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How can you tell whether an academic career is for you or not? Can you tell it from one's characteristics or personalities?
tgt said:How can you tell whether an academic career is for you or not? Can you tell it from one's characteristics or personalities?
Moonbear said:Then there are educator/instructor type tracks. These are focused on teaching with little to no research requirements, though tend to be 9 or 10 month appointments, but no grant writing required. At a lot of universities, these positions are filled by family-oriented people who want to be able to leave the office by 5 or 6 every night to get home and care for kids. The stability isn't quite as good in a lot of places (though this varies depending on what you teach and how committed the school is to having that course taught well). While the threat to research track stability would be difficulty getting grant funding, the threat to teaching track stability is if tenured faculty have difficulty getting grant funding...in other words, they get forced to teach more courses if they aren't covering their salaries on grants, so the teaching faculty can no longer be afforded.
jtbell said:This description probably applies more to medium and large colleges and universities than small ones. At colleges whose main mission is teaching, the college generally pays your entire salary, you're expected to teach the same number of courses per year as everyone else, and research is something you do "on the side" and/or during the summer. Grant money pays for equipment, travel, student workers, etc.
Where I teach, it's unusual for someone to have part of his salary paid from external sources. We do in fact have an exception in my department, whom we hired starting this year. He brought along some research funding that pays part of his salary, so he's teaching one course less per year than the rest of us in my department.
Probably not. But, it's hard to find a job ANYWHERE where you can avoid being stuck on committees or having to work with groups from time to time. Academia does usually have "service" requirements, which means sitting on committees. They usually expect about 5% of your time will be spent doing this. Academic research is almost always done in groups...you'll either be working with a supervisor or students and post-docs working for you. Of course, teaching requires the most people-skills.tgt said:Would it suit someone who doesn't like to work in groups or be part of committees etc?
Mike H said:Just a small observation about committee work from my non-faculty perspective: serving on committees seems to be a chance to benefit yourself and your group. Being on the graduate admissions committee can be helpful in making sure an entering class has some people interested in your areas of research, being on a facilities committee may aid you in getting support/equipment that benefits your research, and so on. This is, at least, what I've deduced from many conversations with junior faculty to date.
You may not enjoy it, all in all, but you may find that it is helpful to your efforts to staying in academia.
An academic career involves working in a higher education setting, such as a university or research institution, and focusing on teaching, research, and scholarship. It typically involves obtaining advanced degrees and publishing research in academic journals.
Some benefits of pursuing an academic career include job stability, intellectual stimulation, the opportunity to make a significant contribution to your field, and potential for tenure and promotion.
Some challenges of pursuing an academic career include a highly competitive job market, long hours and heavy workloads, pressure to publish and obtain funding, and the uncertainty of obtaining tenure.
While a specific degree or background may be required for certain academic positions, there is no one set path to pursuing an academic career. However, most academic positions do require advanced degrees, such as a Ph.D. or professional degree.
An academic career may not be the best fit for everyone. It requires a strong passion for research and teaching, long-term commitment, and the ability to handle rejection and criticism. It is important to carefully consider your personal and professional goals before pursuing an academic career.