Teach like an Egyptian...?

June 25, 2007 7:49 PM

I've been encouraged to apply as a possible guest lecturer/temporary teacher at the American University in Cairo. Basically, I guess they're developing a brand new campus with a state of the art media/art department and starting up new programs, and because I have a strong background in American media the faculty department there feels I may have something to offer. Thing is, although I'm a total travel addict, I've never lived overseas & have never even considered anything like this before. I'll be honest, I'm feeling pathetically clueless about this idea. I am just not sure yet how serious to take this. Aaaggghh!

I also don't know much about graphic design in Egypt, but I have heard it's a pretty good international university and they're really trying to become cutting edge with the creation of this new campus. Because I've had a decent 15-year design career, I've been invited to speak at various design classes (high school & college) over the years & I've taught Photoshop & other programs as a consultant in LA & SF. I have no official teaching credentials though (I don't even have a degree myself, which admittedly is something I battle with massive insecurity about), so I don't know if I'm really qualified to present myself for something like this or where to even start. Or even if I SHOULD.*

I'm trying to learn Arabic so it would be good to be temporarily immersed in the language (although I'd obviously be teaching in English), and it would be fun to visit my friends there. But I honestly don't know. I don't even know how much they pay (ie, if I could afford it), although I hear they treat visiting staff very well. I do know that I would only consider a short term assignment though because I definitely would not want to live in Egypt on a permanent basis.

So please tell me, dear Hive Mind... what do you, in all of your glorious wisdom and vast experiences of the world, think about this? Talk to me! Have you ever done anything like this? Should I try? Or is it a totally stupid/sillly idea? And if I was to consider it, do you have any advice/tips/warnings? If it's something I shouldn't consider or if I'm truly not qualified enough, well then I'd rather not waste my energy on it any further. So helllp!

As they say in Egypt, thanks oodles. ;)

*My dog is really trying to talk me out of it. She hates falafel. (Although that said, I'm not sure if I would even be able to bring her.)

posted by miss lynnster to work & money (22 comments total)

Yes, I made that up. No, they don't say that in Egypt.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:51 PM on June 25, 2007

Go! If it sucks after a while, you could always quit and leave.
posted by k8t at 7:52 PM on June 25, 2007

Don't get ahead of yourself. The first step in this whole process is applying. And yes, you should apply, because there's no good reason not to. It's not a binding contract. Wait until after they offer you the job to worry about the falafel-hating dog.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:55 PM on June 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yeah, so that's the thing... I don't want to get ahead of myself at all. I kinda just want to know how/if to proceed.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:58 PM on June 25, 2007

I'm a gay man and I lived in Bandung, Indonesia teaching English last year.

I think you should do it, mindful of the limitations and benefits of what it means to be an Arabic-speaking Western(?) woman in Cairo. I think the support you get from the university is key - do they provide you with housing in a Western-style facility, or are you given a stipend and told to go hunt on your own? Could you travel outside Egypt on the visa you'd get (I couldn't do this in Indonesia and was very pissed off to find this out a month after I'd arrived)? How long would your commute be? The website makes it look rather barren and isolated out there, so you might be far from the things that make the city a great place to be.

Furthermore, if the position starts in September 2008, when the construction photos seem to say they'll open the campus, keep in mind all the great precedent-setting stuff your students would get to do - and all the hassles of things not being ready or finished on time.

Again: do it, but expect the unexpected.
posted by mdonley at 7:59 PM on June 25, 2007

First thing, apply - but that's been said. Second, start visiting all the forums where expats in Egypt lurk - Thorn Tree, Dave's ESL, etc...

The most important thing to remember is that nothing will go as planned. Ever. I went on a six month internship to Morocco where I was supposed to provide IT classes. To make a very long story short, that didn't happen, and they wanted me to teach English instead. It didn't matter in the end, because I still learned a lot (how government/NGOs operate, negotiating, how to fight in Arabic, etc...), and made a few good friends. It's all worth it in the end, and depending on your field/career, looks great on a resume.

