Navigating the Path: College Professor Requirements in English

The journey to becoming a college professor, particularly in a field like English, is a multifaceted endeavor that demands dedication, advanced education, and often, real-world experience. While the path may seem daunting, understanding the necessary steps and qualifications can help aspiring academics navigate their way into higher education.

Educational Foundation: The Bachelor's Degree

The first step toward becoming a college professor is earning a four-year bachelor's degree. While it doesn't necessarily have to be specifically in English, it is vital to lay the groundwork for developing knowledge through education over the long term. The undergraduate program should equip you with the kind of skills needed to branch out into further learning and research.

Advanced Studies: Master's and Doctoral Degrees

To teach any material at the college level, a deep understanding of the theory and concepts behind it is required. That almost always means earning an advanced degree in the subject.

Master's Degree

A Master's degree can be sufficient for teaching at the community college level or as an adjunct faculty member at four-year colleges. Adjuncts are the academic version of temps, but they make up the majority of faculty in American universities.

Doctoral Degree (Ph.D.)

The Ph.D., or Doctor of Philosophy, has long been the standard degree requirement for college professors. Almost all traditional academic departments at four-year universities definitely prefer to hire doctoral graduates as professors, however. Doctoral programs usually take several years to complete, and students typically need a bachelor’s or master’s degree to enroll. Most Ph.D. programs require students to write a doctoral dissertation, a paper presenting original research in their field of study, which they then defend in questioning from experts.

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Research is an important part of professorial work, and master’s and doctoral level programs are exactly where you learn how to do that work. The research required as part of your studies, and eventually your thesis and dissertation projects, are also a primary way for you to develop an advanced understanding of your field.

The Value of Real-World Experience

If you’re aiming to be a professor in journalism, medicine, engineering, or just about any other field with practical applications, most colleges want to see that you have what it takes to do what you will teach. That means holding down a job and racking up some accomplishments to build up that CV you’ll be submitting to the hiring committee.

Colleges and universities actively seek out professors who have expertise in cutting-edge subjects in their field. You’ll want to look for jobs that will give you experience in the kinds of topics that will be most important to the future of your field. That’s exactly what students are going to come to school to learn.

Bowdoin College’s Department of English invites applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty appointment at the Assistant Professor level, beginning July 1, 2026, in the long eighteenth century in a global or comparative context. The position subfield is open, and could include the history of science or medicine, digital humanities, the early Black Atlantic, Indigenous studies, geography and urban studies, or environmental studies.

Landing a Position: The Hiring Process

Once you have the experience and the education to become qualified, you can start hunting for jobs teaching in college classrooms. At first, you’ll almost certainly start as an adjunct, teaching part-time or in a visiting position at community colleges or small universities. Since there are no real professional pedagogical standards in college instruction, this serves as a sort of apprenticeship where you cut your teeth learning how to actually transfer your knowledge to students.

At the entry level, college professors don’t have a lot of options in the job market. You will very likely have to relocate to an area with a school willing to hire you. You’ll go through a lot of interviews and apply to a lot of positions to get your foot in the door.

Bowdoin College accepts only electronic submissions. For full consideration, we ask that reference letters and writing samples be submitted byOctober 1, 2025. Review of applications will begin September 8, 2025 and continue until the position is filled.

What qualifications do you need to be a professor?

Though a master’s to start, and then eventually earning a doctorate, is the general rule for full-time tenure positions, here are no state or national standards for teaching college. The question is only truly answered by college hiring committees. Every school is different. They value different qualities ranging from research experience to real-world know-how. And it can differ from job to job or even year to year.

Achieving Tenure: The Pinnacle of Academic Success

Tenure is the end of the line for college professors. While almost any other kind of job can fire you with or without cause, once a professor has tenure, they are all but assured a position for life. Tenure insulates the academic community from trends and fads, allowing unpopular opinions to be expressed and unusual lines of research to be pursued. These are the hallmarks of liberal thinking and a liberal education.

That first involves getting a fixed-term contract that offers possible tenure. It probably won’t be your first professorship, so you can expect to jump around between a few schools before it comes up. That contract will mark you as an assistant professor, starting the long road to tenure. You will teach for a few years at that level, being observed by your department and undergoing evaluation by both students and other professors. Assuming you survive that process, you will earn promotion to associate professor. This means a salary bump but also increased scrutiny for several more years. Your teaching, research, and publication accomplishments will all be weighed during this period. You may also take on additional administrative responsibilities in your department, and be evaluated in your performance. In the end, a tenure committee of other faculty will decide whether or not you are worthy of becoming a full tenured professor.

Bowdoin College offers opportunities for professional development, a fully funded, year-long pre-tenure sabbatical leave (after three years of teaching and successful reappointment), and regular, generously funded, post-tenure sabbaticals. Support for teaching, grant-writing, artificial intelligence initiatives, computing software, and community partnerships in courses is available. The College also offers robust programming and resources for establishing and enhancing mentoring networks.

Bowdoin is particularly interested in candidates dedicated to undergraduate teaching and with a promise of long-term successful research and/or creative work.

Qualities of a Successful College Professor

The most important quality you need when figuring out how to become a college professor may be your desire to learn. If you want to get your students interested in the material, you need to live and breathe it yourself. Academia is all about the process of expanding and understanding new knowledge. You’ll never fit into the field if you don’t have a passion for that.

Critical-thinking skills.
Interpersonal skills.
Resourcefulness.
Speaking skills.
Writing skills.

Postsecondary teachers must be able to present information in a way that students will understand.

Compensation and Job Outlook

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2020 the median salary for postsecondary teachers, the category that college professors are included in, was $80,790 per year. The top ten percent of the group make excellent money, over $180,360 per year. The field you teach in can also affect your salary, with in-demand areas like law, economics, and engineering commanding six-figure median salaries.

Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire.

Is it the right career?

Like any career, becoming a college professor can be great if it delivers what you are looking for in a job. It’s perfect for people who enjoy exploring intellectual ideas, passing them on to students, engaging in cutting-edge research, and discussing it with other academics. Professors have tremendous flexibility in their personal schedules and in their freedom to teach topics that interest them. They have to be self-motivated and enjoy engaging with students.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

At Bowdoin, we are committed to inclusive excellence, an ongoing collective practice that honors our institutional commitment to provide an outstanding liberal arts education and serve the common good. The College is home to talented students, faculty and staff and we encourage applications from candidates committed to the inclusive instruction and support of a diverse student population, and those who will enrich and contribute to the College’s multifaceted diversity. In addition, visa sponsorships for faculty hires are available.

Bowdoin College complies with applicable provisions of federal and state laws that prohibit unlawful discrimination in employment, admission, or access to its educational or extracurricular programs, activities, or facilities based on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry and national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, age, marital status, place of birth, genetic predisposition, veteran status, or against qualified individuals with physical or mental disabilities on the basis of disability, or any other legally protected statuses.

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