Which Online English M.A.

[barnabywilde]

I have been accepted to 2 online M.A programs. I want to teach community college English at the end of it all...I have a place with the Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media M.A. at Northern Arizona University, and English M.A. at U.T. Tyler. One is more writing focused and the other looks like a general English program. N.A.U. is a little more money...can anyone help me with my decision. I am running out of time!

[chocolatte_]

Congrats on your acceptances. If you're trying to make a choice based on which will help you with your end goal (teaching English at a CC), then I'd say to go for whichever one will set you up better for a PhD acceptance after you're done. Rhet/Comp is still placing decently, as far as I'm aware, but I don't know anyone teaching it at a CC level without a terminal degree (either MFA Creative Writing or a PhD in English/Rhetoric).

Also worth considering: how old are these online programs? You want the one which is the most established and has the most support staff and the best response times to your queries. When you're solely online, you're really relying on these people to be on their game so that you can make progress.

 

[Warelin]

24 minutes ago, barnabywilde said:

I have been accepted to 2 online M.A programs. I want to teach community college English at the end of it all...I have a place with the Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media M.A. at Northern Arizona University, and English M.A. at U.T. Tyler. One is more writing focused and the other looks like a general English program. N.A.U. is a little more money...can anyone help me with my decision. I am running out of time!

Do any of these programs offer opportunities to teach? The job market is really rough right now and you'll likely be competing with students with a doctorate's degree. Community Colleges tend to prefer people who have experience as the instructor of record.

[CulturalCriminal]

I’d say neither. If you want to teach CC, you need to go somewhere where you can get at least a year teaching experience, which online programs seldom offer. This is especially true if you want to become a lecturer.

[barnabywilde]

I have a lot of teaching experience...12 years in secondary education and a few years before that in elementary ed. Does that count? 

Cheers, Barnaby

[CulturalCriminal]

I have friends with similar backgrounds who likewise want to be lecturers and got their MA's at programs where they were able to teach first-year writing for a year (after assisting large classes their first year). Even with their backgrounds and that one year of teaching university, they still are having trouble landing full-time lecturer positions. I likewise have a friend that has a similar background as you and didn't get to teach their own courses while in MA. She is in an even worse spot. Hell, she even got laughed at in an interview for trying to sell her K-12 teaching experience as applicable to uni.

If you are strictly interested in teaching at community colleges, you really need to go to an MA where you will be able to get some experience teaching. Most community colleges expect prior experience teaching at the university/college level. Likewise, you might really consider the fact that my experience with CC's in popular areas (i.e. Austin, CA Bay Area) was marked by a rather high number of folks with PhDs there. I imagine LA is much the same, as there is likely a high number of folks that finish their PhD in the LA area and decide they'd rather stay in LA working at a CC as a Senior Lecturer than be a Prof out in the boonies.