Photo: Scottish Government (CC BY 2.0)
Job description
Beyond lecturing on topics ranging from introductory price theory to graduate-level econometrics and macroeconomics, professors build the course itself from scratch: writing the syllabus, choosing textbooks, and designing homework that actually tests whether students understand the material. Office hours are a standing commitment for helping students one-on-one, and periodically a professor revisits and revises an entire course's content or teaching approach based on what's worked and what hasn't. Many combine teaching with active research, and most also take on committee work that shapes departmental or institutional policy, not just their own classroom. The role requires a PhD in economics or a closely related field, and most of the workday is spent at a desk, whether preparing materials or reviewing student work.
Pros
- High upside earning potential, up to $224k
- Significant day-to-day independent judgment over course content and research direction
- Structured schedule built around teaching terms, with recurring office hours rather than shift work
Cons
- Requires a PhD, meaning many years of schooling before entering the field
- Above-average hours, expect more than a standard 40-hour work week
- Only about 1,200 positions nationwide, so openings are geographically limited
A typical day
The 9am intro lecture tackles price ceilings with the example that always lands — rent control — and the professor watches the moment half the room's intuitions collide with the supply-and-demand graph, which is exactly where economics teaching lives. Office hours bring a student struggling with elasticity math and a senior wanting honest advice about econ PhD programs. The research afternoon belongs to a labor economics paper: cleaning employment data, re-running regressions after a referee's critique, and drafting the response memo that decides publication. A curriculum meeting debates whether the intro sequence needs more data literacy (it does). Grading and problem-set writing round out the evening — designing questions that test thinking rather than formula-matching is a craft the public never sees.
Tasks at the job
- Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as econometrics, price theory, and macroeconomics.
- Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.
- Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, course materials, and methods of instruction.
- Maintain regularly scheduled office hours to advise and assist students.
- Select and obtain materials and supplies, such as textbooks.
- Serve on academic or administrative committees that deal with institutional policies, departmental matters, and academic issues.
Workplace & working conditions
Work happens indoors in a climate-controlled setting, and most of the day is spent sitting at a desk.
There's a regular, moderate amount of time pressure, and you're expected to exercise significant independent judgment day to day. The work is highly structured, following set procedures.
Education necessary or common
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in the relevant field
Common college majors
Career path
Related fields
Courses to take
- AP Economics (Micro and Macro) — the subject itself
- AP Calculus BC — graduate economics is mathematical
- AP Statistics — econometrics is the research toolkit
- AP English Language — papers and lectures are rhetoric
- Advanced math beyond calculus where available
Clubs, activities & competitions
- Economics club or start one
- Math team
- Debate — policy arguments run on economic reasoning
- Fed Challenge or economics essay competitions
- Tutor math — teaching is half the career
First steps you can take now
- Take a free intro economics course and test whether the thinking style hooks you
- Read one accessible economics book and one critique of it
- Graph real data: unemployment and inflation from FRED (free, public)
- Email an economics professor a genuine question about their research
