Teaching at Community College... Career Suicide?

[jaydnul]

I remember hearing a fellow student talk about how it was a bad idea to teach community college physics. I'm just curious, would it really be that bad to teach at a CC while looking for a research position after obtaining a PhD in physics? Why would this hinder your opportunity to get a real research position when I would think the teaching experience would be a good thing?

 

[timo]

I'm not sure to what extend it is really true that teaching at non-university hurts academic career. But there are two thoughts that come to my mind:

1) Maybe research experience is worth more for a career in university/research than teaching experience.

2) If you have troubles finding a research position directly after your PhD, that may be a bad sign for your chances to get a much more competitive faculty position later on.

[ajb]

At some point you need money and any job related to your PhD is good. However, and this comes from speaking to people in similar situations, you may end up getting stuck there. As time goes on finding a postdoc position will become harder, your skills maybe seen as getting dated as you are out of the research loop. This of course may depend on what your speciality is.

 

From personal experience finding a postdoc is very hard and the competition is high. I was unable to find a position straight after my PhD and did a little teaching and some online tutoring. I was lucky that my field is mathematical and so I was able to work and publish papers while not being attached to any research group. It was the fact that I was still productive during this sh*t period that I have now got a postdoc position and doors seem to be slowly opening.

 

If your field is experimental then you run the risk of your current skills as being seen as outdated in a few years. This has happened to people I know. To remedy this they diversified and diverged away from their PhD subject, but I think they were somewhat lucky to have a position that allowed that, though the job is not research based. I don't know if a community collage would allow such diversification.

 

But again, any job is a job and having some money to live is essential. Working at a community collage will be far less depressing than having no job... I can assure you of that.