
Disillusioned with teaching - kerven
Hi HN<p>I graduated three years ago with a good degree in Mathematics. For various reasons, I took up teaching (in the UK) but I&#x27;ve decided it&#x27;s not for me.  The hours are ridiculous (I commonly work 60 hours a week if not more), there is constant stress and pressure from management and the situation for teachers looks like it will get worse with all the changes the current government is introducing.<p>I love working with children and I love Maths. I thought teaching was the perfect career for me but I&#x27;m at risk of burning out if I do this for much longer.  I have been looking for other jobs (mostly in finance and software) but lack of experience is hurting my prospects. I have been trying to build an open source portfolio but I simply do not have the time to work on it.  Has anyone else made the jump from teaching to industry and if so, do you have any advice?
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glimcat
This is a very common issue, and you shouldn't feel bad about deciding it's
not for you. It's also common to have guilt or self-identity issues for a
while after leaving.

Math is kind of a broad area. Some people coming from it will have a very easy
time adapting to software or finance, others will have to start more or less
from scratch. There's also the question of whether you'll like it. Good signs
are if you're more towards the applied / problem solving side, and if you have
fond memories of playing in Mathematica.

Since the problem is fit and lifestyle more than other issues, you might
consider going for internships first. This would give you a way to get your
feet wet and test for fit before over-investing too much in one path, and it
could also give you an easier way to transition into the industry.

And yeah, LOTS of people do get into those fields from math, random sciences,
engineering..."your major is not your career."

Note on internships:

At least in the US, internships do have to be paid if you're producing actual
work product - despite what a lot of companies will try to pull. "Companies
who are unaware of basic employment law or who think it's fun to flout labor
laws" is a good filter for companies that aren't worth your time.

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JackMorgan
I also used to me a middle school teacher, now turned full stack developer.

For me the best skills teaching taught me were being patient, prepared, and
calm in almost any situation. As a teacher you know how to tackle political
situations very similar to what you'll see in an office.

Within two years as a developer, I was running a program at my work in which
I'd hire and train new grads by pair programming with them. I'd still have to
get done a full weeks work, but I'd get to pair exclusively with a "mentee"
for a couple months till they were up to speed. It was awesome to get to use
my skills that way.

The hardest thing I still struggle with is not smothering my coworkers when
they are stuck. Most developers got where they are by being good at struggling
through challenges, and therefore more do not enjoy their hands being held
through a "teaching moment". I've had to learn to take a very subtle touch
through most of those.

How I actually transitioned is sadly just luck. I duel studied CS and
education in college, and a friend of mine offered me a development job when
he saw how miserable I was. I wish there was a simple trick I could offer, but
no.

What I would suggest though is to go to meetups in your area. Find a
technology to learn, and go to meetups about that. While you are learning it,
pick a topic not recently covered by a group, and present on it. You'll be
great at that, and it will demonstrate both your technical knowledge and your
social/team skills.

If you're ever in the Philadelphia area, let me know, and I'll buy you a
coffee and talk your ear off.

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ExAcademic
Teaching is a thankless job, and that fact is particularly soul crushing to
those who want to do a good job and work hard. Thanks for trying to improve
maths education with your hard earned degree.

Maybe it's possible (albeit challenging) to change your role to one with the
aspects you like (teaching) without those you dislike (ridiculous hours and
meddling)?

In a slightly older but similar version of your situation, I quit my 15 years
of secondary and third level teaching (also in the UK) to join a software
multinational and promote computer science (with kids & adults). The job is
different but in my (so far limited) experience, far more rewarding than
almost all aspects of traditional teaching (no silly paperwork, better
financial rewards).

I think what helped me get the job was not my extensive teaching experience or
research publications (I doubt they even took them into consideration) but my
passion for the subject, track record at inspiring kids and the educational
open source software I had developed.

Best advice I can think of, if you are dedicated to building a portfolio,
build software that you use in class. That way you can mentally justify the
time (I need this to teach) and also test its efficacy. Good luck.

