Working as Faculty at a University

[MrMan]

Working as faculty at a university can be a pretty good job. You really have to suffer to get there, though, suffering through grad school. You may get an assistantship that may not pay enough to live on, which the US government started taxing several years back. You could get a 4 year bachelors, 2 year masters, then PhD, or go from bachelors to PhD if it is in the same field as your bachelors, or maybe if you are going to a less reputable program. You may also take more than 4 years to get your PhD if you have to figure out what you want to study, or, if you are like me and you get an advisor who doesn't offer you a lot of specific direction. Mine went to one of the top two schools in my field, an Ivy League school, for his PhD, but he didn't know how to do the stats he suggested I do, eventually, for my dissertation.

University faculty jobs can pay pretty well or rather poorly. Humanities and social sciences could pay rather low, 50's or 60's at a teaching university. They could also pay more, starting in the low 100's at a research university. Some fields tend to pay better, medicine, some of the sciences, business, maybe law.

If you go to a top program, Ivy League, of course, or some of the other top state or private schools in your field, the research schools may want you, especially if you get published in a decent journal before you graduate.

I kind of like the high paying teaching school gig, one where research requirements are light to reasonable, but where the pay is pretty good, a bit below research universities but a fair trade-off for the easier route to tenure.

Getting tenure means if you do not commit a serious crime, sort of do your job, and your department does not close for financial reasons, you are supposed to be able to keep your job. You teach, get teacher evaluations, research, and do service (university committees and stuff like that) for five years and turn in a packet showing all this stuff you did. A committee evaluations you, passes it on to the administration, which may give you tenure. Sometimes that goes along with a promotion to associate professor (from assistant professor) with pay raise.

State universities may give you salary increases along with all state employees. They may also qualify you for a student loan forgiveness program after 10 years.

Would I recommend this as a career route? Not for most people. You should have a passion for your field of study, for teaching, and/or for research.

It is a good gig. Don't tell anyone, but it can be a cushy job compared to others. I feel like I don't have time, but I have been using week days to do work around the property and all kinds of stuff. I might stay up really late grading, though, or working on publications.

I also have a contact who has been able to put me on a couple of teams for publishing papers with some foreign co-authors. I'm kind of like the English language editing guy on the team. This is a lot easier than writing my own papers. I do have a paper in mind that I need to do because I think it would be the new theory in a field that millions of students would hear about in class-- really just applying an existing theory to something else. But I would have to really dig into all kinds of academic literature for it, and I think I will rack up a few pubs so I can breathe easy for tenure, then write this more ground-breaking paper as a single author paper as a kind of legacy thing. But who knows if it will take off. The theory is so simple, readers will say, "Why didn't I write that?" IMO, those are some of the best papers.

[publicduende]

A research post at a university, which almost always involves teaching and/or grading student's papers, is, by most, only considered a stepping stone. Most Faculty tend to have side gigs as consultants, authors, private researchers and inventors, entrepreneurs. The college job and salary are their safety net, basically.

You forgot to mention that taking tenure, especially at a decent-to-prestigious university, requires not only skills, but political game: it's who you know, whose wheels you oiled, who you helped on their way up, etc. And that is, assuming that the selection process is fair, which more often than not is not. It's indeed a cushy job that, at least until not so long ago, would last a lifetime,

Which is why many researchers and associates can wait decades for the full professor to retire (or die) so the chair becomes available and they can go through the excruciating (unfair) selection process and have a chance to replace them.

How do I know it? My Dad is a full professor of Engineering (retired) and, despite being the most brilliant and hardest-working mind in his department, he had to wait almost 14 years before he could become a full professor. He was the first of his generation. Then, in the following years, all the full professors started to retire or die, and more spots became available.

I have other examples of researches in my family, my brother and sister in law for example, both PhD. They tried and failed to find a spot at a university (they tried UK, Ireland, Germany and Portugal). In the end they both gave up and became researchers at private companies, for 3 times the starting salary.

Even I was offered a PhD (with full scholarship) after I graduated from my Masters in the UK. I was very tempted to join in, the subject was something I would have loved to do, digital signal processing for audio applications. My Dad talked me out of it, after a summer of pestering.

With hindsight, I could see he was right.

[Cornfed]

Probably not a realistic proposition for most young men for any number of reasons.

[publicduende]

Probably not a realistic proposition for most young men for any number of reasons.

Having said this, the Philippines as you may (or may not) know are bursting with private educational institutions, 50% of which are shameless diploma factories, 40% of which are proper universities which have abysmal standards, and 10% of which are age-old universities of some prestige and teaching/research standing.

All these colleges obviously make for a large market for teaching (sometimes research) jobs. Truth be told, they are not well paid jobs. They offer barely more than what a high school teacher is paid, P30K to P50K in the better/richer universities. These colleges should all have standards to hire teaching staff: maybe not PhDs and prior experience at top-tier universities, but at least a Masters degree and some evidence of some academic prowess. In reality, the demand is so high compared to the supply, that they would get just about anyone.

Foreigners in the Philippines are banned from specific jobs, including any teaching at a public or private institutions. However, given the scarcity, I know for a fact almost all universities would literally fight for a foreigner entering their faculty, even without the kind of formal qualifications.

This is how, in the past, plenty of universities, even some prestigious one, were engulfed by scandals involving young teaching assistants and even professors basically turning up to class once a week, instead of 5 days a week, and using the spare time to work elsewhere. Or failing to apply the most basic amount of human effort when preparing a lecture or grading. Or being all over the cute female students, offering top grades in exchange for sexual favours.

