What do you do for a living?

I am a program manager for the Department of Youth and Community Development for a major U.S City.

How would you describe what you do?

That means that we use tax-levied money to support programs throughout the city.  Those programs range from things like the YMCA, initiatives to help young people up to the age of 24 get a job. They might be mentoring programs where people try and help get them into the work force.  The bulk of what we do is fund after school programs and what are called “Beacon Centers”.  Beacon Centers are like community centers, generally in high-needs neighborhoods.  Those places will generally have a gym, some classroom spaces.  They might be dual use – like during the day senior citizens might use them for a rec area, and then after school hours it kind of turns over to the young people.

What does your work entail?

My role as a program manager is to manage the individual contracts.  They are generally contracts that are three years guaranteed and then renewed depending on a variety of factors after that.  So, a couple of times a year, I visit all of those programs and give them a rating.  Generally, my role is to be supportive of them.  If a program is trying to find a good basketball coach, or a good literacy curriculum, then I can make recommendations.  With over 500 after school programs, it’s rare that we would move to shut one down.  That’s a last resort.

It’s neat to see kids who may not enjoy school from 8-3, go to an after school program where they can do robotics, or they can do sports, or they can do community building. Some of our programs do some really good community works projects where they’re converting empty lots into gardens, or painting murals. It’s neat to see young people having a positive impact on their community.

Also I work on their budgets.  These programs have a contract with us for a dollar amount and that amount is pretty much the same year to year, unless there’s a budget cut and they send a year plan of what they’re going to do with that budget so I can see what staff they’re going to cover, how many staff, what hours of operation they’re going to have, what they’re going to spend money on for supplies.

A program can buy a flat screen TV, they don’t need to buy ten flat screen TVs. So, I just make sure that they’re using the money appropriately.  Some of what you hear about working for governments is true. It’s bureaucratic, there’s paperwork, and sometimes things move slow.

So when I go visit a program, that generates a report that I write up and that gets approved by two or three people, and gets sent out to the provider so they know if they’re on good-standing or not, so some of that is a lot of “back and forth”.

On the other hand our agency received some of the Obama money, so we definitely got to see that money at work helping people here.

What does a typical workweek look like for you?

One of the good things about my job is that it is 9-5 or 10-6. We have flex-time that I come in between 9 and 10, and prior to working here, I worked for an after school program where I was always dealing with parents and kids, and while it was rewarding, it was also challenging, because I always needed to be available.  One thing I like about my job now is that when I go home, I generally don’t think about it until the next day. That’s a lifestyle thing. Would I go back to the other way? Yeah, if it was the right job, but I do value having a life after work.

What a general work week is like, Monday through Friday, mornings, taking care of paperwork and checking up on email, doing requests for information from providers or colleagues, etc.  I spend about three days a week going out to visit programs and they’re in all the boroughs of New York.  I’ll check out a City car if the programs are far from the subway, go visit the program for two hours, go home, come back the next day, fill out that paperwork, load it into the computer, and do more of the same.

One of the great things about the unit that I work in is that if you want to work on other projects, there are opportunities to do so.  I’ve been able to advance the FIRST Robotics within DYCD.  We were able to get funding for 40 Lego teams and that’s been something that I’ve helped carry on for three or four years now.  It’s challenging because funding is tough to get, but I think technology is kind of a buzzword right now for working with kids.  It’s been neat to be able to carry over some of my own experience plus what I’ve been able to do with a wider range of people.

How did you get started with this career?

I was going to graduate school in here and there was an after school program around the corner from my apartment.  I was looking for a part-time job, and went there.  I started working as an administrative assistant essentially, and part-time lead to full-time, and when I went to full-time I worked there for four years, and then I met someone who worked for DYCD, which was actually funding the program I worked for.  I made that connection and thought it would be interesting to go work for the city agency and to see the youth development field from a different perspective. It’s not something I planned on, but something that naturally progressed.

What do you like about what you do?

I like seeing programs that are effective.  It’s not easy to work with teenagers and young people, especially if they’re going to schools that are not top notch.  There are a lot of things going against that population, so it’s neat to see kids who may not enjoy school from 8-3, go to an after school program where they can do robotics, or they can do sports, or they can do just community building.  Some of our programs do some really good community works projects where they’re converting empty lots into gardens, or painting murals.  It’s neat to see young people having a positive impact on their community.

The advice that I would have for somebody looking for this kind of position is to go work for a non-profit for a year or two and find out what it’s like to really be in an environment where resources are slim and there’s a lot of need. You’ll learn a lot from it and you’ll be able to prioritize what agencies need.

What do you dislike about the job?

Sometimes it’s difficult to stay motivated whenever you know that, as working for a city agency, there’s not a lot of reward for going above and beyond.  Your pay scale is pretty much set in stone and so the only way to really advance is to move up, and that’s well and good but it can be difficult because it can be very political, and be based less on merit and more on factors that are outside your control.

How do you make money or how are you compensated for this job?

I’m paid a salary.

How much money do you make as the City Manager for Youth Programs?

$60,000

How much money do you make starting out in this job?

All city employees start off in my role at $53,000 and after two years, you get a bump, so now I’m making the same amount as somebody in my position who has been here for 5 or 10 years more than I have.

Would you say that there are any perks associated with your job?

There are holidays I get off like Columbus Day.  I think a perk is not having to worry about my work when I’m not here.  Being able to drive a city car is a perk.

I definitely visit neighborhoods I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. And, because it is related to the city, there are times when there are perks – like for special events.  Sometimes, very occasionally it will be tickets to a baseball game, or you’ll get a special invite to a special event, things like that.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

It really ranges.  Generally, you need to have a college degree.  It would help if you had a Master’s in either social work or public administration.

You have to be able to use a computer.  You have to be comfortable going online and pulling information, using spreadsheets, additional skills.  I’m finding more and more that there are people who are comfortable being in front of a group of people and others who are not.  If you’re not, you can only go so far in this job because you’re going to be asked to be in front of a group of people at one point or another.

When people are advocating for government funding to be cut, keep in mind that those cuts can have some very real effects. Here that could mean that potentially 80,000 kids won’t have a summer program. Either their parents will be staying home from work, or those kids will be running around. So just realize when you are cutting budgets, there are real repercussions to that, so you want to be clear about what you’re saying should be cut because if you’re cutting programs we can use, you’re setting up the future, both immediate and long-term, to be jeopardized.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The pace, you can go to a meeting and people will be in agreement about what needs to happen, but it can still take two weeks for a report to get approved, because it has to go to people who are outside that meeting and run up the channels that usually go all the way up to the Mayor. And when it goes that high there are a lot of other things that have priority.  And that can be challenging because a priority to us at the agency might not be a priority at that level, so it can be challenging to wait.

What would you say is the most rewarding about what you do?

When you visit a summer camp and there’s 150 kids there on a beautiful July afternoon, and they’re just getting back from going on a field trip that they would not have gotten to take otherwise.  You can tell that they’re appreciative of it, and the program is taking pride in what they’re doing. That’s a nice thing to see.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

The advice that I would have for somebody looking for this kind of position is to go work for a non-profit for a year or two and find out what it’s like to really be in an environment where resources are slim and there’s a lot of need.  You’ll learn a lot from it and you’ll be able to prioritize what agencies need.

How much time off do you get or take with this job?

When you start off, it’s two weeks a year, and goes up gradually after that.  That’s probably one of the downsides of working for the City, is that they track every minute. You can get overtime, but it can be hard to get. At a non-profit, there would be plenty of times that I would work 60 hour weeks for a while and then say, “I’m taking a week off”, and that was accepted and encouraged, whereas here, every week you go to check your spreadsheet of your City time and it tells you to the minute how much vacation time you have. It’s kind of a micromanaged thing. If I thought I could work more and get off more, I would. But that’s not the system.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I think there is a lot of misconception right now about public service workers and that everybody is overpaid and has a great pension, and everybody has great benefits, and that people aren’t even working.

There is some truth to every joke, but for the most part, 98% of the people I work with care about what they’re doing and are dedicated to it and work very very hard. I think the misconception is the opposite – that people are just sitting around and doing nothing.

I really don’t think it’s much different than an average corporate setting.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this career?

In the short term, I’m looking for opportunities to move up within the agency. After that, I would like to be in a leadership position in either another government agency, or within a non-profit that is working in the community to make it improve, so maybe an executive director position in an average-sized community based organization.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

When people are advocating for government funding to be cut, keep in mind that those cuts can have some very real effects.  Here that could mean that potentially 80,000 kids won’t have a summer program. Either their parents will be staying home from work, or those kids will be running around.

So just realize when you are cutting budgets, there are real repercussions to that, so you want to be clear about what you’re saying should be cut because if you’re cutting programs we can use, you’re setting up the future, both immediate and long-term, to be jeopardized.

What do you do for a living?

I am an associate professor of educational leadership at a public university.

How would you describe what you do?

I teach educators who would like to become school principals and school superintendents.

What does your work entail?

It involves everything from recruiting, screening, admitting, and teaching aspiring school administrators.  It’s a two-year graduate program where the students will complete a Master’s Degree by the time they complete the program.  I am the program director of the department, so I have a few more administrative tasks than some of the other professors, but essentially, we recruit, we screen, and then we work with graduate students for a two year period prior to them graduating with a Master’s.

What does a typical workweek look like for you?

My typical workweek is not unlike anyone else’s.  I go into work about 9:00 and I stay until 5:00 on most days.  All the classes I teach, I teach at night.  I typically teach three courses per semester, and each of them is three credit hours, I actually end up teaching two nights a week from 5:00 until 9:00 at night.  It’s a little different teaching schedule than teaching undergrads because all of my students have day jobs.

How did you get started in this career?

Well, I started out in education 38 years ago. During the time that I was teaching high school band.  I got my Master’s Degree and my Specialist Degree, and then moved into being a high school principal.  I was a high school principal for two years and then I became school superintendent.  I was a school superintendent for 19 years, and that gave me a total of 31 years before I retired in Missouri.

Your success[as a teacher] is determined by the success of the people that you teach.

