Try a shitty law school like Regent. Remember this is where Monica Goodling and a whole slew of sub-par students were hired from by the Bush administration.
They seem to have very low standards, and perhaps you can help improve them.
And can your spouse/significant other live with that? It’s one thing to decide that you’re willing to re-locate to Bumfuck U. It’s quite another to ask your spouse to follow you to the back of beyond so that you can pursue your dream job. A huge part of why I chose not to get my PhD is because I wasn’t willing to ask my husband to follow me around the country like a duckling while I searched for a tenure-track job. And if you’re married to another academic, the problem is further magnified. There are plenty of professors who have long-distance marriages, but in my mind, that’s no way to live.
I’m only 24 so I can’t help you with any specifics, but what I will say is this: Never settle. Don’t work at a job you don’t love.
Earn enough money so that if you fail you don’t starve to death, make all the proper preparations whatever they may be, then follow your dream and don’t look back.
Yep, you’re only 24.
It’s not a pipe dream. Even getting a PhD at this point is quite doable. Coincidentally, the professor directly across the hall from me got her law degree, worked as a public defender and for the DA’s office, got sick of it, tossed it, and got her PhD. Now she’s got a tenure-track job in academia. It’s certainly not easy, but if you will regret not having tried, then do it.
On the other hand, I suppose that Atomicktom’s area of expertise is more general than just ‘foreclosures,’ and the local CC might offer a course or two he could teach. My dad, who was a family law judge, used to teach courses (primarily for people who were training to be paralegals) at one of the local community colleges for fun and profit.
Never said his area is limited to “foreclosures.” He said he’d like to teach a course on foreclosures cuz it’s in the news now, which is not how courses get designed in the first place, and never by adjuncts coming up with the idea in the second place. To teach a survey course in American Studies or even in an area as specific as a survey of law, foreclosures won’t play a big part. And as I said, why would he get that survey course to teach? Only if a school has a burning need at the last minute, and only if he’s very lucky at that point. Any teaching job he could get with his current credentials would cut his income (practicing lawyer>adjunct instructor) by two-thirds at best.
He’s talking about a full-scale career change, and it seems to me that he’s unwilling to do the re-tooling that a career change demands. He’s asking if he can just take his current portfolio and become a college professor with it, and the answer is simply no, you can’t.
prr’s post above reminds me of how sick I was of teaching English 101 and 102 after a mere three terms. Newbie adjuncts never get the interesting courses unless they are really lucky. The most interesting course I ever taught in my one year of teaching as an adjunct was an English 101 course where all the readings were based on gender issues, and I got lucky with that one.
You have ruled out teaching high school? My private prep school had a fair number of academic-y types on staff, there were fair number of MAs (not in education) and one PhD. Compared to my dad who was a full professor at a lower-tier state college, they had a rather pleasant job, and the students were, in fact, young and optimistic. Of course he made more … but you said this is if money is no object. Just a thought, if the teaching/mentoring appeals to you more than the research.