About DH's new part-time job.
December 30th, 2013 at 05:37 pmDH is about to start his additional "after-hours" job at the end of January.
He will be teaching a graduate course in one of NYC's top universities.
It requires very large time investment. The course itself is only 16 classes(meeting once a week), but teaching for the first time involved A LOT of preparation. (lectures, homeworks, labs, tests, etc...)
In a family with 2 full-time working parents, time is very important, so money alone would not be worth the additional sacrifice.
But besides the 7k per course(probably 4,400 after tax) there are other factors:
1). He has learned a lot in preparing, keeping up to date and learning on few topics that are outside his area of expertise. He is an expert in the field, but not on every topic in the field, so this forced him to learn additional things, and if they come up in his regular job, that will be of benefit.
2). It looks good on the resume and strengthens his credentials, suggesting to potential future employers that his knowledge of the field is more in-depth than another candidate's.
3). Opportunity to connect with more people in his field. (Department Head, other professors, etc.)
4). Working in academic environment and in his department will give him a chance to explore his PHD possibilities and ideas for a dissertation.
5). It is kind of cool to be a colleague to your old professors.
Challenges:
1). Time. DH needs a lot of time to prepare, and it is eating into extremely little amount of personal time that 2 parents with a toddler and full time jobs have. He has almost no rest time, with studying always weighing on his mind.
2). Stress. It is a bit scary to go into something like that for the first time. To stand before a class of graduate students who already had to take years of study, and 2 hard pre-requisites just to get to that class. These are not people who know nothing and are taking some "Intro to... " course.
3). Childcare juggling. It will be hard. And DS, who is 3, may have to miss more days of pre-school than he already does.
4). Travel for his main job may be impacted (he can't go for as many days, since he has to be there every week to teach).
5). We will not go on our annual 9-10 days ski vacation. It is our family tradition, but obviously he cannot miss a class. At most, we can go to Vermont for 4 days (to make sure he gets back at least a day before his class, to give a buffer for some unexpected delay like a snow-storm.)
But, this is something new, something outside comfort zone. And while professional benefits of this experience are intangible and cannot be guaranteed, I think that the personal growth of this experience will definitely have some value.