Career Switch To Be A Teacher
 

Hi, i have an intention to switch career from a senior manager equivalent position in the semiconductor industry to a teacher, preferably in the post-secondary or secondary schools. I am a PhD degree holder from the school of EEE, NTU, and have 14+ years of working experience in the semiconductor industry.

Before i make the final decision of this career switch, i have below list of questions. Can any seniors from the education sector help to share your valuable thoughts? Thank you in advance!!

Q1. Is it possible or common for such career switch? I mean for applicants like me without any teaching experience?

Q2. What is the procedure to be officially qualified for a teacher if there is an offer from some school? From this forum, i understand that the candidate needs to start with a teaching stint (1 yr) followed by the NIE training (16 mth) to obtain the PGDE. Is this procedure applicable to all candidates, regardless of qualifications?

Q3. What is the workload? From this forum, i see a lot of negative descriptions which are quite scary. I would like to understand some quantitative information such as 1) total number of working hours per week, 2) time allocation percentage between teaching and administrative / miscellaneous.

Q4. What is the remuneration? I would like to understand the monthly basic salary (estimated range) based on my qualifications mentioned above. How many month will be paid per year? Is there any other type of bonus or allowance?

With 14+ years of experience in the semiconductor industry, why not be a lecturer at poly? This could help those students understand better about the semiconductor industry.

Thanks for the suggestion.

My understanding is that teacher is lecturer, and poly is one kind of post-secondary. Is this understanding correct? If not, then I need to re-define the scope.

hi im a teacher at poly, teaching business course. it sucks, lots of overtime, pay is ****. 4k after 4 years.. i have a degree in marketing.

the students are cute, only reason i stay is for them. sometimes the student offer u something for better grades :)

Thanks for your sharing - interesting.

Did you hear any successful case like me - switch career from industry to poly without any teaching experience? What is the standard procedure to become a lecturer officially?

i hope its food hehehe

lecturer in poly pay that bad? 4k after 4 years. I always assume they earn from 5-6k

I just grad from uni with electrical engineering degree and i am unsure of what industry to pursue. I was thinking of going to semiconductor industry. do you recommend that industry? also do you have any other experience of other field that you can recommend me? Many has recommend to me to go for IT sector as it pays well but my programming isnt that good. If during interview i kena test, die lo. Maybe can do basic nia. otherwise gone case.

Congratulations on your graduation from University. It marks the ending of some theoretical study and the beginning of a new journey for some ptactical study.

It is quite common for fresh graduates that they feel nervous before their first job because 1) they are not sure whether they are sufficiently qualified for certain industry and 2) they have no feeling about how is the life in that industry.

For 1), it is not what you have learned from the University, but how fast can you learn from the industry that will determine how successful you will be. Nobody is sufficiently prepared from University study such that he can immediately perform well in the industry without the need for further training or continuous learning. Many employers will indicate their job openings with "fresh graduates welcome to apply". This means their expectation will not be high. So, just proceed to apply if you are interested with that position.

For 2), I do not have working experience in any industry other than semiconductor manufacturing. This industry is challenging with fun. There will be different issues almost everyday, big or small, to be solved by engineers, and sometimes urgently. But, not every issue has a solution, or the solution is not satisfactory, or it takes long time to solve. That is the time you will feel frustrating. But when the issue is finally solved, you will be recognized by the managers and you can enjoy the fulfillment. If you are good at or interested in problem solving, massive data analysis, logic reasoning, inter-personal communication and collaboration, and do not mind living in a fast-paced environment, then you may consider to join this industry.

Since you are fresh graduate, just go ahead to start your very first job. If you feel it is not suitable later, you still have time to try other industry. So, no need to think about too much and over-worry unnecessarily.

can you recommend some semiconductor companies?

are you familiar with the job role of ADTS ATI PI? what does it means? i see it under micron

Back to your original query - based on your recent response, I agree that a poly might actually make better use of your qualifications. You can check out poly vacancies on their respective websites (think careers@gov would list as well) - it's a separate system from the main MOE teaching pool.

