last updated July 30, 2024
If you’ve stumbled upon this page, there’s a good chance you’re interested in applying to teaching positions in computer science or data science. If that’s the case, I hope the information here is of use to you. It may be particularly helpful for candidates applying without PhDs.
I moved institutions in Summer 2024. The first section of this page has my most recent application materials, from when I was on the job market in Fall 2024. The second section of this page has the application materials from when I did a broader search in Fall 2021, while still enrolled in my MS program.
Feel free to reach out via email if you want to chat about the process (or even just to tell me that you looked at this page!). I benefitted immensely from talking to others who went down this path in the months leading up to the application cycle.
The second time around, I only applied to one institution (the University of Michigan), so I was able to tailor my materials a bit more. In the three years since I first applied to jobs, I gained significantly more teaching experience, so I was only able to reuse bits and pieces of my original application materials.
CV • Cover Letter • Teaching Statement • Teaching Evaluations • DEI Statement
Before and while writing these materials, I referenced the applications of several earlier MS-only teaching faculty applicants, including Kevin Lin, Michael Ball, Jacqueline Smith, and Adam Blank. Kevin and Adam have their materials available on their websites. I also referenced the materials of other teaching faculty, like Josh Hug and John DeNero, and tenure-track faculty whose resources I found online.
CV
In my CV, I put teaching first and put the scholarly activities I had engaged in towards the end.
Cover Letter
I changed the first sentence and last paragraph of my cover letter for each unique position I applied to. In the last (technically, second last) paragraph of my cover letters, I listed at least three existing courses in the department I was applying to that I’d be interested in teaching. This forced me to look at the department’s undergraduate program and gauge whether or not I’d be excited to go there. I also used this paragraph to identify new courses that I thought I could bring to the department, if applicable.
Teaching Statement
I really struggled with getting started on my teaching statement because I wasn’t really sure what my “teaching philosophy” was. Looking at others’ teaching statements helped me get an idea of how to format mine. I ended up breaking mine into sections, dedicating one section each to various “components” of courses I had taught by that point. (A “component” is loosely defined here.)
Teaching Evaluations
I sent a “teaching evaluations” document to every school I applied to, whether or not it was required (for schools that didn’t allow additional file uploads, I appended this to the end of my teaching statement). My evaluations document contained the numerical rating (out of 5 or 7) and all written comments received on the official course evaluations for every course I taught or TA’d. I’ve only uploaded the first page here as I don’t feel comfortable posting all of the written comments publicly; email me if you want to see them. (The entire document is 30 pages long!)
Diversity and Inclusion Statement
I was a bit worried with the amount of overlap between my teaching statement and diversity statement, but I think it ended up working out.
Research Statement
Only a fraction of the positions I applied to asked for a research statement. I hadn’t done a ton of formal research when I applied, so I treated it more like a “scholarly activities statement”.