This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Today, we're gonna hear from an adjunct professor. And if you're not familiar with the adjunct teaching world, it's basically a way that universities have kind of outsourced their teaching requirements to people who are very qualified. They usually have advanced degrees and they could be tenure track professors. You know, those kinds of professors that get guaranteed jobs and can often make a decent income. But these days, so many classes are taught by adjuncts and adjuncts are basically low paid, even though they are very qualified.
So naturally, on Side Hustle School, we're gonna hear from an adjunct professor who needs to make more money. Professor of sociology, I believe they enjoy the actual teaching, but they would like to make more money, of course. So this whole teaching model, basically it's a good deal for the universities, it's terrible for the adjuncts, and they're kind of in a bad position because if they don't take the job, somebody else will. I probably can't solve that problem here. What I can do, perhaps, is give some direction or some ideas on how they can make extra money.
How can they create a new source of revenue? 'Cause that's what we're all about, helping you diversify your income, create new revenue streams, so that you're not dependent on any one particular job or employer or anybody else other than yourself. That's what we're all about here on the podcast. Stay tuned to hear the detailed question and my response. [Music]
- Hi, this is Megan Cullingan from Buffalo, New York.
I'm an adjunct professor of sociology. I enjoy teaching, but as you may know, adjunct instructors have it pretty bad. I make less than $3,000 for an entire course, which goes for a whole semester and requires lots of prep work and student interaction in addition to the actual teaching. I'm not complaining, okay, maybe I am, but since I'm probably not going to change how higher education works in America these days, do you have any suggestions about how I could increase my income? I'd like to use the skills I spent years studying for, not just drive for Uber or whatever.
Thanks, and I look forward to hearing your answer. [Music]
Megan, what's up? Thanks for calling in. I actually have a degree in sociology. I'm very grateful for it.
I learned a lot from that field, even though I never went into higher education myself. But the question here is, what are we going to do for Megan? How are we going to help her? And I think the answer is, the answer can't just be teach more adjunct courses, because as she says, she's making less than $3,000 for an entire course, which is a whole semester. And it's not just the teaching, but it's all the additional hours that are required in that setting.
So you can't just teach more adjunct courses, at least if you're trying to get ahead. And then I also think the first step to any side hustle of brainstorming is often to take a little inventory of your skills. What is the intersection of your abilities and what other people value? So for someone who is a sociologist or who has advanced training in any particular field, don't just say like, "Oh, these are my formal qualifications. What do they enable or entitle me to do?" I think it's much broader than that.
It's like, what have you learned along the way that can be applied in different forms or different ways? And throughout a lot of lessons in the podcast or in the "100 Side Hustles" book, where we look at all these different case studies, we often had stories of educators who are like, "Okay, what have I learned along the way? I'm pretty good at research. I'm good at communication. I'm good at scheduling and structure and planning.
I'm good at giving feedback." And all these things can be deployed in different forms to create a product or a service or to offer something that is apart from your job, but still within the realm of your skills. So you're not doing something that's completely out of left field, at least most of the time. It does have some bearing on your life experience. But again, it starts with this skills inventory. So think less about your profession as a professor and go back to that broader list of things that you know about and are skilled in.
Oh, and when in doubt, it's good to ask some close friends like, "Hey, what am I good at?" Because sometimes they know some things about you that you might not realize yourself. You might think, "Oh, I have this knowledge that everybody else does." And they're like, "No, Megan has this specialized knowledge, like nobody else knows about this thing except her. And I always go to her with my questions about this topic." That can often be a good direction as well. But that's where it starts. Megan, good luck.
Good luck to everybody out there in higher education. I know it's a weird time hanging in there. Listeners, if you have a question, a comment, an experience, sidehustleschool.com/questions, or just check out the notes pages for any particular episode there on the website, get some resources and email list and so on. And of course, new episodes out every day, seven days a week. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
