How Do You Know if You Should Be a Professor

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Should yous be a professor?

Students frequently ask, "what is information technology like to exist a professor?" It is a high-stakes decision for a student to pursue an bookish career, and being a professor is a lot dissimilar than being a grad student. I can't tell you lot whether you should be a professor, but I'll share what I similar and dislike to help inform your decision-making. Consider how these characteristics align with your interests and values, and get feedback from other professors to understand your fit with this job. I've tried to focus on less-obvious aspects of the task–yous don't demand me to tell you that faculty jobs are competitive and the pressure to go funding and publish is high.

The notes beneath come with a few caveats. This is my personal experience working at a research-focused academy in the United States, and experiences at other places will vary widely. I also started in a desirable job and have mostly been treated adequately and with respect. This creates some survivorship bias, and people with worse experiences will reasonably have a more negative picture of academia. My perspective is by and large from working in academia, but I have spent short stints in full-time industry jobs, have worked as a consultant for many companies, and have worked for a software startup. Then I take some experience in a range of jobs. 2nd, I piece of work in Civil Technology, where there are many highly-seasoned jobs in academia and industry. Other fields may differ in terms of the types of available opportunities. Finally, I'll compare to "manufacture jobs" below, simply the range of industry jobs is vast. I'm thus generalizing when talking near industry, though there is hopefully some value in the comparisons.

What I similar most existence a professor

• My master responsibility is to solve tricky bug and communicate our findings. I loved working on hard problems in graduate school, and that part of my work has persisted in this task.

• Knowledge broadcasting is a core value of my employer, in contrast with the individual sector that emphasizes proprietary information. I can requite talks about my ideas at any venue I desire, share software, and give away things like this article. That'south not to say that the private sector is bad, and I savour my work in the individual sector too. But the definition of success differs in the two sectors, in psychologically important ways.

• I can find students develop from my instruction and advising. A growing number of people take benefitted in some way from crossing paths with me. Seeing their successes, and hearing their appreciation, is tremendously gratifying.

• I have meaning autonomy in many parts of my job. That autonomy started from day ane and is some other key to my job satisfaction. Autonomy is not the same equally 'lack of accountability' or 'lack of force per unit area.' It tin increase the pressure. But it means that I have command over how I work within my broad constraints.

• I work with fascinating people. I have colleagues from all over the world who accept spent lifetimes building expertise in their fields. Professors and students are generally intelligent and curious people who like discussing ideas, and the constant stimulation keeps me energized.

• I can prioritize working with on inquiry projects with colleagues that I respect and relish. Working with people who teach me new things and bring positive energy is great for my mood and motivation. In a company, I would probable have less say in who I work with.

• The job has a long time horizon. I have no billable hours and fewer short-term deliverables than I would in industry, and then I tin can exist more flexible in what I written report and how long I pursue it. I sometimes take consulting jobs where a solution is needed rapidly. I tin can offering firsthand advice, but I enjoy going dorsum to my university job after to think deeply almost more comprehensive solutions to the problem. Conversely, without billable hours, information technology is gratuitous for the academy to schedule additional meetings or enquire for my service help. And with fewer project budgets or timelines to constrain telescopic, time spent on projects can expand and create heavy workloads.

• Sabbaticals are a unique function of compensation in academia. My beginning sabbatical was intellectually and personally priceless, and I can't expect for my next one. However, sabbaticals aren't gifts. They are part of our bounty and office of the reason why academic salaries are oft lower than industry salaries.

What I don't similar about existence a professor

• My time gets extremely fragmented. I take meetings with students, instruction classes, proposal writing, newspaper edits, giving seminars, attention conferences, office hours, thesis defenses, department meetings, search committees, newspaper reviews, letters of recommendation to write, and more than. Individually, many of these tasks are interesting. Just collectively, they can make it difficult to focus or be productive. Companies are less likely to put you in then many roles considering it's an inefficient use of a single person.

• Information technology is difficult to know how much piece of work is enough. The chore comes with more requests and opportunities than fourth dimension, and steady pressure to e'er do more than. Further, there is no supervisor to tell you, "you've washed enough work today," or "you have likewise much on your plate, so permit's shift some piece of work to someone else." Especially as a junior professor, the feeling that y'all should do more can exist overwhelming. But for me, the feeling didn't go away later tenure either–after a decade of working in that mode, it was pretty ingrained.

• Universities are slower to change than companies. Many decisions happen by consensus, and faculty turnover is low, so it is hard to make changes that aren't widely supported. This creates significant inertia towards tradition, allowing cleaved systems or cultures to persist. This as well enables private bad apples to stay employed and in power in universities. Modest companies can nimbly reorganize or change policy to bargain with challenges or address problematic people (if they take good leadership). Conversely, management at a company may make changes you oppose, while as a tenured professor you are on a more than level playing field with your leadership.

• There are infrequent 'wins.' Most weeks, I don't win an award or get a grant or publish a inquiry finding, and I rarely hear "good job!" That's fine if I focus on enjoying the arts and crafts of my piece of work rather than external validation. But it can be hard when you are searching for signs that your effort is appreciated and that you are succeeding. There may be more opportunities in industry for validation from projects completed, promotions, and bonuses. And it is mostly quicker to become to an industry position with a reasonable corporeality of job security.

• My research team is constantly turning over. While it is rewarding to run into students abound and move on to new opportunities, it is too hard to lose experts from the grouping. Turnover also creates challenges when we go back to old piece of work to prepare problems or make updates. In companies, information technology is a bit easier to accept a stable integrated squad.

• I get less training and procedural support than I might at a visitor. While this is improving, nigh universities provide little formal training in advising students or managing teams. I have learned a lot from informal mentors and reading, simply not everyone can or will do this. Information technology is difficult to invest in learning soft skills when there are so many more explicitly rewarded demands on your time.

• Task options are limited. Getting a unmarried kinesthesia job offer is difficult–let alone one with precisely the weather you desire. You may take to be flexible about location and institutional characteristics if yous want a faculty task. Conversely, there tend to be more industry opportunities, so it's easier to pick parameters such as a target city and then search for companies inside those constraints.

• At that place is usually only ane professional trajectory within a university. Most professors' jobs are similar, with the partial exception of professors that motion to authoritative roles. It is unusual to exist a office-time professor or a teaching-just professor at a research university. Conversely, in industry, there may be flexibility to choose between specialization-vs.-generality or technical-vs.-leadership trajectories. It is often more viable in industry to shift temporarily to a part-time role during a flow of caregiving or other significant personal obligation.

• I go asked a lot, "What is it similar to have summers off?" I'k joking, equally I don't worry much about how not-colleagues recollect I spend my fourth dimension. Simply for the record, I work hard in the summer. I'm just working on enquiry rather than teaching classes!

I am privileged and fortunate to exist a tenured professor. Information technology is a rewarding job that I consciously prefer to other opportunities, but information technology is not perfect. When considering your opportunities, I suggest that you lot prioritize jobs with mentoring and a risk to grow, where yous can earn autonomy in your piece of work, and where you volition be role of a community y'all enjoy. If you can find those characteristics, you should be on the path to a fulfilling career.

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