I was only 52 years old after I retired and I had taught 31 years, so I didn’t want to quit working. So I moved out here and got a job teaching at this university.

What do you like about what you do?

It’s the best job ever.  I truly enjoyed being a school leader, I really did.  I enjoyed being a principal and enjoyed my 19 years as a school superintendent.  But I think that my true love has always been teaching.

What do you dislike about your job?

Like any job, universities have a good deal of bureaucracy. And I would say really, the only downside to the job I have right now is just the bureaucracy involved.  That’s a necessary evil.  It’s just required because of the way that the system works.

There’s very little to dislike about teaching at the university level.

There are probably different pressures that you have to deal with on a university level, of course.  If you plan to stay there, then you have to go through the process of promotion and tenure.  That can be challenging because you are required to publish in not only state but national journals.  You’re required to present on a regional, national, and international level.

You have to do a good deal of service in the university in order for you to achieve tenure.  Once you achieve tenure, all that really means is that the university will continue to employ you beyond your six years.  I just got promoted and tenured in May of this last year, which is pretty typical.  Generally, most professors have to work six years before they are considered an associate professor and get tenure status.

So, while the track to get tenured may be difficult it’s definitely not something that I dislike it’s just something people may find challenging.

How do you make money or how are you compensated in this job?

It’s a salaried position, much like any other job.  We’re paid off a single salary schedule.  There are merit increases that you can get.  We haven’t had any in several years because of the economic situations that have been going on.  Higher education does not pay well in comparison to most places.  A beginning salary at a university, even a Division 1 university, for my particular job would be somewhere in the mid-50s for a nine-month contract.  So it’s not a tremendous pay.

The advantage of it is the flexibility you have as far as your schedule and the flexibility as far as your teaching.  It’s a good gig, even though it doesn’t pay very much.

How much money do you make as an associate professor?

$80,000.

How much money do you make starting out?

If you want to back 38 years, my first teaching job paid $9,411 for a 12-month contract, and that was in 1974.  As superintendent, my salary was over $100,000 a year, but when I started at the university, my salary was $53,000, and then by the beginning of my seventh year I’m now making $80,000.

Are there any perks associated with this job?

We function off the university calendar, so we get all our major holidays and fall and spring breaks. Of course we have benefits, but the flexibility of what we do and how we work is one of the biggest perks.

To me, the biggest perk, and I’m not trying to be hammy or anything, but the biggest perk is being able to teach the students I’m teaching. I’m doing this job for fun, I’m not doing this job actually to try and make a living.

So the biggest perk I have are the graduate students that I get to work with.  These people are top notch and we’re teaching leadership, and those things to me are very important.

It’s like anything else. It doesn’t seem like work if you have passion about what you’re doing. I really love teaching and that’s really what I do best.

It’s like anything else. It doesn’t seem like work if you have passion about what you’re doing.  I really love teaching and that’s really what I do best.

What education or skills are needed to be an associate professor?

A lot of education. Your nationally accredited universities will not have professors in education that do not have doctorate degrees.  I have a Bachelor’s, a Master’s Degree, I have a Specialist Degree, and I have a Doctoral Degree.  So there is a lot of schooling involved.

As far as skills you really need to be an expert in the area you teach.  I would hesitate saying I’m an expert because that sounds arrogant, but to me, my proficiencies are in school law, school personnel, and school finance.

There is a lot of post graduate work that you have to continually participate in.  One of the perks about working at the university is that they are very good about providing you with opportunities for professional development.  They have been very good to me in allowing me to continue to upgrade my knowledge base while I’ve been here at the university.  I get to do a lot of law conferences, I present all over the United States, in the area of school bullying and prevention of school sexual abuse, and a variety of other things.  The university is supportive of those things because it does add to your knowledge base, which you in turn can then pass on to your students.

What would you say is the most challenging about what you do?

Making sure that your current with what is happening in education today.  I am a practitioner, so when I teach a graduate class, I teach it from a practitioner’s viewpoint.  The most important thing to me is that when my students graduate from the program they understand exactly what they’re supposed to do when they get out into the field.

So the most challenging part is keeping the relationship between the university and the public schools open so that we know that we’re teaching the latest and greatest so that when our students get out there, they have shortened their learning curve.  When they hit the ground as new principal or new school superintendent, we want them to know more and be better than anyone else.  So, our challenge is to make sure that we stay current and that we provide state of the art information to our students.

What would you say is most rewarding about what you do?

Watching our students become successful school leaders. And this is really our department’s slogan, and that’s the fact that your success is determined by the success of the people that you teach.  If our students graduate from the department and become successful school administrators then that’s very rewarding for me.  If they get out and fall on their nose, then that means I failed too.

What advice would offer someone considering this career?

School leadership and teaching is something you have to have a passion for.  You are never going to be wealthy.  Your rewards are going to be largely intrinsic.  Successful leadership is entirely based on your ability to build relationships with other people and your ability to recognize the talents of other people.

In the 21st century, there is no room for an arrogant leader.  You have to be humble and have humility, and if you don’t possess those things or you’re not willing to take on those behaviors then school leadership or leadership in general is not the place for you to be.

You have to recognize that you’re never going to be the end-all to what you’re doing. You have to continually learn and have to continually admit your mistakes.

It really becomes something that if you don’t have a passion for doing this, or you’re doing it for the money, or you’re doing this because of the schedule, or if you’re doing it for any other reason than you have a passion for seeing schools and children getting a better education, it’s going to be hard to succeed.

How much time off do you get or take with this job?

As a college professor, you have such a flexible schedule, that that’s a difficult question to answer.  If you don’t want to teach during the summer, then of course, you get all summer off.  If I don’t teach in the summer then I get three months off there, I get Thanksgiving, a fall break of five days, I get a winter vacation of about a month, and I get a spring break.

So if you stop to think about it, the schedule that we have and the time off that we have makes for a very nice job.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

That it’s not work.  They believe that if you’re a college professor, you’re somewhere up in the ivory tower, smoking a pipe and being philosophical.  When in reality, I believe good college professors are highly motivated individuals with a passion to make the world a better place.  It is a great job, but I think the misconception is how easy it is.

It takes a lot of training, it takes a lot of experience, it requires a lot of education, and it also requires a lot study.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this job or career?

I just want to keep doing what I’m doing.  I’m 59 years old.  I will probably teach another three to ten years.  My guess is that I will retire sometime in the next few years and then I plan on traveling and enjoying myself.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

That it can either be the best job on earth, or it can be the worst job on earth.  If you want it to be the best job on earth you have to have a passion to want to do it.

We’re all on the earth for a very long period of time, so while we’re here, we need to see if we can make it a better place for folks.  If we’re not, we need to re-evaluate what we’re doing.

What do you do for a living?

I am the state judicial sign language interpreter interpreting in state and local courts.

How would you describe what you do?

I am an officer of the court and there to serve at the pleasure of the court to ensure that communication services are provided between the court and citizens who are deaf, hard of hearing or deaf-blind and who use sign language, oral interpreting services or who need real time captioning if they don’t sign.

What does your work entail?

I perform interpreting services during court proceedings for persons who are deaf, hard of hearing or deaf-blind.  I interpret along a sign language continuum from ASL to Contact Language or English to match the communication skills and style that the consumer uses.

Sometimes we employ the services of a Deaf Interpreter to team with to ensure the court and consumer have the best possible linguistic match.  Intermediary Deaf interpreters are often used in cases where juveniles are involved because they sometimes use different signs or slang or in cases where the consumer may have minimal language or no formal language development using gestures.  Deaf people grow up in a visual world and are skilled on picking up on all the nuances of a nonverbal language whereas as a hearing interpreter, I might miss something.

How did you get started in your job?

Years ago, I worked in the legal field as a paralegal while at the same time I was interpreting at church.  Later I met the wonderful lady who actually held this position at the time and aspired to do the same thing.  I decided to enroll in an Interpreter Educational Program at a local university to become a professional interpreter and put my legal skills to good use.  However, after a little exposure and training, I realized I was far from ready to work in this specialized field.  I went on to graduate school to get my master’s in a deaf related field and worked in the counseling field in several capacities.   I never gave up on my first loves of the law and interpreting and later decided to apply for this position.

What do you like most about being an interpreter?

What I like most about being an interpreter is the variety of experiences I have had over the years.  As a freelance interpreter, one can be up at the crack of dawn working in a restaurant kitchen interpreting for someone learning how to make biscuits while flour is flying off their fingers or the interpreter can be strapped into a harness and jumping out of an airplane with a student and flying through the air.

Interpreters sometimes have the honor to meet movie and television stars, famous performers and authors, popular athletes and important politicians who run our country.  Interpreters also have the opportunity to learn so much while working from biscuits or turbines to the latest research on stem cells or crime scene processing.  Because we know sign language, we are placed in countless milieus acquiring so much fascinating information that otherwise we would not have had the opportunity to learn.

What do you dislike?

Scheduling conflicts can be problematic because each court needs an interpreter and while we hire other interpreters to fill additional assignments, sometimes it’s hard to find someone available.

How do you make money or how you compensated as an interpreter?

I am on a salary but freelance interpreters are paid an hourly wage with travel time and sometimes mileage.

How much money do you make as a sign language interpreter?

My salary is approximately $49,000 and we pay $40 per hour with a two hour minimum to freelance interpreters.  All states pay differently and there is a huge disparity in pay levels across the nation, so it would behoove an aspiring interpreter to check pay rates in the state in which they live.

What education or skills are needed to be a sign language interpreter?

To become a certified interpreter with our professional organization, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf or RID, the interpreter must have an associate’s degree to be eligible to sit for the certification exam.  In 2012, the educational requirement will be raised to a bachelor’s degree.

To become a good interpreter, you must have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things, so the more education one gets only increases their ability to interpret well.  There are many interpreters for the deaf with higher education and have Ph.D.s, Masters degrees and even some with law and medical degrees.  Many interpreters are on a mission to gain more education and knowledge so they can provide an efficacy of services to their consumers whether they are working in a courtroom, surgical room or a classroom.

