Becoming an Adjunct Professor and Holding a Day Job (with a crazy story)

Your guide if you've ever wondered how people become professors

On an exceptionally cold April day back in 2019 I was at work and got a call from Brigham Young University (BYU). I taught there as an adjunct professor just one semester per year, in an exceptionally fun class I had developed for MBA students called Storytelling with Data. On the phone I got an interesting request - would I like to teach Marketing 201 the next semester? The professor had fallen ill and wouldn’t be able to teach. 

I asked a few questions:

• What’s the size of the class? 110 students. 

• Would I have any TAs? Yes, three. 

• Is there a course curriculum? They would ask. 

• When does class start? Monday. 

It was Wednesday. The week before. To be very clear - five days before. 

So I said yes. 

This might be one of the crazier things I’ve done professionally. Thankfully BYU, my TAs, and my students were amazing and it was a successful semester. And thankfully my career was in marketing and I had taught other classes before. To be clear - it was a TON of work, sometimes feeling like I was only one class ahead of my students. And I loved every minute.

Why & How to Become a Professor

There’s something so deeply fulfilling with standing before a group of students and changing how they see the world. For me, every class is an opportunity to help them grow and fulfills a need within me to pass along some of the secrets of my trade.

Adjunct teaching is far easier to get started in than most people think. If you’re interested in becoming an adjunct professor, I would recommend contacting universities you live near and let them know you are interested in teaching. The larger universities typically require a master's degree, but the smaller ones do not. The first university I taught at, Ensign College, I taught with an undergraduate degree and three years of work experience. 

This is perhaps the most surprising thing about adjunct teaching, in my experience. There is no resume, cover letter, networking, etc. that is typical in most job searches. Of course every school is different and perhaps I have just been lucky, but if you have the interest and background there seems to be plenty of demand for teachers. 

Professor + Full Time Job = How to Find Balance

Many people ask me how I balance teaching with a full time job. The simple truth is that adjunct teaching doesn’t take up much time. Sure, it takes a bit of upfront work to create a course curriculum, but once you have taught the class you are just continually refining it. If you work in the industry you teach in (e.g., marketing) this happens naturally. It usually only takes a few hours per week including prepping, teaching, and meeting with students, and you can choose if you want to teach from one quarter per year to every quarter. 

Besides all of the wonderful benefits of helping students, there’s other benefits too. You do get paid (albeit not much), you are connected to a university (I go to the BYU Marriott Employee Christmas party every year, among other events), and I feel it makes me better at my job. 

This benefit of getting better at my job is very real. For example, after teaching Marketing 201, which covers the fundamentals of business/marketing, when you’re in your day job working through a problem and can use something you teach, such as the 4 P’s of Marketing, it makes you approach problems more holistically and be able to draw on more examples. I found myself invited to more meetings and able to take to the whiteboard more because I had frameworks and principles to guide the discussion. 

I highly recommend adjunct teaching if you’ve ever considered it. You’ll love it. Students will learn from you and see the world a bit sharper or in a new light  than before. Please let me know if you are inspired after reading this article - I’ll be the first person to come sit in your class. 

For fun: At my job they called me The Professor, so I oftentimes will dress the part.