Teaching and Cruising?

[amopro]

Hello, New to the forum but have been following for a few days and enjoying it. My fiancee and I are both experienced sailors from offshore racing to dingy racing. I lived aboard for a few years while in college and both have completed an Atlantic crossing together with a friend along with some additional formal sailing training and I have a 100 ton as well. We are in our early 30's and thinking about packing it up to cruise.

She finished her postdoc last year in Biology and has been working for a small biotech the past year. I'm finishing up my postdoc this year in Physics with no real plans as to what I want to do.

We were both wondering if it seems logical to cruise internationally and teach along the way in our respective fields.?

Mainly the idea would be teach for a year and learn the culture of where we are residing then cruise for a year.

Neither one of us have any student loan debt because we were both stipend in our departments and both have a half decent combined savings.

She has citizenship in Holland and on a EB1 in the US. I have just have US citizenship.

Any advice or any other suggestions as to how we could make this happen would be greatly appreciated.

As for a boat purchasing budget we are looking at about 100 - 150k with a 50% down payment and 2500 per month cruising budget (not including the loan payment and refit). We allocated 25 - 40k for the refit and gear budget. Along with a 15k Emergency fund.

[David M]

As long as the local government is okay with foreigners coming in and making money or competing for jobs with the locals. Some countries try to keep the jobs available to their citizens only.

You really need to contact the authorities of the country that you plan on visiting and see what their laws and policies are.

[amopro]

Originally Posted by David M

As long as the local government is okay with foreigners coming in and making money or competing for jobs with the locals. Some countries try to keep the jobs available to their citizens only.

You really need to contact the authorities of the country that you plan on visiting and see what their laws and policies are.

We were thinking more along the lines of visiting professorships, research or teacher roles in 2nd and 3rd world areas. Both of us are rather specialized in our fields of research so we would not really be competing against local PhD's.

I'm focused in Particle and Molecular Physics and she is focused in an area surrounding Salmonella and Shigella. Both of us are published several times in our research areas.

Note: since both our fields can be intertwined we were also thinking of the possibilities of writing local universities and research related NGO's for small private research grants in each location.

[Greenhand]

The positions you mention are actually highly coveted in the areas you are talking about. Moreover, the pay is usually even lower than being an adjunct in the US, and most professors (much less lesser teaching faculty) supplement their incomes in a number of ways.

There is a reason so many people from those countries end up getting degrees and/or doing postdocs in the US.

On a more positive note: have you looked into Fullbrights for the areas you are interested in?

[JPA Cate]

FWIW,

Someone whom we met just recently, with a PhD from Stanford, was offered and a 3 yr. position in her field --neuroscience & dementia--here in Australia. The employer, in such situations generally gets the worker the work visa.

It can't be easy, and I'd suspect that some of the personal issues include the known draws of the cruising life, vs. the desire for intellectual stimulation of working among peers and making a contribution to the society that gave you so much.

Noticed you also asked a question on another thread Shannon vs. Cabo Rico. I do not have any personal experience with either boat, but Shannon had a good reputation. I understand they're in bankruptcy now.

Ann

[amopro]

Originally Posted by Greenhand

The positions you mention are actually highly coveted in the areas you are talking about. Moreover, the pay is usually even lower than being an adjunct in the US, and most professors (much less lesser teaching faculty) supplement their incomes in a number of ways.

There is a reason so many people from those countries end up getting degrees and/or doing postdocs in the US.

On a more positive note: have you looked into Fullbrights for the areas you are interested in?

I was actually in the Fulbright-Hays program in the first half of my postdoc. We actually did look at Fulbright programs and none really supported what we are looking to do because they have some pretty tight restrictions. I do have a small privately funded grant that I can spend as I wish the next 5 years but it only amounts to around 40k per year which is obviously not enough to support the two of us and a boat or maybe it is in some countries. We tried to get her in the same grant program but her research did not suit the criteria they generally are looking for. This would have been ideal.

Also we were thinking to go to very small colleges and universities that are not highly competitive. I have the opportunity now to take an assistant professorship at my Institution next year but not really interested. Many are calling me nuts for this decision since it's pretty much the most competitive school in the US for my area of research.

[zeehag]

cheez
i supported a growing boy and life with cars on land for many years on that kinda dough.. is more than i spend now by 3 times..
"cannot" make it on 40k usd yearly cruising??
doing something wrong....
there are human resources folks you can talk with and head hunters. arrange your gigs early and sail to em.
nurses have travel positions and companies who deal in this, does your profession have same or similar and organizations working on finding folks work abroad???

[amopro]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

FWIW,

Someone whom we met just recently, with a PhD from Stanford, was offered and a 3 yr. position in her field --neuroscience & dementia--here in Australia. The employer, in such situations generally gets the worker the work visa.

It can't be easy, and I'd suspect that some of the personal issues include the known draws of the cruising life, vs. the desire for intellectual stimulation of working among peers and making a contribution to the society that gave you so much.

Noticed you also asked a question on another thread Shannon vs. Cabo Rico. I do not have any personal experience with either boat, but Shannon had a good reputation. I understand they're in bankruptcy now.

Ann

Ann that's is I guess our other option. Which is actually not the worst thing in the world. Both of us are fairly well published and would not have many issues getting adjunct roles in the EU or in AU she was offered a professorship in Holland not to long ago but that means she would be giving up her EB1. I could maybe apply for a professorship in the same institution which is something we have briefly discussed but not sure how they would like the idea of us both taking adjunct roles our first year.

We also thought about applying to a few South American universities and working there a few years and doing some local sailing then moving to the next opportunity elsewhere. The one thing we both have on our side is both of us have papers with applicable research to private industry as well. But have heard that is extraordinarily difficult to travel and pull off.

That's why we have been leaning towards visiting researcher roles because many times you can do those for 1 year working jointly on some other research project.

As for the money Europe is a lot more friendly towards academics but to be completely honest part of the reason we want to do this is both of us have gotten a bit tired of academia in the traditional sense and kinda are looking to carve out our own path to happiness outside of the politics. Anything more than a year at any institution is enough to drive even your strongest willed human insane.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by amopro

We were thinking more along the lines of visiting professorships, research or teacher roles in 2nd and 3rd world areas. Both of us are rather specialized in our fields of research so we would not really be competing against local PhD's.

I'm focused in Particle and Molecular Physics and she is focused in an area surrounding Salmonella and Shigella. Both of us are published several times in our research areas.

Note: since both our fields can be intertwined we were also thinking of the possibilities of writing local universities and research related NGO's for small private research grants in each location.

Every country in Asia has international school in the major cities. Expats send their kids there. This is, of course the high school level so don't know how you feel about that.

Singapore does have some advanced universities that you might approach.

Asia is also a pretty cool place to cruise. All the expat teachers I have met are enjoying life pretty well.