The second most important thing is that culture shock is no joke, and no matter how well-travelled/open-minded you are, it's going to get you. I didn't realize how living in a country could be so different from extended travel there, but my eyes were quickly opened.
posted by Liosliath at 8:39 PM on June 25, 2007

i had the opportunity of moving to amsterdam with a job all set up and a place to live. all i needed to do was give my friend the go ahead. i eventually decided not to do it and had a ton of really rational, sensible reasons to not do it. all these years later i don't remember any of the sensible reasons and realize it all just boiled down to my insecurity and fear. i don't think on it too much, but when i do it totally bugs me to have skipped on such a great opportunity.

i think it's important to think on that and whether or not your reasons are really reasons or just excuses. it's kind of tricky fine line to figure out. in the past i've done a lot of hitchhiking, crazy roadtrips and such. i've noticed that when that past comes up a reaction i often get is people saying "no way, i could never do that." the sentiment behind that is generally that people figure they just couldn't handle putting themselves in the kind of situations i'd find myself in or figure out how to make it all work. but it's not like i had any special insight, i'd just figure it out and was scared to death through alot of it. i guess what i'm saying is if you've got common sense you'll work past any insecurities or hairy situations you may find.

i don't know anything about you, but to make a generalization i'm betting alot of the hesitation is based on fear. it's a pretty foreign situation with alot of unkowns. in making alot of my decisions in the past that seemed crazy, since no one else i knew was doing something similar. i would strip it down to the essentials. "do i want to do this?" and ask myself over and over and over, i'm talking like 100 times. that way i could focus on whether my answer was just yes or no. otherwise the sensibility or rationality would settle in, i.e. fear. if i realized i wanted to i'd just use "fuck it" as a mantra and go for it. never regret any of them and man alive did they end up in some strange situations.

do you or don't you want to go? fuck worrying about can you do the job (they asked you, you're capable), your friends (they'll still be there), career (if they asked you've most likely got other options if it doesn't work out), etc. i'll take a leap and say most reasons will just be excuses. a real reason would be blindness or kids. literally aside from that you're just rationalizing (that is, if you truly want to go). if you don't want to, then you don't. no big deal. just be careful you don't talk yourself out of it if you want to go. why wouldn't you? what's to lose? either you're totally content and life is awesome right now and you don't want to miss out on anything where you are right now. or you want to go and you take the plunge. is there any part of you that would regret it? cause believe me, that voice will be there five years from now. it's an amazing opportunity if it works out, why not?

fuck it.

also, i here you need to be careful of receiving the offer of tea. i may be getting the region wrong. but if memory serves me, accepting someones offer was akin to agreeing to buy something. i had a friend over there and her companion accepted an offer to tea. next thing he knew they brought him some rug. apparently he agreed to buy it without knowing it and needed to make a harrowing escape. sorry if that's all overly long winded. it's just a tough decision and i don't want you to short change yourself. good luck.
posted by andywolf at 9:24 PM on June 25, 2007

Certainly apply. Cairo is a crazy gigantic cosmopolitan city with a lot to offer. Also keep in mind that there will be challenges of course espacially as a western woman. While I was there traveling with a female co-worker, everyone assumed we were married and they couldn't accept that we weren't. I also found that the general attitudes of the adults that weren't in the camel/taxi/rug/etc. indutry to be rather cold and brusque. That could have been the language barrier or the 6 ft tall Czech woman I was with. However, everyone around the local office was wonderful and the kids at the Pyramids and other cultural sites were incredible. Extraordinarily friendly and almost every one of them welcomed me to their country and did other things to practice their English. The girls were particularly in awe of the aforementioned 6tft tall woman. One of my fondest memories of that time period was kicking around a soccer ball at the base of the great pyramids with some Egyptian kids.

Anyways, long story short, apply and think long and hard about giving it a go if you are accepted.
posted by mmascolino at 9:39 PM on June 25, 2007

Applying is essentially costless, so you might as well.

I'm an academic and would normally advise caution about taking an adjunct position. While it might mean "Wow! Lynnster has a lot to offer," in my experience adjunct lines usually mean something more along the line of "Wow! We could get Lynnster for cheap, and not give her any benefits, and generally push her around!"

But, this might not apply to a school that has a large rotating-through component, which is my sense of AUC. I would google for people who've taught at AUC in the past and ask them -- even cold-email out of the blue -- what their experience was like. Ideally, find people who had been adjunct faculty before.

If they want you to take the job without flying you out there, that is IME a danger sign. Not having the money to do so implies not having the money for other things.

Their web page implies that their standard teaching load is three courses per semester. This will keep you busy, especially since you'll have to put them together from scratch, but is not apocalyptic. In other words, this shouldn't be a deal-breaker, but don't plan on taking any long weekends for travel while classes are in session.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:07 PM on June 25, 2007

Or is it a totally stupid/sillly idea?