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microcolonel
If you're having trouble justifying time spent on developing software, why not
develop software which helps you manage your teaching job? Most software is
pretty generic, so experience on any old project should involve a wide enough
array of knowledge to give you a start.

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timthorn
Try looking in the independent sector for teaching positions? Pay is much
better and there's much less governmental meddling.

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adregan
I switched from teaching to development (front end) in the last year. My
background is in literature and I taught poetry at universities in America
(adjunct) and I taught general lit. at an international school in Japan for a
few years. Even though I loved teaching, I quit for a few reasons.

\- I gave serious thought to what kinds of projects I'd like to be working on
in 5 years, and discovered that I wanted to contribute to society on a larger
scale—I wanted to affect more lives.

\- Teaching didn't allow for constant iteration. I couldn't test out new ideas
as quickly as I would like. If I blew a lesson, I'd have to wait another year
to try and make it better.

\- The institutions felt slow to adapt and change, and there was constantly
push back when I tried to do something different.

\- I completely understand the feeling of burning out—it's very real for
teachers (and students)—but the worst feeling that comes with teaching is how
sad it is every year to say goodbye to your students after spending so much
time investing in their well being.

I really enjoy front end development and user interaction, and on top of that
I find programming creatively satisfying, but it was hard to figure out how to
get my foot in the door, so here's the approach I took.

Stay focused—once you start getting down the rabbit hole, try not to get
distracted by all of the cool stuff you find. I was constantly tempted by
other languages and platforms (iOS development always looks so great), but I
really wanted to be a front end dev (I was getting back into it after years
away), so I had to put on blinders and really focus on the core front end
stack.

Learn your tools—finding out the baseline of knowledge for the field you want
to enter is paramount, but so is learning how to use the tools. I think having
grunt in my toolbox has been paramount in allowing me to level up
quickly—learning best practices by osmosis.

Don't let being a teacher work against you—After years of trying to teach
students to appreciate weirdo obscure lit, I learned to pay attention and ask
better questions. I learned that my first instincts about how to do things was
usually wrong, and I had to be willing to kill my darlings. For me, this skill
manifests itself when architecting UI or thinking about user experience. Using
software for the user is like learning something new. How can you set the user
up to succeed. This is taken from my cover letter:

"What a teacher or a developer/designer should do is help a user recognize
patterns and give them enough information to fill in any gaps and reaffirm
what they already know. However, it's difficult to know where you should
begin, when you should take a step back and simplify an abstract concept.
That's why a teacher or a developer's main task is to observe, ask questions,
and take feedback—to swallow one's ego and remain flexible."

If you've been teaching for more than a week, you know how to swallow your ego
and take feedback. On top of that, you're likely very patient. These are
strengths you developed via teaching.

A further strength you've developed is the ability to _teach_. Developing is
ripe with teaching opportunities. You likely write great documentation, great
code comments, and do so in a way that is very complete without making someone
feel as though you're talking down to them.

You're also pretty good a planning a project. I always felt that 80% of good
teaching was due to adequate preparation. I've been honing this skill and
taking advantage of my tooling to help me architect my projects. For example,
assume you're working on a project which will be used in multiple instances.
The core will remain the same but the outward manifestation will change from
instance to instance. Good planning beforehand will likely aid you in
maintaining that project in the future (so you don't have forks on top of
forks).

And I'll return to patience. Teaching is probably the hardest job in the
world, and you've learned to be patient. This is a huge asset. Play it up.

You're not going to try to convince these companies that you're a good fit
despite your experience teaching but because of it. Apply for positions where
they will see a real benefits from your teaching experience. Perhaps something
where your work will interface with users. You probably won't enjoy a job
where your work exists behind the scenes and is largely esoteric. You've got
that education itch to scratch, and it probably won't ever go away.

You need someone to take a chance on you; make the conversation about your
strengths (of which there are likely many).

(One caveat: I quit my teaching job before I had a programming job and spent a
few months trying to bring my skills up to an appropriate before applying to
positions. This was a very scary time, but in the end it paid off. It was a
big leap, and it worked out, but nerve wracking nonetheless)

Good Luck.

