I'm an adjunct. No... adjuncting does not pay well. But anyone getting a degree with the expectation of being a professional academic should know this going in. I certainly did so I approached the job marketing accordingly.
I've never tried to be a tenure track professor. Instead, my approach -- for what it's worth -- is to make adjuncting my passion.
Instead of "being a professor," my profession is software engineer. As a result, being an English professor gets to be my hobby. I teach one course a semester and I love it. It allows me to be a member of an academic community, I can participate in talks/lectures/conferences, I can publish, and I can do all the other "academic" things I want to do and no one has ever told me I'm not qualified or made me feel unwelcome. Usually, the opposite is true. I get at least half-a-dozen invites every semester from my university and neighboring schools asking me to come lecture about my work. In addition, I can bring real-world experience and expertise into my classes every day, which my students appreciate.
I've never tried to be a tenure track professor. Instead, my approach -- for what it's worth -- is to make adjuncting my passion.
Instead of "being a professor," my profession is software engineer. As a result, being an English professor gets to be my hobby. I teach one course a semester and I love it. It allows me to be a member of an academic community, I can participate in talks/lectures/conferences, I can publish, and I can do all the other "academic" things I want to do and no one has ever told me I'm not qualified or made me feel unwelcome. Usually, the opposite is true. I get at least half-a-dozen invites every semester from my university and neighboring schools asking me to come lecture about my work. In addition, I can bring real-world experience and expertise into my classes every day, which my students appreciate.