20 tasks, each one witnessed by the sources that watched the job — and behind every one, a prompt you can use tonight.
Mornings often start with preparing or delivering lectures using PowerPoint or Google Docs and checking student email in Microsoft Outlook. You may teach undergraduates and graduates, lead class discussions, or hold virtual office hours on Blackboard Collaborate.
Afternoons commonly include research time—reading, writing articles, or drafting grant proposals—meetings with colleagues about curriculum, and advising student groups or attending campus events. Evenings can have grading, writing recommendation letters, or revising manuscripts in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
You'll frequently use Microsoft Word for writing papers and letters, Google Docs for shared syllabi, and PowerPoint for lecture slides. Microsoft Outlook handles scheduling and student messages; Excel is useful for tracking grades or budgets.
For online teaching and meetings you’ll use Blackboard Collaborate or Safari for web research, and Adobe Acrobat Reader to share PDFs. Simple familiarity with those programs covers most administrative and teaching tasks listed.
Use AI to generate ideas—outlines, discussion prompts, or a first-pass lecture slide list—but always check sources and rewrite in your own voice. Treat AI output as a draft, not a citation. Keep student privacy: don’t upload identifiable student work to external AI services unless your institution allows it.
When handling grant proposals or scholarly writing, verify facts, citations, and quotations against primary sources. If you will use AI for grading help, get department approval and be transparent with students.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, 2025), 57,720 people were employed as literature professors. The median annual wage was $78,760. The lowest tenth earned $48,270, and the top tenth earned $137,250.
Salaries vary with institution type (community college vs. research university), location, and rank (assistant vs. full professor). Grants and consulting can raise total income but are not guaranteed.
Most full-time professor roles require a PhD in literature or a closely related field. Graduate coursework should include teaching practice, seminar leadership, and a strong publication record or a clear plan to publish.
Gain experience with course design, online teaching platforms like Blackboard Collaborate, and grant writing. Build a dossier of conference presentations, published articles, and letters of recommendation from advisors.
Professors teach at colleges and universities, often including specialized seminars and graduate courses, plus research, publishing, and grant-writing responsibilities. High-school teachers focus mainly on K–12 curriculum and classroom teaching without formal research duties.
Professors also handle more administrative roles (department head, course scheduling), advise student organizations, and review manuscripts for journals. Both teach and support students, but the professor role adds sustained research and institutional service.
You need strong written and oral communication for lectures, publications, and letters of recommendation. Research skills—finding sources, compiling bibliographies, and publishing—are central. Practical tech skills (Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Google Docs, Blackboard Collaborate) make teaching and admin tasks smooth.
Also important are mentoring skills for advising students, the ability to collaborate with colleagues on curriculum and research, and basic grant-writing and administrative competence for roles like department head or external consulting.