How to Teach Sociology in a Community College

People searching through the job listings might be wondering how to teach sociology in a community college, if that is their desired field. Teaching sociology at the community college level can be a bit different than at a traditional four year university. However, before you can even consider teaching, you must get your degree.

Get Your Degree

Before you start teaching others, you are going to need to get a degree for yourself. Different colleges are going to have different requirements for whether or not you can teach there. Therefore, if you have a particular part of the country where you are interested in eventually teaching, talk to some of the sociology departments in the area to see what their requirements are.

For your sake and for the sake of your students, you will probably want to pursue a degree that is actually in sociology. In order to teach college at any level, you are generally going to need to have your Masters degree.

Considering the Differences

When you apply to teach at a community college, you might feel as though it is a whole different world than a traditional four-year school. To an extent, you are correct. There certainly are differences between two-year and four-year institutions. For example, most community colleges do not offer residential programs for their students.

An assumption that you should really be careful about making though is that the students are not as intelligent as students at another school. Many students go to community college because they do not have the money for a different school, or because they have not yet decided on their future plans and they want to dabble in different areas.

Make it Real

Sociology is a topic that everyone can relate to, since we are all part of the social scene in one way or another. Do not just stand in front of your students lecturing all day.

• Ask them how relations in the social scene have affected their lives.
• Let them bring in statistics regarding their own communities.
• Relate those statistics to the state or country as a whole and see what the research tells you and the students.

Chances are, if you are teaching at a community college, many of the students are from the local area. Use that to your advantage. Ask them to attend meetings that relate to sociology or see if the school will allow you to take them on field trips for some hands on learning.

Gear the Classes Appropriately

A major difference between a community college and a four year school is that you are probably not going to have a whole lot of students who are pursuing a degree in sociology. The school that you teach at might not even offer such a degree to the students. The sociology classes might be there for elective credit or so that students can figure out if this is a major that they might want to pursue in the future.

Therefore, you need to be aware of what type of class you are teaching. If you are teaching a very basic, beginner class, students are probably not going to expect to have to spend their money and time to go to meetings outside of the class, unless you organize a group trip.

On the other side of the coin though, the students in a very basic class are the students who really are into the subject area. You will need to make sure that they get a fulfilling experience of sociology so that they are prepared to make the decision about the role that the subject will play in the future.