What is the most challenging about what you do?

The most challenging situations usually involve interpreting for someone without a formal language or for a deaf person from another country.

What is the most rewarding?

When an interpreter leaves an assignment and they feel they’ve done a good job, they are on “cloud nine.”  However, if an interpreter leaves an assignment feeling uncertain about the service rendered, it can be gut wrenching.

What advice that you would offer someone considering this career?

Be patient because it takes a lot of time to develop language skills to become fluent enough to become a professional interpreter and even if the person already knows the language, they must still develop interpreting skills.   It is important to understand that just because a person is bilingual, that doesn’t automatically make them an interpreter.  They must develop interpreting skills, ethics and professionalism.

Stay in school because no one would want to have an ignorant interpreter.  There is no excuse to avoid school because there are college programs offering scholarships and grants for persons aspiring to be sign language interpreters.

After you’ve learned ASL and ethics and developed professional behavior and interpreting skills, stay in school or keep learning.  The more you learn about everything will only help you personally and professionally and help you be a better interpreter.

Are there any common misconceptions people have about what you do?

In court, interpreters are not supposed to interpret everything that is going on prior to their case being called because the assignment is not about equal access.  The assignment in court is about being called to do a specific case and if the interpreter were to interpret all the cases before theirs is called, they might not be able to do the best job possible because they would be fatigued and run the risk of injury.  The common comment from deaf people is that they feel they are not getting equal access and they aren’t, but if the assignment was about access, we would have to hire a team of interpreters to switch out so that fatigue and repetitive motion injuries would not be a factor.  Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources available to send two interpreters to an assignment that might only last fifteen minutes.

What are your goals and dreams for the future?

I want to be the best legal interpreter that I can be.

Is there anything else you would like people to know about what you do?

It is an honor to work in the legal field, to work with deaf people and to be allowed to be a part of the process.  The legal system is something I have always been fascinated with and every case is different.  It’s a fascinating field wherein I can continue to learn.

What do you do for a living?

I am the middle school Band Director at a middle school in the Southeast U.S. Basically I teach sixth through eighth grade band.  And I also teach eighth grade general music. This is my first year of teaching.

How would you describe what you do?

I teach students on various levels how to play band instruments. I have about 52 sixth graders and about 25 of them are woodwind players; I start teaching band so that all the woodwind players are going to either play flute or clarinet and then later I switch them to the other woodwind instruments during an audition process, as an education sound-play, to make sure that they stay with band. I teach the fundamental techniques and concepts necessary to play a school instrument.

A big part of the job is helping students to be successful, because it is very difficult to learn to play a band instrument. A sixth-grader who learns he or she can make progress quickly when they practice and are taught appropriately, is likely to stay with the band for a long time.

In the general music class I begin with the music they are familiar with today, and work backward to the classics. The first week of class we do exercises on some certain type of music. For example, the first week I try to find what’s most popular for them, so I cover pop music and we listen to everything from Lady Gaga to Michael Jackson to The Rolling Stones. Just last week we covered Rock and Roll, and this week is country, so the kids learn a new song every week, and along with that they learn how to notate rhythms and how to identify pitches on a musical staff. They learn not just how to listen to it, but also how to write it and how to play it.

What does your work entail as a band director?

Probably the most time consuming aspect of my job is the lesson planning. I spend a lot of time planning 45-minute lessons for each class.  But they’re just now learning on how to put their instruments together, they just got their instruments so I’m literally teaching them proper maintenance, how to piece the instruments together. The clarinet, for instance, has seven different pieces that have to be assembled before it can be playable.

When you’re handing it to a sixth grader you have to be careful, because if they start going to town on it goodness knows what you’re going to have at the end of the class period. So, we are very slow and systematic about that process, so that they take care of their instruments. On the average. beginning band instruments cost between $400-$500, so we really try to prepare them not to only be good musicians but to take care of their instruments.

I just knew that I was going to be a band director. I love music, it’s my passion and it was hard for me to imagine a single day that I didn’t play my trumpet or give somebody a lesson or show somebody how to play his or her instrument.

Another aspect of my job is fund raising. Nowadays we get so little support financially from the state and our county that a lot of my job is spent raising money.  We’ve raised almost $2,000 so far, and that is just in the first four or five weeks of school. For a band program, that is pretty good. The band program needs that kind of monetary support because we need to buy instruments, have money to take the kids on trips, and other items to keep the band in working order.

What’s a typical workweek like?

I teach the same 45-minute periods every day. I usually come to work in the morning around 7:00 or 7:30 and at that point I start planning some lessons and doing some other things to keep the program running. At 7:45 I let my band students come in to practice in the mornings and they’re in there until 8:10. At 8:10 I dismiss them to head back out so I can take care of some things, get my room back in order and then at 8:20 I let them come back into the room and begin the first class.

My band classes are broken down by grade, and also according to type of instrument. I teach woodwinds together, and then I have classes in brass instruments. In between, I have a 15-minute break where I reset my classroom for the next section. Every day we do 45-minute lessons on the various instruments, where we do a warm-up routine and cover fundamentals, and then we get into our method book, which has four and eight-bar exercises.  Then we actually pull out full pieces of band music and the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders all love that.

The exercises help them to build technical ability, and are a necessary part of learning, so that they can perform the actual music. For example, we have a piece called “The Volcano.”  Much of the band music for middle school students have names like that, interesting pieces that bring the music alive for them, and teach them a concept, and then they understand how the music is supposed to sound. My band classes are by far my favorite classes, hands down.  I have a break for lunch, 20 to 30 minutes to eat and then an hour of planning. I usually eat while I plan, so I have extra time for planning, because there is so much that has to be done.  These are the instructional things that I do every day that are part of my job description. After school, I spend time planning for the next day, and do a lot of other things in the band room. Sometimes I work until 7 p.m. Then, I also work on Saturdays, at least an hour or so, and some Sundays, here by myself.

How did you get started?

I was always an active band student. I’m a trumpet player. My dad was a band director for ten years and then became a school principal and a school superintendent for the better part of his career for more than 20 years, and he had a lot to do with it because he was also a trumpet player. My brother is also a musician, working on a degree in music education.  We’re both music lovers and we wanted to progress on our instruments.

But when we lived in another state, the school we were in was not really helping us develop into the musicians we wanted to be. When we came to the East Coast, my dad set us up with lessons, and I started taking trumpet lessons with the principal trumpet player of the local symphony – a really phenomenal trumpet player. He really did a lot of things for my playing and I kept taking lessons when I was a junior in high school. And as a senior in high school I just knew that I was going to be a band director.

That’s the most rewarding part of the career. To help students be successful, because when they are you’ll feel like you’re successful.

I love music, it’s my passion and it was hard for me to imagine a single day that I didn’t play my trumpet or give somebody a lesson or show somebody how to play his or her instrument. I started giving private lessons to kids over at the middle school  – 30 minute trumpet lessons for five bucks apiece, when I was still in high school, and while I wasn’t a professional, I felt like I was good enough to help beginners to play the trumpet. And it’s funny now to look back and see where those students are because most of them are very good. I think probably one of my biggest strengths, as a teacher is that I’m really enthusiastic about what I do and I love seeing kids get excited about music and about playing their instrument. I think that’s what it really takes to propel a student through.  I know what it is like to come from a school where the band directors are not very good, either because they are burned out or having other problems.  When I really started to improve was when my dad and I would sit down in the living room and start playing trumpet duets. He taught me about things that I was not getting at school. When we moved to this part of the U.S.,  it was surprising to me on how much I had been missing out on because I came from a program that wasn’t very good into a program that was renowned – a really great band and music program. I spent a lot of time in the band room and getting better with my instrument and I had friends that were in band. I practiced a lot, did a lot of concerts and just knew it was what I wanted to do.

What do you like about your job?

I really enjoy students being successful on their instruments. For example I’ve got the sixth grade trumpet players, and there are sixth grade trombone players. They’ve gotten to the point where they can put their instruments together and they’re starting to play their very first note. And at first, none of them have any idea what they’re doing, so when you tell them to buzz at the end of the instrument, they wonder, “what is he talking about?”  If you tell them the right thing, then it isn’t long before they are making that first note on their instrument, and it is thrilling to experience their excitement. For example, we go around the room, and one student will play a note, and I’ll say, “it’s not quite right,” and then I play it back to them, and they hear it. I remind them that this is a process, and before you know it, they are playing a note and they just can’t believe it. To watch a sixth grader freak out about that is really fun. It’s like giving them a coat of armor and saying they are some sort or king or something. It’s just really cool.  I think the kids feel very empowered when they start to take control of their instruments and realize “Hey, I can be good at this, this might be my thing.”

What do you dislike about your job?

The thing I dislike the most is the complaints I hear from teachers who have been doing this for a while. I’m not sure if it’s just that they don’t make very much money or they think they have to work way too hard for what they make. I mean there’s no doubt about it this is not a job where you are gratified with the salary that is appropriate for what you do. But it could be that not all teaching jobs are as much fun as mine. Of course, we are working with middle schoolers everyday and they can be annoying as hell, no doubt about it. But if you train them up the right way and explain your expectations there is really no reason your class can’t go very smoothly.

Yes, every day you have problems.  I’ve heard teachers complain about the fact they have to deal with parents,  and that’s not always a fun thing because parents are kind of irritable, and they think they know the best for their child.  You can’t argue with that because it’s their kid. But by the same token,  in my field I’m the music professional and I don’t believe that there can be many parents out there that can call me and claim they know more about the music curriculum than I do. And that’s not to sound pompus or arrogant, it’s just to say “Gee, I’ve got that professonal degree in this, and I know.” But you have to be very careful about what you say, because you need parent involvement.  I really haven’t had that many issues with parents so far,  but I know it’s something that’s going to happen.  I have found that if you tell a parent that you just want their child to be successful,  most of the time you get a pretty big attitude change because no parent is going to argue with that.  I work to develop a rapport with parents, so that the lines of communication are open but they let me do my job.

What is most challenging?