I just advised caution, but it is for sure NOT a stupid or silly idea.

If it's something I shouldn't consider or if I'm truly not qualified enough

Don't worry about this. Maybe they can't hire someone without a degree; this is not your problem and not any reflection on you.

Academia is nothing if not a giant rejection machine. Getting into school is a process of being rejected by lots of places. Getting into a grad program, moreso. Getting an academic job involves being rejected 50 or 100+ times for every time that someone is even a little bit interested in you. Getting your work published, at least in my field, means sending them to places that reject 75--90% of their submissions.

So anyway, apply, but expect to be turned down. And if you are, don't dwell on it. Being turned down is no reflection on you or your worth as anything, being turned down is the normal state of affairs.

(I don't even have a degree myself, which admittedly is something I battle with massive insecurity about)

I have a whole fucking bunch. For what it's worth, they don't really imply much more than a certain mule-headed refusal to stop. The proof is in the pudding, and you've made plenty of pudding.

If taking the job, if offered, would help you with this insecurity, then it would, fine. But the real answer is that if you've been getting jobs doing this for fifteen years, you don't have anything to be insecure about.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:22 PM on June 25, 2007

Also:

If you have any romantic visions about teaching, and having erudite conversations with attentive students who you can watch growing into new skills and expanding their mental or artistic horizons, kill them now. Then jump up and down on their corpse until you are very tired. Then sweep up all of the broken bits and burn them, mix the ashes into concrete, and drop that concrete into a deep-ocean trench.

Teaching is fun. You do occasionally get to see someone get it, which is cool to be part of. But for the most part, it is just a job, and at its core it is just plain old boring work.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:29 PM on June 25, 2007

Thanks for all of the comments!

A few things... I've spent time in Egypt before & was actually planning to go again on my own within the next year before this idea was suggested. So I've already drank my share of free tea (it's part of their sales process but by no means does it mean you NEED to buy things, they just really really hope you will) and I'm profoundly aware of Egyptian/American culture shock. One of my dearest friends is Egyptian & we talk about our daily lives on Skype all the time so I know how different the culture is (especially for a spoiled American woman like me). Perhaps I'm so hyper aware of how hard I think the culture shock could be that it's a big part of my fear & is why I know I wouldn't want to go for a long time.

And thanks ROU_Xenophobe for the pep talk. I don't have an image of myself standing around being fascinating with smart people, quite the contrary. I do think that (Egypt issues aside) perhaps lately I've become paranoid that due to my lack of degree perhaps I'm not smart enough or good enough to apply for something like this. I know this isn't the impression other people have of me (I seem very confident) but rather it's the insecurity I carry inside... as though sometimes I expect to re-enact a scene from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers where everyone points at me and screeches because I'm a fraud or something.

Anyhow, enough analyzing me. I'm starting to think that applying for this job might be good for me just to face that stupid insecurity, whether I am considered or not. And whether my puppy likes falafel or not. ;)
posted by miss lynnster at 11:02 PM on June 25, 2007

Oh, and I have done some teaching. I found it really exhausting for the first four or five days (although that was with high school kids). But I think I was pretty good at it. There were some kids who actually repeated my classes every year because they thought they were interesting. I had teen groupies! Heh.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:05 PM on June 25, 2007

I've spent a lot of time in Cairo, love the place and try to go back often.

In terms of taking a position there - I've been offered jobs in Sub Saharan Africa in the past - I'd suggest looking into the health situation first and foremost.

In some parts of Africa you can pick up essentially permanent diseases (malaria for example, but there are others which are relatively obscure). And diseases that are stubborn to eradicate, especially so as most Western doctors won't know how to even look let alone diagnose.

So inventory what you could possibly pick up and then the various inoculations needed to spend long periods in Cairo. Your body may or may not be able to tolerate the cure, if you know what I mean.

After you're confident that a prolonged period of time living & working there won't permanently alter your health for the worse, I'd also suggest modeling the tax situation.

Is The University offering housing subsidy or any kind? Recently the tax laws applying to ex-pats have changed drastically, and what previously was taxed relatively low or perhaps not at all now attracts punitive taxes.

I'm an American living in London and have seen a large number of countryman recently return to the US as they simply can not afford the taxes.

