Hourly Paid - So you wanna be a lecturer do you?

If there is anyone out there who wants to be a lecturer, might I suggest you have a read through the responses to Pity the students. But pity the lecturers more. It's an old post but still as current as ever. If you are seeking a profession that makes you feel valued, appreciated, and fiscally rewarded - forget it!

There are 2 posts advertised at my institution, and yet I am not qualified to apply for either of them because I haven't been publishing academically and am still in the process of gaining my PhD. Never mind the fact that I've been lecturing for 3 years now, and have been writing and leading modules from day one. Or that I have a PGCE, am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and am 2 years into my PhD.

I have been studying at university level for 8 years. I could have been a doctor by now - or a vet - earning a living. Yes - long hours, but long hours that are paid for, not to mention that feel worthwhile. Instead, I am still an hourly paid lecturer and likely to remain so, earning around £6,000 a year. Okay - so I have the summer off (except I don't really, because I have to teach summer schools to make my income up to that princely sum of six grand). I only teach a few hours a week... fine, but what about the hours I spend at home researching, improving my lessons, re-writing lectures? And there isn't any thanks either. The students leave at the end of the year with a small wave if you are lucky. When I left primary education after teacher training, I couldn't get out the door for hugs and little gifts. I'm not expecting hugs off my students in HE, or even gifts, but hey, would a card be too much to ask for?!

Hourly paid lecturers often teach a new course each year, having to teach it from scratch, write lectures, devise seminar activities etc., only to have it scrapped the following year or given to a full time member of staff. When I complain to my mentor I am told it is like an apprenticeship, that this is how it is. What other profession makes you work an apprenticeship after you've qualified? Makes you feel that you haven't qualified when you have? Keeps you from professional development and increase in pay each year? We are supposed to be given fractional posts now, but oh my goodness, would you believe that while I worked enough hours to qualify in years one and two, I haven't in my third year! Bloody great.

We don't find out what we're teaching until September either. So that's all summer hanging around to see if you've got any hours, and when they'll be so you can arrange child care. Then there's the feeling that you can't cope as you work every evening and all weekend, every weekend, just to stay on top, to get the marking done, the reading... whilst husband and children complain they never see you and the house degrades around your empty fridge.

I don't know where am I going anymore. All I have is a love of literature, language and writing, and the desire to share that passion with others, passing on what I know whenever I can, and hopefully inspiring people. It isn't enough obviously. I'm not going to be publishing loads of academic papers in the near future, not if I'm ever going to get this novel written. I don't want to present papers at conferences either. I just want to earn a living and be appreciated. I think I'm in the wrong profession.