The most challenging thing is meeting the financial hardships of my students. Band can be expensive, so the trickiest part is finding ways for students to participate in band if they can’t afford the instruments. That’s a really important thing to me. When kids get turned away from band because their parents can’t finance or pay for an instrument, that is doing the student a disservice. So this weekend I spent a lot of time at pawnshops trying out different instruments.

I actually purchased a couple and had a couple of instruments donated this week, but we are barely squeaking by. I have several sixth graders who came in today and they simply don’t have the money right now for an instrument; you can’t turn that kid away. That kid wants to be in your class because they love music and they want to learn how to play a musical instrument and so you have to find a way to make that happen. A lot of times, unfortunately, mom and dad don’t care so much about that. They’ll just say, “well you need to drop that class. “ But it’s cheap to rent an instrument. You can rent a brand new instrument from the music store here in our town for $25 a month. For some people that is a lot of money, but you think that’s less than a dollar a day – so don’t go to the pop machine and you can rent a clarinet for a month. Because many people don’t see the logic in that, instead of arguing with them I go to pawnshops and try to find an instrument for their kid. So the tricky part is making sure every kid has their necessary materials, and is prepared for class. And another really difficult part is to simply managing all the details. One needs excellent organizational skills and planning skills to be a teacher, especially a band director.

What is most rewarding?

The most rewarding part of job by far is the part where I get to get on the podium and conduct my ensemble and know everything is happening because of how I taught it. And hopefully the skills I taught them, whether or not they go on to play an instrument in college, gives students a lifelong love of music. And really that’s the true measure to me of a good band director is how many of those kids you taught however many years ago, how many of them are still doing music or at least still go to concerts and enjoy the arts. We want them to be good and we want them to achieve but at the same time the ultimate goal is to give them the love of music and fond memories of their high school and middle school days.  So the most rewarding part is definitely seeing kids perform and participate in music and knowing that you helped them to be successful. That’s the most rewarding part of the career. To help students be successful, because when they are you’ll feel like you’re successful.

How much money do you make as a Band Director?

The first year salary for a teacher in my school district is $32,595.00. If I worked an seven-hour day, five days a week, that would be something like $23.50 an hour, but teaching isn’t like that. I’m paid by the hours I’m in the classroom, but there is more to my work than being in the classroom.  I’m at work every day and most nights I don’t leave until 7:00 PM because I have a lot to do, and I have to get my work done. And so you can say they pay by the hour in the classroom,  which is 8 to 3:30, but Realistically no teacher is getting out of there before four, and then there is the preparation work to do and the extra-curricular work that all teachers do.

How much money do you make starting out?

It depends on the school district and the state, because as a public school teacher, salaries are set on a scale that includes years of experience and education level. Someone with a bachelor’s degree and no experience, straight out of college, is paid on a different scale than someone with a master’s degree and five years of teaching experience. The downside to the scale is, that most of them top out at a certain point, so that no matter how much education a person has, it will not increase your salary above the top level, unless the district imposes a new scale. Some districts pay band teachers an additional stipend on top of the salary, but this is mostly at the high school level, and is similar to the extra pay that athletic coaches receive.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

The most important skills for teachers of instrumental music and those who want to be band directors is experience with a musical instrument, starting in sixth or seventh grade, in middle school. There aren’t a whole lot of instrumental music teachers out there that don’t play an instrument. Every band director that I’ve ever met in this state has a primary instrument; they’ll play one of the band instruments or one of the string instruments. The education requirement in most states is a Bachelors of Music Education, with either an instrumental or vocal emphasis. Elementary music is a very popular field. But, getting a degree a professional Bachelors of Music in education degree is a requirement in most states.  To prepare for the degree, most students begin in high school with taking the college entrance exams, which are usually either the SAT or the ACT, depending on which test is required for the college you want to go to. There are also requirements for entering teacher education that must be met. Today most states require students to submit to background and criminal history checks, and prospective teachers must be fingerprinted in most states. This is a cost to the student.  If you have a criminal history, you will not be admitted to the program. Another requirement is a minimum GPA of, usually, about 2.5 on a 4-point scale.  After the teacher education block, you must pass state exams to obtain a teaching license in your field, both overall and in your practice area. In my case, I had to take a test for my knowledge of music and music theory, music history. And then I also as an education major I had to take another practice exam – Principals of Learning and Teaching – to see if you know how to manage a classroom, if you have different strategies for how to present curriculum, both in terms of engaging students and getting their interest. While you are in school, it is important to foster good relationships with your professors, so you are able to obtain recommendations for teaching jobs. You will need a solid resume and good references.

How much time off do you get or take?

One of the main reasons people join the teaching profession is because they like the vacation time. We get two weeks at Christmas, we get off any holiday that the kids have off, and then we get a spring break week and then in the summer time they tell us we get two months off with no pay. And everybody is on a 12-month contract which means instead of just being paid for the weeks that you’re in school those nine months you’re actually get paid year around and two of those months you’re not in school. So, that’s pretty good to get a check when you’re not teaching.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

If you want to be a band director you need to be a great musician because if you’re not a great musician you’re not going to create other great musicians. And that may sound like a hard piece of advice for some people but the fact of the matter is the best teachers out there and the best band directors are also compassionate musicians, and if not, then they’re not giving their kids everything that they’re due. So that would be my biggest piece of advice. Master in instruments and develop enough skill on that instrument so you feel you can play it professionally. I had several opportunities in college to do that.

I played with the city orchestra and I played with lots of different groups with professionals. Most of them were not teachers; they were professional musicians. You also need to be dedicated to your studies in college, because teaching is the only profession where you can drastically affect population. In other professions that deal with money and that kinds of thing, and yes,  you can affect population severely. But with teaching you are directly affecting people. If you are not good at your job, you are preparing others to not be good at their job. There was a philosophy in my education department that was written on top of the wall that said, “Teaching is the profession that makes all other professions possible.”  That is a very important thing to keep in mind.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I think the biggest misconception is that a teacher comes in and it’s a 9 to 5 job, and that’s just not the case. Also, you are not going to have a whole lot of social life the first year of teaching; you’re going to have a whole lot of personal life. You’re going to have to try and learn to balance things. Even if you try hard and you’re good at organizing, you will find it a very time-consuming job. The other thing is being realistic about salary. Some people have been doing this for very long time and make a pretty decent salary, but I think some people come in thinking the salary is going to be huge that first year and it’s not, it’s simply not. It’s enough to live on and get by and I’m not going to lie, I live comfortably,  but I’m a single guy. I rent a duplex and it’s very comfortable to me and I like it but it’s not luxurious and it’s not going to be a job where you start at $50,000 – $60,000 a year; it’s just not going to happen.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

First, I want to have a really phenomenal program. I want to have musicians in my band who are proud to be musicians and continue to do music for the rest of their lives because it’s something they are passionate about and that they love.  I feel that if you have a good experience in learning how to play an instrument you’re going to always think back on those good experiences and they’re going to recreate those experiences in the future. My plan basically is to create a great band program that gives superior concerts and is able to travel. I want to be able to take my group to different cities. There’s a worldwide band clinic in Chicago every December at the McCormick center in Chicago, and professionals come to give sessions to students at that clinic. I would love someday to have a middle school band that was good enough to send an audition tape and be accepted to play at that clinic because for me, that would be the epitome of success.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a teacher at a Carnegie-level university, a Ph.D. granting institution in the mid-South. I’ve been at this school for six years now, but I was hired on the non-tenure track, and I’m considered an adjunct professor, even though I teach full time. In the area I teach, I teach about literature and composition. Some of the classes I teach are courses that many students take, regardless of their degree path, because they are considered “core” classes. Others are for those students who are majoring in English.

Not all of these are exclusive to majors, but most of them are majors or graduate students in English. For example, this semester I’m teaching a course in British Romantic Poetry, and I have a couple of people who are not English majors.  My area of expertise is 19^th Century British literature, mostly the novel – but I also have an interest in poetry and prose of the period, and the politics and history of the time. The main genre of the 19^th Century is the novel – that was the big focus.

How would you describe what you do?

This semester I have 75-80 students, and I am teaching three courses. The required load for my job classification is four courses a semester, for two semesters a year. But in my case, instead of teaching four classes, I teach three and advise college students, which means I work with students on their degree plans and coach undergraduate English majors and Master’s level students on their theses and course selections.

The normal load for college professors at the type of institution where I teach is actually two courses a semester, because they are expected to also do research and publish articles in their particular area of interest and expertise. This helps them to keep fresh in the area they teach in. Of course, that is not my case. At my school, we have gone from having a few adjuncts to quite a few adjuncts, because fewer tenure track professors are being hired. Many of our courses are taught by graduate assistants.

In our major, we have more than 100 graduate students who teach two courses and take two courses each semester, and are paid a stipend, plus they are given a tuition waiver and some health benefits.

What does your work entail?

Well, I already told you about the teaching. I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and advise on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Right now I’m rather bogged down with several committees and advising a student group, but when I have time I work on several projects of my own, for publishing.

For example, I am working on an article about Darwin and Melville, who was a 19^th Century American novelist -  doing some transantlantic work there – my husband is a19th Century Americanist, and we enjoy working on projects together when we can. I’m also working on a class on Thackeray for next semester, and will be going to a symposium in Boston on Thackeray, and have been doing some reading and research to prepare. Mainly, though, I’m just working to keep up on what I’m doing in class.

I’m doing a lot of preparation for the British Romantic Poetry Class. We are doing the famous six, plus Burns and  Scott – who are not in the canon anymore.

What’s a typical work week like?

I usually go in very early, because I typically have an early class around 8 or 8:30 or even 7:30, so I get to campus between 7 and 7:30, and my classes are typically over by noon – but this semester I’m teaching an afternoon class, and get out at 3:30. And then I have students come by. I’m working with a graduate student this semester on her thesis, so she comes by once a week for an hour.

And I have other students who come by and work with me on their projects. I help students decide what courses to take, and guide them on their progress. I leave campus by 4:30 or 5, and then I work in the evening. If I teach a Tuesday/Thursday schedule, I will go in on Tuesday and won’t always do prep that night, but I will be answering emails  and doing some research, or working on committees. I’m an officer in an international organization for English, and I work on that – spend a lot of time on a variety of things.

