Adjunct life

 I am an adjunct.  I have wanted to be an adjunct for years, but now I want to find a full-time job.  That is neither here nor there for this post, though.  It’s just a contextual statement.

I got an email yesterday that one of my classes didn’t make.  I actually expected that, but I don’t like it when it happens.  It was a bad class to not make because it is one in which I make 2x the salary as at my other schools.  However, it wasn’t a terrible class to lose because it isn’t through the school from which I purchase my insurance, thus my insurance is still okay.

It’s a pain to lose a good class, though.  I have three preps next semester.  Two of them are brand new classes at SLAC.  And they are preps for one class each.  The other class would have given me two classes for a single prep, which I would prefer, obviously.

I am still teaching five courses in the spring because I thought one of the courses wouldn’t make (the time slot was bad), so I contracted with CC2 to teach a night course.  I didn’t want to drive over there multiple times a week, so I am just going once.  

CC2 is not in the safest neighborhood, but my students live there and I’ve never had anything bad happen to me.   In the spring a woman was killed in a carjacking gone bad across the street while I was meeting my night class, but I didn’t know about it till the next day.  I’m just as glad about that.

Not everyone is in the position I am in.  I can teach more classes than I want to.  Some adjuncts can’t get enough work, so I am grateful for that.

So I am trying to make a living, get my foot in the door, carry a full work load, get conference presentations and publications, and live down the fact that I am an adjunct.  I am doing all but the last.  I’m not too sure how to do the last, but when I figure it out, I will let you know.