Hello all!
As many of you know from my posts on hear over the past year or so, I've never been particularly happy with the University where I am doing my PhD. I changed my whole supervisory team almost a year ago as my previous supervisors were impossible to get hold of/did not give appropriate feedback (spelling and grammar only) and generally did not know enough about my area. Although this was difficult at first, I now get on fine with my old supervisor, we teach together and have a good working relationship. I also have a much better supervisor who is much more experienced, and I am happy with him
There were also issues regarding teaching (I am a GTA and this was a requirement of my funding). The previous Head of Dept was awful - senior staff also had problems with him - he had no organisational capabilities and expected me to teach on a course with a member of staff who had repeatedly made inappropriate advances towards me including in front of other staff, and on a subject I knew nothing about (we are a multidisciplinary dept and this was the academic discipline I have not done since GCSE!). He was replaced last year by my current Supervisor who was made Head of Dept, and gave me much more suitable teaching, although there have still been some more general issues (see the thread I started last week on rubbish office staff!)
Anyway, last week my supervisor/Head of Dept asked me whether I would like to stay as a part-time teaching next academic year. My funding runs out this summer, as it is the end of my 3rd year, and he has had some excellent reports from students about my teaching so thinks it would be great if I stayed on (although payment will be by hour, not the 'salaried' rate I get now. Has anyone done this?? My worry is that although I love teaching, the issues that go with it are mega-stress!!! Would I be better to get a little part-time office job which won't look as good on my CV but might actually be better for the whole thesis writing thing I'm meant to be doing!!!

Thanks, Sleepy

PS, I am due to submit November (on schedule) so would only be expected to teach for the one semester next year...

Hi Sleepyhead,

Personally I'd say stick with the teaching if you want to go on to an academic career because the experience will be really beneficial. Plus if its a module you've done before the prep time should be lessened a little. But you need a good strategy for avoiding overload. Perhaps it would be worth drawing up a list of what has caused trouble this year and present it to the module leader/head of Dept before the module starts again next semester? It's also worth clarifying exactly what it is you have responsibility for - and if they're paying you the hourly rate for seminar/demonstrating it shouldn't be much. For example, our dept is always trying to palm stuff off on to the teaching assistants e.g. chasing up missing students, chasing up late essays, entering essay marks into the system etc etc and none of this is our responsibility, it is all the module leader's. So I have started to forward any email about this kind of stuff straight to the module leader and avoiding getting dragged in.