Today we're going to hear from an adjunct professor.

And if you're not familiar with the adjunct teaching world, it's basically a way that

universities have kind of outsourced their teaching requirements to people who are very

qualified.

They usually have advanced degrees.

And they could be tenure-track

professors, you know, those kind of professors that get guaranteed jobs and can often make a decent

income. But these days, so many classes are taught by adjuncts, and adjuncts are basically

low paid, even though they are very qualified. So naturally, unsighted us whole school, we're going to hear

from an adjunct professor who needs to make more money. The professor of sociology, I believe they enjoy the actual teaching, but they would like to make more money, of course. So, you know, this is this whole teaching model, basically is it's a good deal for the universities. It's terrible for the adjuncts. And, you know, they're kind of in a bad position because, like, if they don't take the job, somebody else will. I probably can't solve that problem here. What I can do, perhaps, is give some direction or some ideas on how they can make extra money. How can they create a new source of revenue? Because that's what we're all about helping you diversify your income, create new

revenue streams so that you're not dependent on any one particular job or employer or anybody

else other than yourself. That's what we're all about here on the podcast. Stay tuned to

hear the detailed question and my response. Hi, this is Megan calling in from Buffalo, New York. I'm an adjunct professor of sociology. I enjoy teaching, but as you may know, adjunct instructors have it pretty bad. I make less than $3,000 for an entire course, which goes for a

whole semester and requires lots of prep work and student interaction in addition to the actual

teaching. I'm not complaining. Okay, maybe I am, but since I'm probably not going to change how

higher education works in America these days, Do you have any suggestions about how I could

increase my income? I'd like to use the skills I spent years studying for, not to strive for Uber or

whatever. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing your answer. Megan, what's up? Thanks for calling in.

I actually have a degree in sociology. I'm very grateful for it. I learned a lot from that field, even though I never went into higher education myself. But the question here is, you know, what are we going to do for Megan? How are we going to help her? And I think the answer is like the answer can't just be teach more adjunct courses because as she says, you know, she's making less than $3,000 for an entire course, which is a whole semester. And it's not just the teaching, but it's all the additional hours that are required in that setting. So you can't just teach more adjunct courses, at least if you're trying to get ahead. And then I also think, you know, the first step to any side hustle of brainstorming is often

to take a little inventory of your skills. Like, what is the intersection of your abilities and what

other people value? So for someone who is a sociologist or who has advanced training in any

particular field, don't just say like, oh, these are my formal qualifications. What do they enable or entitle me to do? I think it's much broader than that. It's like, what have you learned along the way that can be applied in different forms or different ways? And throughout a lot of lessons in the podcast or in the 100 Side Ussel's book, where we look at all these different case studies. We often had

...