I’m also on a committee for the Modern Language Association. These are things that are related to teaching. I’m also an advisor to a student organization, so I do a lot of communications that keep me on the computer for hours when I come home. I try to go to bed by 9, but often it is 10 or 11. I never even think about how many hours a week I work. I can’t. But if I had to guess, I’d say 50, but I’m sure that is not enough. For example, this is a Sunday, and I’ve spent several hours creating an online test for one of my classes and working with technical support at the University to make it happen.   Is this typical? Yes. There are a minority of teachers who – maybe one or two percent of teachers, people who are “stars,” and are revered in your area, who don’t do all that. But somewhere they have been in the trenches to get there. And now there are even fewer of those, hired on the tenure track, now that tenure is under attack

What is the main difference between what you do and what a tenure track professor does?

I do the same work. I sit on committees, teach the same course and the same students, but I don’t have the release time to do the research. They typically teach two courses, and I teach four. I also sit on master’s and Ph.D. committees, and a variety of committees.

The other difference is benefits and pay. Some are tenured, but the trend today is to hire people on a contingent basis, non-tenured. Some are hired on a more permanent basis, but they still have little job security. For example, if a budget becomes strained, or they decide they want to hire someone’s friend or family member (and it not supposed to happen, but it does) it is possible that you could lose your job even after working there for years.

How did you get started?

I started teaching in 1989, when I was working on my master’s degree in English. I continued to teach while working on my Ph.D., both at the university I attended and a community college nearby, to supplement my income.  After graduation, I taught at a public college and a private college on the East coast. I always liked teaching, but when I started out, I wanted to be a labor lawyer. But when I was getting my bachelor’s degree, I took a class in Law and Literature.

And I thought, I could do what I want to do in the classroom. I could teach mainly middle and lower class students and teach them literature that would teach them to be more informed. So I turned from law and literature, and to the classroom because that is where I wanted to be. Sometimes I have regretted that decision, because of the situation, the labor situation, in academia today, because public education is under attack. In the part of the country where I teach, it is a right-to-fire state.

With tenure being eroded because of fewer teachers being hired on the tenure track, and more and more students coming in, the ratio for students in the classroom with an adjunct is going up. I’m thinking I could have had some impact. But two roads diverged, and I chose my path. But some of my students are going on to study and practice law, and I feel good to have an influence on them indirectly.

What do you like about what you do?

Being in the classroom with students. That is a real high.

What do you dislike?

It’s a mix. I don’t like stacks of papers, but once you start reading them, sometimes it is good and sometimes it is a nightmare. It can be a real joy when they are getting it.  I hate the politics involved in working at a university. And nepotism is a problem, when family is hired, or cronyism.

Sometimes I don’t like the attitude of the many tenure track professors who don’t see what is going on, and don’t support adjuncts and recognize what they do. They are deliberately not facing what is going on. Sometimes I feel it when I’m walking down the hall. But the good thing is, the students don’t realize it. We can’t allow them to know that there is a difference between us, because they are all paying the same amount of money for the courses they take. All the teachers are professional, and the students don’t know that some are grading 150 papers and others can spend more time because they are grading 50 papers.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated as a college professor?

Salary.

How much money do you make as a college professor?

I make $30,000 a year. That embarrasses me. If I were working in a factory, I would be making more by now. But I love what I do, so it is not all about money. That is the adjunct’s plight. We have student loans to pay off, and it is not that the jobs aren’t there; it is just that administrators aren’t opening them up.

Tenure-track professors make more money, typically $50,000 on up to $150,000 a year, if they occupy a position chair (which is a special category for specialists hired to be over a certain area, often with the pay supplemented by a donation to the school). I don’t have the same benefits. . I do have some benefits, though. I have a retirement plan, and health insurance, but no vacation. I’m on a nine-month contract but I’m pro-rated over a 12-month period because I chose that option. I have the typical holidays – when the students aren’t here, I’m not here.

How much money do you make starting out?

I started out making about $42,000, and when I moved to the East Coast, I made about $75,000 a  year. As I said, it was personal choice for me to come back to this part of the country and take the pay cut.  A typical salary, across the U.S., is $80,00 for a tenured professor in English. But getting a tenure track job is challenging.  Departments are using the hires they have to fulfill diversity tracks; those who fit one of those categories are usually persons of color, which I am not, and I understand that. They are looking for those that fill those categories.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

First, it is important to be a really good student. Excellent grades, mostly A’s and maybe a few (but not too many B’s) should dominate your undergraduate transcript. The education is challenging, and requires dedication, and you have to like reading and have a strong aptitude for writing. To teach where I teach, a Ph.D. is required. It takes about eight to nine years, typically, to get that degree. Sometimes, it takes as long as 12 years, depending on how much you have to work while you are going to school. First, you have to get a four-year degree, and then the master’s degree, another two to four years.

The Ph.D. takes from three to six years, and sometimes seven. It takes almost as long as to become a surgeon.  At a smaller college, a four-year college or community college, a master’s degree is required. the important thing is, if you are going to teach and advise graduate students, you have to know enough to be able to guide them. And you have to know where to get the information, if you don’t have it.

So the Ph.D. level is necessary at a school that teaches graduate students. It’s similar to medicine or law in that regard – you have to have the expertise to be able to guide students, and have gone through this yourself, so you can help them to become scholars.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Time management. For one, I teach a heavier load and don’t have the luxury of time to work on articles or research. I also don’t qualify for sabbatical, which is typically having a year or half a year off, with pay, to do special projects. That is a huge benefit only granted to tenure-track professors.

What is most rewarding?

The most rewarding things that I do is to teach, and then there is the camaraderie that I have with my peers across the U.S., in working on the various national committees. But the most rewarding thing is working with students. There is a joy in seeing students bloom and develop into scholars that cannot be compared with anything else, at least not for me.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

You need to think carefully about this before you do it. If you can move, go for it. But, if you are married to a particular place, and cannot move, you should not get a Ph.D. in English, because your job choices will be very limited. I would not advise anyone to do what I have done.

If not careful, you will be undercutting yourself. That is what happened to me, in a sense; I decided that living away from my children was not an option for me, and that I wanted to live near them – plus I love the place where I live. I’m fortunate that my husband, whom I met after I left the area and taught back East, was willing to move here with me and take a lesser position than he had there.

But this is not going to be the case for everyone, and the jobs you want to have may not be in the part of the country where you want to live. You also need to understand the difference in the culture between a four-year college, a public school and private school, and a Ph.D. granting institution, because those differences can be vast. The benefits, opportunities and job satisfaction levels can be very different between them.

How much time off do you get/take?

Except for the summers, when I am really unemployed, I am here when the students are here. The only time I am not here is when I am at a conference, which is maybe once or twice a year. I am compensated somewhat for the cost of these, but I end up paying much of the cost of travel and accommodations out of my pay.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

Several. First, people often think this is an easy job, with lots of perks. They think we don’t work hard, and take all summer off to play. There are also those who have a negative idea about what we do, that someone like me walks into a classroom unprepared, and pushes our ideas on our students.

They think we don’t teach anything. There’s a movement out there who spread this idea that we don’t teach, this idea that college teachers walk into a classroom, talk about politics, and try to teach a liberal agenda. That’s an unfair view. This is coming from people who are anti-intellectual. It is an easy cop-out, a very conservative viewpoint. My advice to teachers is to just be who they are, and not to talk politics.

My students, the average student in a core-level course, have no idea what my politics are. Yes, most of my peers are more liberal than conservative, which is really a consequence of our type of study than our political propensity. Conservatives are far more likely to go into other fields, such as business or law.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

To continue teaching and see my students succeed in what they want to do, and my family, to see each of my kids, who are in school still, do what they want to do and what they like and believe in. They don’t have to be like Mom. But even though the job situation, and the job conditions with what I do is not ideal, the teaching part of it is ideal. I have had wonderful mentors in the past, and some are people I’m working with now. I’m continuing to grow as a scholar.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

People think I’m in an ivory tower, and don’t relate to the real world, and that I’m elitist. But I don’t know anyone who teaches who doesn’t have their feet on the ground, and who aren’t in the trenches with the students.

What do you do for a living?

I am a football coach and Co-Defensive Coordinator and linebackers coach at Mississippi State.

How would you describe what you do?

I’m a coach and a mentor to my players. I try to instill values, work ethic, motivation and those kinds of things to eighteen to twenty year old kids.  I game plan and do schemes for upcoming opponents during the week.  I try to put out the best product that we can on Saturdays and hopefully win championships.

What does your work entail?

The biggest part of it is recruiting. And the recruiting aspect is a 365 day a year process. There’s also the coaching and practice preparation, and those kinds of things change throughout the year. Starting in August we have a preseason camp that will last about a month and then the season starts. We’ll be constantly game planning during the season. Game days are on Saturdays or Thursdays, whatever the case may be. And then come December and January, we’re out on the road recruiting and visiting schools and homes every day for two months.

If you can live without football or can live without coaching, don’t do it. But if that’s what your passion is, and you wake up in the morning and that’s what you’re thinking about, dreaming about, and wanting to do, then just go all out for it.

Then February and March is off-season conditioning, getting the players ready to start spring ball and getting them in shape. Then the end of March, beginning of April is spring training where we practice amongst ourselves for about a month. Then during May, we’re out on the road recruiting again evaluating juniors and seeing high school coaches. And then the early part of June will be high school camps where we’ll have kids on our campus working out.  Then halfway through June and most of July is vacation.  Come August we crank it back up again and do the same schedule.

What does a typical work week look like?

Sunday we’ll come in if we played a game the night before and watch the previous nights or afternoon game. We’ll grade it, evaluate it, take notes on it and that same day we will start game planning on our next week’s opponent and actually have a short practice with the team. We go over corrections and start implementing the game plan for the next week’s opponent.

