If I take a professional position at a college will I get long vacations and a relaxed working atmosphere?

Rod: If I take a professional position at a college will I get long vacations and a relaxed working atmosphere?
Do people who work as employees at a colleges get time off during Christmas vacation, spring vacation and summer vacation just like students? I’m curious because going to work every single day and only getting a small vacation is not appealing to me and therefore, I would like to work in a school setting with a relaxed atmosphere and long vacations. Does anybody understand my reasoning, because people who work at colleges seem to enjoy their jobs.

Answers and Views:

Answer by RoaringMice
My husband works at a university, on staff – not as a professor. He does get school breaks off, with some small exceptions. He also gets 2 weeks vacation per year, plus sick days. And the benefits are good. However, he doesn’t get summers off – his is a year-round position. If your position is not year-round, you would get summers off. Depends on the position.

Answer by theacrob
It really depends. Are you talking about a teaching position at a community college? A clerical position in the registrar’s office at a university?

Remember that most colleges and universities have summer (and some have winter break) school sessions, which significantly shortens the “break.” You actually might be better off working at a high school.

Also, teachers are typically very busy grading papers/projects and planning the new curriculum during these “breaks.”

The only people I know of who have long vacations who work at schools are tenured professors at universities who get to pick and choose their classes.

Answer by Christina
Not just like students, no. At the university I work for, we get two days at Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year, a day for Labor day and Memorial day. Of course if you have vacation days, you can use those. I used them in between the Christmas and New Years break so I got to be gone for over a week. Like other people have said, it would depend on the position and your appointment. Some professors have 9 month appointments so they get summer off.

Answer by ho
yeah, except for summer.

to get summer off, you have to work at a high school or something. unless maybe it’s a really small liberal arts college.

Answer by geek_girl
In my field and at the universities where I’ve been studying. . . NO. If there aren’t classes, there’s still research to try to get funded and those darn lazy graduate students to make sure are still doing something academic (oh, should I not be here?). And if there are classes going on, then you have the above plus your teaching load.
If you can find a teaching-only position, maybe then you might get that sort of thing. (School holidays are still more likely than school holidays + summer, though.) Then you may not have to be involved in proposals, supervising students, etc. Some institutions have those positions more than others, and some fields also seem to like having that kind of work division more than others.
As to why at least several of the people working at colleges seem to enjoy their jobs: you basically have to love what you’re doing, or it’ll drive you insane in short order.