Free Sample
The Complete Guide to Becoming A Social Sciences Teacher, Postsecondary, All Other
What you'll really do, what you'll really earn, and whether you have what it takes to teach social sciences at the college level - before you spend a decade and thousands of dollars on graduate school.
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: What Does a Social Sciences Teacher, Postsecondary, All Other Actually Do?
You've sat in the classroom. You've watched a professor deliver a lecture on political theory or economic history or sociological patterns, and maybe you've thought, "I could do that." And you're right - you could deliver a lecture. But that lecture is maybe fifteen percent of what your professor actually does for a living. The other eighty-five percent happens in offices, in grading piles, in departmental meetings, in library carrels, and in front of a laptop at midnight, and almost none of it is visible from the student side of the desk.
So before we talk about degrees and salaries and job markets, let's get clear on what this job - Social Sciences Teacher, Postsecondary, All Other - actually involves on a day-to-day basis. This isn't a description from a government job codebook. This is what the work really looks like when you're the one doing it.
Your primary responsibility is teaching, but teaching is not what you might think. The actual lecturing - the part students see - is often the smallest piece of the time you'll spend on a course. For every 50-minute class session you teach, you'll spend anywhere from three to six hours preparing. That's not pessimism; that's arithmetic. A new prep - meaning a course you're teaching for the first time - requires you to build the syllabus, select a textbook and readings, design assignments and exam questions, create lecture slides or