a teacher for almost 30 years, and impressed deeply upon me the value educators have in modern American society. For if I could do one thing for students, it would be to convince them to be open-minded, and to question everything.

I don't know what I would teach. My college education was fairly versatile. I spent two and a half years in intensive biochemistry, then switched gears completely and spent the next two and a half years in engineering. Then I spent two years in grad school doing a mixture of both. I could probably teach math, physics, engineering, biology, chemistry...pretty much any boring class you can think of.

It'd be nice to give something back from the volume of information in my brain (much of which is going completely unused in my current occupation as an MEP design engineer).

But my motives aren't completely selfless. Teaching a college class (which you can do as an adjunct prof without your doctorate) would be a good way for me to decide if further post-graduate education is in my cards. I still casually toy with retaking the MCAT and becoming a doctor of medicine, but I also still toy with the idea of becoming the philosophical kind of doctor.

At this point, me going back school is an innocuous discussion, the family budget allows only one family member in college at a time, and Mrs. TAE has to finish her schooling before I can make any bold career moves. So for the time being, a part-time, adjunct professorship at the local community college might be just what the doctor ordered. The challenge is figuring out how to get a spot on the adjunct faculty rotation at the community college, their web-based job listing site is outdated at best, and cryptic at worst.



At any rate, it'd be fun to teach a night class. My evening class professors were always the nutty ones, and it'd be them after whom I'd model myself.