How To Become A Literature Professor: What It Is and Career Path

What is a literature professor and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

Quoted expert

Brett Rogers

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a literature professor. For example, did you know that they make an average of $37.81 an hour? That's $78,645 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 12% and produce 159,400 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a literature professor?

Brett Rogers

Associate Professor, University of Puget Sound

I'd encourage grads to worry less about predicting trends and instead to think creatively about how to find the point of contact between a given job or project that might appeal to them and the broad suite of skills they've developed in order to study Classics (or any discipline). As Steve Jobs said (at my graduation from grad school, no less!), you can only connect the dots looking backwards, not forwards. Most successful people I know remain engaged in the moment to see the point of contact between their own idiosyncratic skills and the lurking opportunity-and then they take a leap: often they leap into a job or field they never expected to get into. (This is the real problem with choosing a college major based on the current work force: the job may not exist by the time you graduate, while new types of jobs may emerge for which no one has training.)
And, most importantly, I'd tell a graduate to do what Douglas Adams tells us: Don't panic.

ScoreLiterature ProfessorUS Average

Salary

6.1

Avg. Salary $78,645

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.9

Growth rate 12%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.2

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.28%

Asian 11.25%

Black or African American 7.21%

Hispanic or Latino 10.26%

Unknown 4.94%

White 66.06%

Gender

female 59.26%

male 40.74%

Age - 46

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 46

Stress level

4.9

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.6

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.3

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a literature professor

Explore literature professor education requirements

Most common literature professor degrees

Bachelor's

53.6 %

Master's

31.9 %

Doctorate

13.0 %

Start to develop specific literature professor skills

Skills	Percentages
Spanish Language	53.26%
Grammar	46.74%

Research literature professor duties and responsibilities

Manage and administer college level foreign language lessons and curriculum.
Conduct private ESL courses in conjunction with the schools accreditation program.
Experiment with different surface chemistry to improve quality of yields -participate in poster session and presentation to faculty and graduate students.
Experiment with different surface chemistry to improve quality of yields -participate in poster session and presentation to faculty and graduate students.

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