The Journey To A Teaching Oriented Faculty Position: A Handbook Of Advice For Graduate Students

A graduate education usually trains students as researchers and scholars in their fields.Curricula of computer science and engineering graduate programs generally include courses in research methods and provide ample opportunities for students to work as research assistants.Recent research has shown, however, that graduate students are not necessarily prepared for teaching positions after graduate school.The Preparing Future Faculty program is an example intervention to assist graduate students when making career choices and preparing for a faculty career.Because graduate students generally complete an advanced degree at research institutions, there are few opportunities for graduate students to learn about teaching positions at teaching-oriented colleges and universities.The purpose of this paper is to provide advice and information to graduate students in computer science and engineering fields who are considering a teaching-oriented position after graduate school.There is little information about teaching-oriented positions and few opportunities for mentorship between faculty in teaching-oriented positions and graduate students.Therefore, this paper presents advice about acquiring teaching experience in graduate school and more detailed advice about finding open position announcements, preparing job applications, preparing for interviews, and knowing what to expect when interviewing at teaching-oriented colleges and universities.The advice and expectations for a teaching-oriented career path were harvested from the authors' recent experiences in conducting teaching-oriented job searches in computer science.Effective mentorship takes place when a person has access to a mentor at the next career or life stage.This paper serves as a surrogate mentor to computer science and engineering students who wish to pursue a career oriented towards teaching.granting institutions.A faculty member at a teaching-oriented school typically teaches three to four (sometimes different) courses per term.Teaching and academic advising are the primary responsibilities.On the other hand, at research schools, which typically grant Ph.D.s, professors' main teaching/advising responsibility is to prepare graduate students to conduct research.A huge disconnect exists between how research universities prepare graduate students for research and how they prepare them for teaching.In general, professors at research universities prepare graduate students for a life-long career in research but do little to prepare students for teaching.This document serves graduate students who want to pursue a faculty career at a teachingoriented institution.This document also serves faculty at research institutions whose students want a teaching-oriented career after graduation.The advice presented here could be useful for mentoring and advising these students.Just as Perlmutter and Porter state in their article "Thinking Beyond the Dissertation," graduate school is a stepping stone for a person's career 6 .Because career options are dependent upon success in graduate school, preparing for academic employment begins immediately for doctoral students.While their article presents general advice for students to begin a research career in academia, this paper serves a different population: doctoral students who want an academic career at a teaching-oriented school.