Then Monday we’ll get in at six in the morning and go till about eleven or twelve at night game planning for the next Saturday. Then Tuesday we’ll game plan all day, practice in the afternoon and come back in that evening and have more meetings, and watch practice on video tape. Wednesday is a little more of the same thing as Tuesday except on Wednesday nights we make recruiting calls. So when the second practice is over, we’re on the phone with recruits and coaches.

Thursday we do meetings, game planning, and finish up the weeks schedule and have practice again. And Thursday nights is usually date night with our wives, so it’ll be the first night of the week we’ll get to see our wives. Fridays are a little bit more low key but we’ll do our picture and reminders for the week for the players and we’ll have tests that we’ll have ready to give to our players that Friday night. Then we’ll have a short practice, and meetings at the hotel. And if we’re traveling, we’ll travel to wherever the game site is of whoever we’re playing. And Saturday’s is just getting ready for the game with the walk through and the pregame and then hopefully have a victory that night.  We have twelve weeks of that.

How did you get started in this career?

I played college football, and when I was done playing my college coach told me that he thought I would make a great coach. I hadn’t really thought about it that much before but I said I’d look into it. So I did student teaching at a high school and while I did that, I actually coached the high school team and just fell in love with the environment and coaching.

After that first year of coaching high school ball I got a graduate assistant job at a wonderful school up in New York City. I did that for a year, and went to graduate school. I got to coach, got my feet wet, and did a lot of grunt work. And then the next two years I was a defensive coordinator for a small Division III school up in Pennsylvania called Albright College. I then went back and did another graduate assistant job at Georgia Tech, just to get a taste of Division I, and see what division one coaching was all about. I did that for two years. After two years doing the graduate assistant job I got promoted to full time, so I was a full time division one coach. I think I was at the time twenty nine years old. I started moving up and going different places from there.

What do you like about what you do?

I just love being around the players, it helps you stay young. I also love college football and football in general. I get paid to watch tape, coach, and be involved in a college football environment every day. The impact you can have on young people’s lives and seeing them develop from an eighteen year old to a twenty two year old young man and have a big impact in their lives is extremely gratifying as well.

What do you dislike about this job?

Maybe at times the hours and the stress that the job comes with would be the only negative. But, you know, it comes with the territory. Actually, with all that being said, there is some excitement along with the stress too, it gets your adrenaline pumping so even though it could be viewed as a negative, it’s still part of what makes the job so fun.

How do you make money, or how are you compensated in this career?

Salary. I’m a salaried employee and then we’ll get bonuses for going to bowl games or good GPA’s etc. We also get paid for working camps during the summer. And then most places have either a car deal where you get a dealers car or they’ll give you a stipend to rent or lease a car.

How much money do you make as a Co-Defensive Coordinator?

Currently $280,000-300,000, in that range.

How much did you start out making in this career?

We start off as a graduate assistant, we basically get tuition and books, some meals, and maybe eight hundred dollars a month to live off of. And then my first defensive coordinator job I made twenty four thousand dollars a year. I did that for two years. I was making about $60,000 at a Division II job and then I started getting more and more compensated as I started moving on up the ranks.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

I got an undergraduate degree in sports management with a minor in coaching. A lot of people get their education degree. I went back and got my education certificate as well, just in case I wanted to coach high school football. But to be honest with you some of the classes that helped me the most were when I did some graduate work in psychology. I did graduate work in educational psychology at Fordham University and undergraduate work in educational psychology or organizational psychology at Georgia Tech.

What would you say is most challenging about what you do?

The recruiting part is probably the most challenging, because you’re going against the same scholarship that every school is able to give. And you’re competing to get to know the recruits and learn what makes them tick and what they’re looking for in a school or in an athletic program.

What would you say is most rewarding about this?

Probably when a young man calls you five, ten, or fifteen years after you’ve coached them and tells you how things that you’ve taught them or lessons that they’ve learned from being around you are actually helping them in their current profession or even with their kids. Those kind of things are probably the most rewarding, knowing that you’ve had an impact on somebody’s life.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Only do it if you love it. If you can live without football or can live without coaching, don’t do it. But if that’s what your passion is, and you wake up in the morning and that’s what you’re thinking about, dreaming about, and wanting to do, then just go all out for it.

How much time to you get off?

After signing day, which is the first Wednesday in February, most coaching staffs get somewhere between three and five days off. Most coaching staffs get spring break off when the university takes spring break. Then during the summer it varies but the vacations range anywhere from three weeks to five weeks vacation during the summer. But the number of Saturdays and the number of Sundays that are spent invested in this profession far compensate any time off.

What would you say is a common misconception people have about what you do?

Probably the biggest thing that most people think is that we only work from August until November. Many people can’t understand that there are actually things to do outside of football season, and truth be told, that’s probably some of the busiest times.

What are your goals or dreams for the future for this career?

To try and put myself in a position to be a head coach of a division one school, positively impact a lot of people, try and do things the right way, help kids get their degrees and an education, and win a lot of football games.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

I guess just that everybody sees the glory that comes from when you win games and now a days it’s almost like a TMZ society with college football on blogs, message boards, and ESPN.com. There’s a lot of negative that’s always being written about college football coaches or college football players. But the truth of the matter is 98% of the time people that are in this profession are in it for the right reasons and 98% of the kids that are involved in college football are some of the best and brightest in the country. And I think sometimes the small percentages of people that are doing negative things get overblown where the majority of people are doing great things and are really trying to make a difference. That kind of gets underplayed a little bit. There are just some great people in this profession and there are some great great kids that play this game.

This in-depth interview was conducted by one of our contest contestants Jordan Grummer.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a history professor and writer.  I teach U.S. foreign policy and political history at a major university.

Can you describe what you do on a day to day basis?

I teach 3000 and 4000 level courses on American foreign relations and one specifically on Vietnam.  I also teach a course on America since 1945. I teach two courses a semester.  When I first started I wrote notes.  I had to read and make up lectures for those, you update and change them.  I have to get ready for class before every class.  Because I try to lecture without notes as much as I can, I try to be prepared, it’s the least I can do is be organized and be prepared.  What I’m trying to do is to get most of my regular students to just be literate about history.  To know what WWII was and the basics.  I also train masters students who usually teach public school and then Ph. D.’s who teach at the college level.

So would you say your work also entails research and writing, and you do that on a day-to-day basis?

Absolutely.

What do you do with Master’s and Ph. D. students?

You teach them the literature more than just the narrative.  You teach them about the various ways that WWII has been written about—the various interpretations. And then you also teach them how to do historical research and how to write.  But then I spend probably half my time writing books and articles.  The idea at the university level is that you come here rather than going to junior college because you’re taught by people who are creating new knowledge.  You’re not just taught by people who are reading the literature and telling you about it.  You’re actually being taught by somebody who is making new knowledge in the field.  So research and teaching for me and writing are all bound up together because I initially wrote for more specialized audiences, but lately I try to write for a more general audience.  The stuff I write is researched and footnoted.  It’s reviewed in academic journals, but also its sold in Barnes and Noble—any educated lay person ought to be able to read it.  I think that’s the way you ought to be able to communicate to your students.  They don’t come in with any specialized knowledge.  But I have a routine.  I’ve been going to school since I was six. The fall semester.  The spring semester.  I used to teach in the summer time but I don’t do that anymore.

How did you get started in history?

Well, it was by accident.  My wife’s always threatening to sue me for marrying under false pretenses because I was pre-med until I was senior, and we got married before our senior year in college.  I had been admitted to medical school.  But I remember going to the University of Michigan. My brother-in-law was doing his residency there.  He was a neurologist and all of his patients were dying of brain cancer, and he was just under tremendous stress.  So I thought, “I don’t know if I want to do this.  I don’t know if I really want to be a doctor or not.”  I always liked history and literature and that sort of thing, and so I began to talk to a guy named Robert Divine who’s a historian at Texas, a big name.  So he encouraged me and that sounded like a neat thing to do.  I knew I wasn’t going to make near as much money as in medicine, but also I thought I’d have a more fun life.

What do you like about what you do?

Well, I’m my own boss.  I have to do my job and everything, but not like an office setting where you have to punch a clock.  It offers a lot of flexibility.  It was great for raising a family because my wife worked.  I could pick up the kids from school and work at the house, or I could work at night.  So it’s a great profession for a couple in with both of them are working, and I really liked that.  Now I teach the same classes over and over but my research is always different.  So I get to explore something different.  And I like writing. I like the creative process as a journalist.

What do you dislike about being a history professor/historian?

You don’t really start making any kind of money until later in your career.  Everything’s back end loaded in this profession.  It’s tough because it takes 8 years to get though college—minimum 8 years, usually ten years for your undergraduate and graduate degree and you’re not making any money then. Budgets are always tight.  It’s tough economically and financially.  It’s really really tough that way.  It tends to be somewhat isolating.  I’m a pretty gregarious person.  Writing I spend a lot of time by myself when you do research or write. I don’t like that.  But it’s a sacrifice you make.

How do you get compensated?

You’re evaluated on three categories.  Teaching and teaching evaluations by students and then by your peers.

How long did it take to get to distinguished professor?

25 years.  Most people don’t make it.  If there’s money for raises, the faculty get raises according to their merit.  When you’re promoted from rank you get a larger raise when you go from one rank to the other.  So there’s incentive to do that.

Is it pretty cut throat?

Yeah, although you either have a good record or you don’t.  Sometimes it’s based on reputation.  You’re reputation’s based on what’s on the paper.  So it’s pretty hard to fake it.

How much money do you make starting out as a historian?

I think starting salary for assistant professor in history is about $48,000 for nine months.  If there’s an opportunity to teach summer school then you get paid separate for that—not very much but probably ten percent of your salary.  The raises the last ten years have not kept up with the cost of living.  They’ve been two percent or less.

How much do you make as a historian?

$180,000/yr (This particular interviewee declined to answer this question. However they directed us where to find it because it is public knowledge since this is a university job.)

What kind of education and skills do you need to be successful as a historian?

