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The Complete Guide to Becoming An Engineering Teacher, Postsecondary
What You'll Really Do, Earn, and Need to Know Before You Spend Years Prepping for the Lectern
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: What Does a Engineering Teacher, Postsecondary Actually Do?
Let's clear something up right away: if you imagine the job as standing at a chalkboard and drawing free-body diagrams for two hours a day, three days a week, you're about halfway right. The other half of the job—the half that isn't in any brochure—is a sprawling tangle of research, grant paperwork, faculty meetings, student emails, accreditation reports, and lab equipment that has chosen this exact week to die.
A postsecondary engineering teacher is a professor who teaches engineering courses at a community college, a four-year university, or a technical institute. The title might be "Professor," "Instructor," "Lecturer," or "Faculty." The "postsecondary" part simply means you're teaching after high school, which requires different preparation and credentials than teaching at the K-12 level. In this chapter, we're going to walk through what this job actually looks like week to week, because the fantasy is nice, but the reality is what you need to plan for.
Where You Work
First, understand there are three very different worlds under this job title. They're all called "engineering teacher," but your days will look nothing alike depending on which one you land in.
The first world is the community college instructor. Here, teaching takes up about 80 percent of your effort. You'll teach five or six classes per semester, each with 20 to 40 students. Your classes are often introductory courses like statics, circuits, or materials science. Many of your students are working, have