If you're really keen to consider teaching, then yes - there are PhD holders as well (though it's not common). You can apply as a mid-career entrant. The process is still pretty similar - a stint of contract teaching, followed by NIE (if found suitable) and then posting to school as a teacher.

Workload can be pretty tough. Other than the volume of it, there's the wide variety to deal with - one moment counselling a student, marking assignments the next, and also juggling administrative work (e.g. crafting a government-style Invitation to Quote). It's not that common for an officer to be proficient/enjoy all the wide variety of work.

As for remuneration - there's a standard payscale (can try searching on the other forum; it's been shared before). I don't know the specifics, but HR tends to offer mid-career applicants a relatively low starting pay, but with accelerated progression that allows applicants to (start) catching up with peers who'd started teaching earlier.

Global Foundries, SSMC, Micron, Broadcom, Lumileds, AMS, Denselight, etc.. You may Google search to find more and understand more..

Sorry, I am not familiar with the terms used by micron. You may read the job descriptions to have some feeling about them.

I would like re-define the scope of enquiry to be more specific - Career switch from semiconductor industry to be a Lecturer in Polytechnics.

Can any experienced Poly Lecturer help to enlighten me about below questions with reference to my background? Any sharing will be greatly appreciated. :)

Polytechnics hire lecturers directly (not via MOE). You might want to look up individual polytechnics (or Careers@Gov) for vacancies.

I imagine they would gladly consider mid-career applicants with relevant working experience, but I'm not an expert in this.

Thanks for your clarification about the hiring approach. 👍

I checked the 5 individual polytechnics and found their job vacancies were linked to the Careers@Gov website. There is no direct contact information of HR from the individual polytechnics. Application for the job vacancies needs to fill up and submit an online form from the Careers@Gov website. Is this the only official way for job applications?

BTW, is a lecturer at polytechnic considered as a civil servant? Thanks.

For job application - think each respective polytechnic's website would list all official channels - if Careers@Gov is the only one stated, I guess that's it?

If you know people, or approach informally, I'm guessing you will be directed to Careers@Gov anyway - except that the hirer (if interested) would look out more for your application.

Technically, polytechnics are counted as stat boards, so lecturers would be public servants rather than civil servants (not working directly under ministry); although the distinction is probably not that meaningful.

For job application - think each respective polytechnic's website would list all official channels - if Careers@Gov is the only one stated, I guess that's it?

If you approach informally, I'm guessing you will be directed to Careers@Gov anyway - except that the hirer (if interested) would look out more for your application.

Technically, polytechnics are counted as stat boards, so lecturers would be public servants rather than civil servants (not working directly under ministry); although the distinction is probably not that meaningful.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think your guess is correct.

From the home page of RP, click on Careers@RP brings me to the Careers page where ONLY a link could be found to View Available Positions. Click on that link will jump to the Careers@Gov website where the Positions from RP are listed with closing deadline. Click on any interested position will refresh the page to show the details of that position with an "Apply now" button at the bottom of the page. Click on the button will come to the online form for fill-up and submission.

Anyway, i have submitted my application for one position and received a system generated email from RP acknowledging the receipt of my application and asking for my patience to wait for 4-6 weeks for the review and assessment to be completed.

Is this 4-6 weeks of processing time a typical lead time?

Thank you so much for taking your time to answer all my questions in details. 👍👍

Good luck!
 

What I can add to the thread is that, your ' workload' will get severely diminished as you accumulate more teaching experience.

Say you teach 12 hours a week - for the first time you are teaching a course, it may take you 4-5 hours to prepare 1 hour of lecture content. That prep time might become 1 hour per 1 hour of content, and eventually 5 minutes as you have been teaching the same course for a few times already. Depending on the course, you may want to update the content or improve them as you get better as a lecturer.

Same thing with student consulting, admin, management tasks, and whatever you get to do. You will learn how to deal with them much more effectively. Thus, your work-life balance will improve.

There are quite a few mid-career switchers I know. So you aren't going to be that unique. I would go as far as saying that lecturers with substantial industry experience will have a great chance of landing the desired job and excel.

Fresh grad here unable to find jobs. I thought being a teacher might be better. What is the typical salary for SIM fresh grad?