Well, you need to go to a good graduate school.   You have to take seminars and take classes and eventually get your Phd.   I took it in US history and European history.  Then I had two thematic fields in African American history and diplomatic history.  But you take a wide variety of courses in American history, I did European history because I was going to do the Cold War.  And then you have to have two languages.  In some places you can replace statistics for one of the languages.  They teach you methodology, how to think about history, what are the various schools of thought, and then how to do research.   And if you want to write about a topic where do you get the information to write about that?  You look at presidential papers, memoirs, documents diaries, newspaper articles and other books.  You pick a topic and you research it.  It’s practice for writing your dissertation.  Then you pass your comprehensive exams which is testing over these broad fields, and then you write your dissertation which is a book length study of some particular topic.

How much reading is involved?

Thousands of books.  But you learn how to read them.  Academic books are not like a novel.  They have a thesis, and they’re trying to prove a point.  Now, they have a narrative which tells the story that you’re writing about.  Like if you’re writing about the….Battle of Gettysburg.  You’ll tell the story of Gettysburg in general terms, but if you’re thesis is the Union prevailed, you may argue, because the Confederate positioning was bad—the strategic planning was bad.  Or maybe it was logistics.  Maybe the armies weren’t being supplied properly.  So then you try to prove that point.  If you’re a Ph. D. student, you’ll know what the narrative of Gettysburg is. What you want out of that book is the point you’re trying make is.  And then did they prove that point.  You can usually read the introduction, the conclusion and maybe the first part of each chapter.  You can boil it down.  All books are reviewed by other scholars in journals, and so you can go and look at the reviews. To try to boil it down. It’s a skill.

What’s the most challenging part of the job?

Patience. You have to sit. It took me ten years to write my first biography. It took me ten years to write my second book. Patience.

When you’re writing the books do you do a lot of interviews?

I do some interviews, but a lot of people are dead.  Most of it’s archival research; Presidential libraries, the National Archives, the Library of Congress.  Most of it comes from letters, diaries, and reports.  If you’re doing foreign affairs cables between the state department and the embassy overseas then you’ll look at memorandom between the President and Secretary of State.  Those kinds of things.

How did you learn to be patient?

Fear.  If you’re not gonna get tenure what are you going to do?  You’re screwed.  You’ve wasted ten years of your life.  You got a family.  You better sit.  You better have some patience.  If you just hated it I couldn’t do it.  But you get lost in it.  It’s basically like detective work.  So you get to explore.  It’s interesting.  The more skilled you get at it, the more interesting it is.  The more efficient it is.  The less boring it is.  You set goals for yourself.  If I don’t get anything done I still can’t get up.  I’ve got to stay here until it’s don. Discipline.  That’s the key.

Whats the most rewarding aspect of it to you?

Two things.  Getting your books published and getting them well reviewed.  And then seeing students later on after they’ve graduated and gone out in the world and they come up and say I really liked this course.  They might say “I’m not necessarily using it in what I do, but I feel like it was a significant part of my education.”  And that’s rewarding.

What advice would you give to a student who’s an aspiring historian?

Make sure it’s the last thing you can do.  I mean make sure it’s the only thing you can do because it’s hard.

The job market’s flooded.  It’s been flooded since I entered the job market forty years ago.  We don’t regulate…unlike doctors or lawyers we don’t regulate the supply.  So there’s far more people looking for academic jobs than there are positions to fill.  So it’s very competitive.

It’s a major endurance test for the first 15 years.  Don’t do it because you can’t find something else to do.  You’ll get frustrated.  You can always try it.  You can get a masters and teach public school which is great.  You can get a master’s in two years, and make a decent living.  A high school history teacher now with a master’s degree probably makes close to $40,000.  That’s not great, but it’s not that different.  It used to not be that way.   So you can get a master’s program and stop there and teach public school or then you can decide to go on.

How much time off do you get/take?

I mean you can take as much as you need as long as you get your work done.  You set sort of goals for yourself.   I don’t know, it’s hard to say.  I’m older now so I don’t work as hard as I used to.   If I want to go play golf, I’ll go play golf.  If it’s a pretty day, I can go play golf on Wednesday afternoon and work on Saturday afternoon.  You see what I’m saying.   I probably take two vacations a year. There’s the school year where you teach and you come up here.  There’s 16 weeks in each semester.  But writing and teaching and research are all of one piece.  So I come up here pretty much 8 to 5.  You’ve got to, that’s the key.  And it’s hard because it takes so long to see the end product.  I had a colleague who said it’s like plowing a field.  It’s back and forth, back and forth and back and forth. It gets very tedious but then it begins to sort of come together for you.

(This is the second of two interviews done by our contest winner, Erin Robertson.  Another excellent interview.)

What do you do for a living?

I am the director of campus ministries for Christ on Campus at a major University.

How would you describe what you do?

My goal is to help students take a step closer to God and prepare them to serve him and fill roles of leadership when they leave here, both in the church, in the community, in their professions, and wherever they go.

A lot of it is just investing in the lives of students. There’s some teaching involved, but a lot of it is just life-on-life mentoring, talking, helping students to think about their lives, their goals, their careers, the direction their future is and how God is involved in those things.

How did you get started in this career?

When I was in college, my career direction was toward being a pastor of a church. My last semester of school, some people asked me if I would be interested in beginning a ministry for college students. So I was 23, and in 1982, my wife and I moved and started Christ on Campus and have been here ever since.

What is it that you like the most about what you do?

I love working on a college campus. There’s always things going on, there’s always interesting people to meet and talk to, there’s always issues that are important to students. It keeps you young, it keeps you thinking, it keeps you engaged. And I like the fact that we’re able to impact the lives of students at a critical time that kind of shapes the trajectory of what they do the rest of their lives. Most of what is accomplished here, you don’t really see until 5 or 10 years down the road: You’re planting seeds and starting ripples that you see spread throughout their lives over the next 50 years.

So patience is a characteristic that’s necessary?

Patience is the characteristic, not evaluating success at the moment, but realizing that success is something measured over the long haul.

What is something that you dislike about your job? Or maybe, something that you don’t necessarily dislike, but you like less?

The nature of our ministry is that it’s a faith-based ministry. My salary, our budget is all provided strictly on contributions, which really puts you in a place of having to rely upon God and rely upon other people to make good ministry happen, to pay your mortgage. And it’s a great thing in the sense that it builds your faith, and it’s a not-so-great thing in that it sometimes produces stress, and…part of my job description is asking for money and raising funds. And I don’t know of anybody that enjoys doing that, and so that would be the hardest part of what I do.

And so, on that note, how much money do you make as a minister? Does it vary depending on the year’s budget or depending on how much people give?

We have established for our ministry a salary schedule, much like a teacher’s salary schedule. Based upon number of years of service, the salary is adjusted, and so at this point I’m in year 29 and my salary is about $58,000 a year. I started at $12,000 a year when I began in 1982.

Is there any other way that you’re compensated?

There are the personal compensations, the spiritual blessings, the sense of reward that comes from being involved in the lives of people – that’s definitely a sense of compensation. There’s not a commission based on the amount of money raised…we’re overseen by a board of directors, and they’ve been gracious at certain points – 5, 10, 15, 25 years of ministry – to give gifts to my wife and I for those kinds of milestones.

You mentioned being in school…what are some of the educational and/or learned skills that are needed to do what you do?

I have degrees in theology and counseling. Those kinds of skills are helpful. What I learned when I graduated with my theology degree was that I had learned a lot of answers to questions no one was asking. Then, it became about learning, what are the real issues people deal with? What are the real questions in their minds? Learning to be able to listen and kind of redirect and ask and help people come to realizations on their own about what’s valuable and what’s important. Everybody’s in the process of writing the story of their lives. So a lot of what I do is trying to help them recognize how their story intersects with God’s story, and that those two things are interrelated, and that their story has the most meaning when it’s interconnected with God’s story…and so helping them to put those things together and integrate their life and their faith.

You’ve kind of already answered this, but what is the most challenging about what you do, and what is the most rewarding about what you do?

Probably the most challenging thing is that you can’t make decisions for college students, and sometimes they don’t make the best decisions. And so learning how to ride with them in bad decisions, and to love them and care for them when they make bad decisions. I wish I could always make the right choices for them, but you can’t. So listening and talking and helping them deal with bad decisions – it’s hard to see students who have been involved spiritually and who then find themselves getting distracted by the world, distracted by others, and then drifting away from God and those values they had before, and pay sometimes severe prices for it, as far as not being able to stay in school, personal prices, relationship prices they pay because of decisions they made when they don’t include God in those decisions – that’s the hard part of that.

The rewarding part is to see people start to grasp how their story and God’s story mix together, and to make choices that lead them to lives that have eternal significance. That’s not necessarily missionaries or preachers; no matter what career they go into, they can go into it from the perspective that it’s part of God’s story, and there are eternal values that they can contribute as an engineer, or as a banker or a teacher or a doctor. When the light goes on that what god has called them to is part of their story, it’s exciting to see those things happen.

And so, taking into account the challenges and rewards, what kind of advice would you offer someone taking career or coming into this type of career?

I would tell them to come in and be willing to be challenged, to be willing to listen, to be willing to be stretched. To realize that all of the answers you may’ve been taught growing up, there may be other answers to that than you know. But to always come back to the foundation of God’s word. Part of the challenge of a college campus is the pluralism, and the negative view towards absolute truth, that all religions are equal. For someone in my position, I always have to come back to what does Scripture say, what does God’s word say? To evaluate your world view and your goals from the perspective of God’s word rather than evaluating God’s word from the perspective of your culture or your values or your goals.

You mentioned that one of the things that you like is being on a college campus – does that coincide with the college schedule? Does your schedule match up with the college schedule and, if so, do you get to take off more time than a typical pastor of a church would?

That’s one of the great benefits of working on a college campus is that my schedule matches the University schedule. So there will be, from mid-August to mid-December, three or four months of intense activity and then a month break. And then three or four months of intense activity, and then the summer break. That kind of rhythm lets you plan your life, so you know that when things are crazy and hectic in September and October, there’s a break coming. It works well for family also, to know that I’m going to have more time at Christmas, a less demanding schedule in the summer, especially when my kids were younger to know that those times were coming up. And it gives you a chance to rest and recuperate.