To do this properly you'll probably need a professionals advise, and most international employers will pay for this.
posted by Mutant at 11:29 PM on June 25, 2007

The air pollution in Cairo is a matter of serious concern. The air quality in downtown Cairo is more than 10 to 100 folds of acceptable world standards. Air pollutants that are very high are particulate, hydrocarbons and lead. All are cancer causing agents.
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:35 AM on June 26, 2007

I had a former boss who worked at AUC for several years and absolutely loved it. She said it was one of the best experienced of her career. Go for it!
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:17 AM on June 26, 2007

Baby steps. Apply first, decide later (and buy yourself some deciding time while you're applying and waiting).

By the way, this guy doesn't have a degree either.
posted by stuboo at 5:54 AM on June 26, 2007

by all means apply, it's always cool to travel/live abroad.

but I'm not clear about one thing -- why would a university hire as a teacher somebody who doesn't have a degree? that's what doesn't make a lot of sense to me (and yes Bill Gates doesn't have a degree -- so many successful people don't -- but it's not that he became famous as a college professor. I've also read somewhere that he plans to go back to school soon or something). as others have said, if it sucks you can always go back

just try to find a good house for your dog if they do hire you.
posted by matteo at 6:23 AM on June 26, 2007

I studied at AUC (Arabic Language Institute) two years ago, and while I haven't seen the new campus (only the pictures of the new construction), I wouldn't be worried about the quality of AUC or anything like that. Its a great school, US accredited, the best private university in Egypt, and socially and reputation-wise, its the most prestigious school in the Middle East. A lot of its departments, especially (in my experience) the marketing/business fields, and also construction and engineering departments, are major pipelines for multinational corporations seeking managers and executives with experience in the Middle East, and as such, the school has tremendous alumni connections within the regional business community. The students all speak English, and come from (for the most part) very privileged backgrounds in Egypt and the Gulf States. The new campus is being funded in part by a lot of VERY well-heeled alumni and friends of AUC, so no expense is being spared, and they are really making an effort to go the extra mile with the project. (Which in some respects is unfortunate, because my favorite part of studying there was being in the thick of it all across the street from the Mogamma and within a stone's throw of the Nile.)

Truth be told, I don't know what the faculty makes at the university, but I imagine it to be commensurate with similar levels here in the US. (They've just hired a ME History specialist away from Stanford, if I read my alumni magazine correctly this month, so that should tell you something.) Either way, the cost of living in Cairo is incredible cheap compared to the US (I was a student and lived like a Pasha in Garden City for cheap money), so I wouldn't imagine that you'd have much of a problem that way (although my thinking could be totally wrong with respect to salary levels).

As far as moving to Egypt, I say go for it. If you can get away safely from your obligations here, then take the plunge. Cairo is chaotic, loud, dusty and crazy, but all that stuff makes the special moments (and there are lots of those) all the more memorable. I know I'll never be able to get Egypt out of my blood.
posted by diggerroo at 6:49 AM on June 26, 2007 [2 favorites]

Just out of curiosity, I'm interested in your graphic design background. Care to clue us in? What courses would you be teaching and does it fit your background?

I taught GD for many years on the college level. Teaching in this area changes as the technology changes. What would be the set up and level of technical support there (that is key no matter where you teach)?
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 6:52 AM on June 26, 2007

It's very open and vague right now, just a "possibility" thing. That's the thing, I don't know what kinds of classes they're going to offer so I don't even know what I would be suited to or how I'd present myself. I can definitely teach computer design & Photoshop. I have art directed 10 children's books. I did digital art for movie posters. I was a Senior Designer of Toy Packaging for Disney. I was an Art Director at Mattel and designed board games and packaging for them. I've done various branding of product & packaging over the years. Right now I'm doing some textile design.

I do know that I've been in a rut for a while and I need to get out of it. I don't know if this is an answer or if I'm just considering running away. That's another thing I'm overthinking.

Cuz I overthink. Which is why I'm on Metafilter. Mmmm. Beans.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:12 AM on June 26, 2007

Go go go!

Read diggerroo's answer above and take the plunge! If they accept your application, you know the non-degree isn't an issue (which will probably do good things for your self-esteem as well). And there is absolutely nothing like living outside of your birthcountry for a while. It doesn't matter how much you've traveled as a tourist - there is something completely life-altering about having to make a living in a different country.

I don't see any downsides to this at all. OK, maybe the leaving the doggie part (probably difficult to get him through quarantine), but seriously - it's a few months out of your life that will add so, so much.
posted by widdershins at 9:44 AM on June 26, 2007