Are there any misconceptions that people have about what you do?

A lot of people think of our roles in campus ministries as kind of “babysitters” for Christian students. That if they send their kids here, that we’re going to keep them out of trouble and make sure they go to church on Sundays. College students don’t want babysitters and I don’t want to be a babysitter. They’re going to make their own decisions on their spiritual values, and for many students who grew up in the church, maybe their first spiritual decision they ever make on their own is, whenever the alarm clock goes off the first Sunday their on campus, they have to decide, am I going to get up and go to church or not? And it’s then that they start to live out the spiritual values they brought with them. My goal is not to babysit them, but again to help them understand the implications of following Jesus, and what that has in store for their lives, their relationships, their careers and their future.

Speaking of the future, what are some of your personal goals for your future career, and what are some of your goals for Christ on Campus?

Personally, I can’t see myself doing anything other than what I’m doing. I’ve been on a college campus now, either as a student or a campus minister since 1977. I’ve been a perpetual college student for 35 years, almost. So I don’t, at this point, see myself doing anything different. There may come a point where people tell me, whether through words or actions, “you’re too old, it’s time to move on and do something different.” But right now, I’m content and happy in what I do. And part of what’s developed over the years…this is my 29^th year, and this morning I had breakfast, like I do every Wednesday, with a guy that was a student here in 1982. He was at our very first meeting of Christ on Campus, the first fall he was here, and I’m still able to pour into his life and minister to his life, and part of what I enjoy is being able to do that with our former students and alumni as they go into their careers, to continue to have a relationship with them. And I enjoy that – that kind of keeps the ministry fresh as well. So, professionally, I don’t see myself doing anything different. I don’t have any bigger goals than what I’m doing now. Personally, just enjoying my life and my family, enjoying the things I do and the people I’m around. I’m past the point of huge ambition, and I’m trying to learn the lesson of contentment and trusting God to provide for needs and opportunities and not trying to make those things happen.

Is there anything else you’d like the general public to know about what you do?

I would like the general public to know that God is very real on the college campus, that what you read in the papers is usually just the negative – the parties, the drunkenness, the things that go wrong, the criminal reports – but that God is very real on college campuses. There are a lot of visionary, Christian young people on college campuses, and that the future of the church is in good hands, and especially at the University of Arkansas. The presence of Christ is very real and authentic, and it’s an exciting place to be for a Christian student. And if you want to grow spiritually, there’s very few places better to do that than a University campus and being involved in the campus ministry.

Wonderful. Thank you very much!

You bet.

What do you do for a living?

They call us a sorority house director which puts me in the property management category.

How would you describe what it’s like being a sorority house mom?

I live in a sorority house and every sorority house is different. But probably and this sounds funny about 90% of my job is just being here. They just want someone here to take care of things when they do arise.

What does your work entail?

Normally, on a day-to-day basis, I will oversee my staff, help to plan menus, and do the food orders or shopping. I also schedule repairs and maintenance to be done for the house. I eat all my meals with the girls and try to be here when they need me for something.

…these girls are my heroes. They’re funny, they’re bright. They party harder than any kids I’ve ever known, and then they study harder. They’re very well-rounded.

I communicate with the house corporation, which is the group of women or the corporation that actually owns the house. I do a good deal of talking or e-mailing with that group because they want to know everything that’s going on here and how. Like if the faucet in the senior wing is working, or what did we find out about that. Each house is going to vary widely though.

How did you get started?

I was looking for something to do. You know, you always find things in a funny way. My sister has a lake house in a little town called Wimberley, Texas. She called one day and said, You need to be a sorority house mom. I said Yeah? That would be fun. But I don’t know how I would go about it and she said, Well, you call these two women. And these two women run a business where they place house moms all over the country in sororities and fraternities”and they happen to be located in that little town. And they have an ad in the local paper and my sister had just picked up the local paper one day and thought to herself, my sister would like this. So I called, and the lady I talked to was Barbara, and she said, Well, tell me about yourself. And I started off with, Well, I’m a Pi Phi¦ and you know, went on to tell her that I was a CPA and had owned and operated a business and I’ve got a lot of experience in a lot of different things, most of which I don’t ever want to do again.

I love being mom. I like everything about being a mom¦and I get all the fun parts. I get to have all the fun things, but yet I don’t have to pay for college or the orthodontist. I don’t have to bail them out of jail or anything the parents have to do. I just get the fun part of it.

So she told me what they had available all over the country and I immediately found a place I wanted to go. And it just happened to be the Pi Phi house there. Anyway, that’s how I got that job. I never would have known how to go about it. And probably half the women on this campus got their jobs through these two women in Wimberly, Texas.

What do you like about being a house mom?

Number one, these girls are my heroes. They’re funny, they’re bright. They party harder than any kids I’ve ever known, and then they study harder. They’re very well-rounded. I love being mom. I like everything about being a mom¦and I get all the fun parts. I get to have all the fun things, but yet I don’t have to pay for college or the orthodontist. I don’t have to bail them out of jail or anything the parents have to do. I just get the fun part of it.

What do you dislike?

Oh, sometimes what I dislike is having to deal with my board. The women who are my bosses. Especially when I’ve got two or three of them with really strong opinions about how things ought to be done and one of them will come and tell me to do this, and another one will come the next day and say, No, why don’t we do it this way, and you know, it puts me in a bind because they’re each telling me something different and I don’t know who’s advice to follow.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

I’m paid on salary.

How much money do you make?

$32,000 a year, and that’s for a 10-month contract, and then I get a $300 a month car allowance and $300 for insurance. I get my own apartment. I have no bills to pay.

They used to want to tell me everything that everyone didn’t like about something¦be it the food or the colors of the rooms or whatever. I finally had to say, I can cater to vegetarians. I can cater to allergies. I can cater to religious beliefs. I cannot cater to pickiness. If you are so picky and you really don’t like Mexican food, that’s your problem, you’re going to want to go out and eat that day.

There are times I just feel like I’m being paid a whole lot to do nothing.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

You have to like kids, if you don’t like college-age kids, this would not be the job for you.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The most challenging is getting through the first year. And I’ve heard that from others. That’s because you come in and everyone is used to things being done a certain way, but they don’t want to tell you what that is. When I came in I even asked the girls, What do you see me doing? What would you expect from me because I don’t know. And they never told me. And then they’d sit around and grouch, Well, she doesn’t do this and she doesn’t do that. Well, tell me what you want! Sometimes it’s difficult, but I think we’re on a pretty even keel right now. They used to want to tell me everything that everyone didn’t like about something¦be it the food or the colors of the rooms or whatever. I finally had to say, I can cater to vegetarians. I can cater to allergies. I can cater to religious beliefs. I cannot cater to pickiness. If you are so picky and you really don’t like Mexican food, that’s your problem, you’re going to want to go out and eat that day. Please don’t expect me to make everyone happy, every meal¦And they do much better because they understand that I’m not here to be their short order cook. But if they’re picky, that’s their problem, not mine.

What is most rewarding about being a house mom?

I think what I like”it might not be true”but I like thinking that I have made an impact on their lives. It is so rewarding to hear from girls, or just to have them come by the house, who have graduated two or three years ago.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

When you go to a campus, find an ally, find a friend doing the same job, because a lot of times, all you really need is someone to talk to. She can’t solve your problems, but it does help if you have someone who kind of knows what you’re going through and can listen to you. What I have learned later life is to set boundaries. I think boundaries are really important. That first year I really didn’t have any. If they wanted to wake me up at 2 o’clock so that they could get juice, I’d get up and unlock the juice machine. Now I put out a 10 o’clock snack for them every school night, and if they come in at 9:15, I can say Are you going to starve to death before 10? Well, no, but I just¦ I said, Are you going to starve to death before 10? No, and I said, Then wait until 10. Now I have set more boundaries, and now they don’t test me quite as often. But I think as long as you’re willing to get up and do that for them, then they come to expect it. So, it’s kind of like being a mom or a dad that you have to know the things that you really want to do, but you also have to decide when you want to do them.

How much time off do you get/take?

Well, like today¦it’s what, 10:30, 11 o’clock in the morning and I’m still in my robe. I didn’t put feet on the floor until 9:30. Technically, I get two weekends a semester off. The norm appears to be about one weekend a semester, and I think that I could push that issue and get more time. I just haven’t needed to go anywhere or wanted to go anywhere. I get all the Christmas break, Spring break, Thanksgiving and all of that off and I’m paid. I get the two months, June and July off in the summertime, for which I’m not paid. I’d tend to sit at home and watch Law & Order no matter where I was, but if I want to go out to eat with a friend, I can do that. I’ll have my cell phone with me and if for whatever reason they needed to call me, I could come back. And that doesn’t really happen that often. The parents all have my cell phone, and I’ve never gotten a call from one of them at three in the morning saying Where is Mary?. They have called in the daytime and said, Mary has Strep throat. Would you go check on her? and I’d say Sure, no problem!. I think they like knowing that I’m here, and that I can take their temperature and I can recommend that they go to the doctor if I think they need to.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

A common misconception would be that we’re all 75 years old and we just kind of sit in our apartments all day and do nothing. When I was in a sorority I kind of likened it to turning on a light switch. I don’t know how it works, I just knew that every day I’d go down, there was food. And then when I flipped the switch, the light’s going to come on. I don’t know how it works. I didn’t need to know how. But there really is more to it.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

My goal is very simple. It’s to make this chapter the best in the country. The chapter where I went to college, just won the Balfour Cup, which is the national award for excellence in Pi Phi. It’s given out to one chapter every year. And I was just thrilled to bits that my chapter won it, but now my goal is for us to win here.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

By and large how you feel about your job is really determined by your personality and your choices. I mean we each have obstacles that we don’t like, be it the house corporations or bratty girls, or lack of funds for what we consider important. So you can go in and say, Well, they don’t do this and therefore I hate it. Or you can also choose to say, Well, they do this. You know what? I’m going to work with that. I’m going to do it their way. You really just have to be flexible. I would say flexibility is the key to it and maintaining a positive attitude.