Of these shenanigans, the last is the one that is the most common: basically these people join the academia to f*ck underage or barely of age girls (college in the Philippines starts at 16/17), because the salary and the career prospects just count for nothing.

There are rumours that, in Davao alone, at least 4 foreign faculty members at two of the largest universities are registered sex offenders in their home countries and shamelessly continue to prey on students like there's no tomorrow.

[gsjackson]

Probably not a realistic proposition for most young men for any number of reasons.

White men need not apply in the U.S. At least for tenure track positions. They'll let you work for peanuts as adjunct faculty. Used to be a sweet deal 50 plus years ago, but now it's the deadest of dead ends.

[MrMan]

A research post at a university, which almost always involves teaching and/or grading student's papers, is, by most, only considered a stepping stone. Most Faculty tend to have side gigs as consultants, authors, private researchers and inventors, entrepreneurs. The college job and salary are their safety net, basically.

You forgot to mention that taking tenure, especially at a decent-to-prestigious university, requires not only skills, but political game: it's who you know, whose wheels you oiled, who you helped on their way up, etc. And that is, assuming that the selection process is fair, which more often than not is not. It's indeed a cushy job that, at least until not so long ago, would last a lifetime,

I did not go to a top tier university. I am in the US. My impression is that there are some fairly straight-forward procedures for getting tenure, and if you follow them, the big variable is if the committee likes your research, service, etc. You can get good teaching reviews, very strong service (e.g. serve as a chair of a major committee if you can manage to get voted on) and if they do not promote you, they would be shown to be showing partiality. Our procedure is a little different from other universities, but it seems a straightforward process. There may be a little bit of politics involved, but it does not seem to be the dominant issue. But one of our faculty got turned down by the committee, the dean went to bat for her, and the administration gave tenure anyway. At our university, the committee makes a recommendation. The administration can give a promotion anyway, apparently.

Which is why many researchers and associates can wait decades for the full professor to retire (or die) so the chair becomes available and they can go through the excruciating (unfair) selection process and have a chance to replace them.

Maybe that is a European thing. It depends on contracts, but generally the pattern where I am at is you have specific stuff to put in your tenure packet to get tenure in five years. If you don't get it, you work for a year and you are out unless you get rehired as some kind of adjunct. You can apply elsewhere and try to get tenure there. If you get tenure, you go up again for full in five years, and again have to present a package for that. If you don't get that, you can continue to work at the associate level, which is actually not a bad gig, and a lot of people stay at the associate level.

How do I know it? My Dad is a full professor of Engineering (retired) and, despite being the most brilliant and hardest-working mind in his department, he had to wait almost 14 years before he could become a full professor. He was the first of his generation. Then, in the following years, all the full professors started to retire or die, and more spots became available.

Again, maybe the 14 year thing is a UK thing. I am not sure what full professor applicants do if they get turned down, maybe apply after so many years. Maybe that is what happened to your dad. It could be the committee objected to his research, teaching, or service. Politics can play into that, I suppose.

We had a rock star in one of the departments where I studied. He had come up with a hot theory in his field and co-published maybe a dozen theoretical type papers in his field every year, had lots of people coming to conferences on his theorical perspective. It wasn't really a new theory, btw, just a different way of looking at the same information, but I thought it was brilliant for its simplicity. But he published in a journal that was not top tier. Another professor in his field said that their department had gotten a B journal recognized as an A to let someone who published a lot in that get tenure. It seemed reasonable to me. I went to Indonesia and people knew his name, which is more than I can say for the person who complained about the B journal.

I have other examples of researches in my family, my brother and sister in law for example, both PhD. They tried and failed to find a spot at a university (they tried UK, Ireland, Germany and Portugal). In the end they both gave up and became researchers at private companies, for 3 times the starting salary.

PhDs are valuable in some of the science fields or math. I am not sure what you would do with a PhD in English, History, Sociology, Business or even nursing outside of some kind of a university setting. Well, business PhDs could do consulting I suppose. Economists also have valuable skills. Psychologists in the clinical side of things can practice.

There are university fields that are in demand. I talked to some business faculty at an accreditation training about accountants. PhDs in accounting can make $130 US starting out. One of the Aussies said accounting PhD's could make $300K, but I think that was Aussie dollars, so in the $200's. That is deal-level salary at large universities. Accounting faculty are highly in demand. There are not enough PhDs. This was several years ago, but I heard that there were five positions waiting for every graduate who finished a PhD program.
The story was similar for Finance faculty, but to a lesser degree. I would imagine there are technology niches, engineering and such, where PhDs are highly in demand.

An English professor from a middle ranked university might have a hard time getting a great position. Ivy League grads in English, language and literatures, etc. may be able to find top jobs, especially if they publish before graduation...in a good journal. And that can be hard if they don't have a professor working with them to make it happen, or even if they do. It can take years for a paper to get accepted in some fields. The hard scientists have papers co-written by large numbers of people who duplicated a test, which may be easier to publish.

Even I was offered a PhD (with full scholarship) after I graduated from my Masters in the UK. I was very tempted to join in, the subject was something I would have loved to do, digital signal processing for audio applications. My Dad talked me out of it, after a summer of pestering.

It depends on the field, I suppose, and the country market you are in may have something to do with it. If you had gone to Oxford or Cambridge, working at a lower level school might have been fairly easy. It is hard to go much further up, unless you are a rock star with your publications. In some fields, a PhD from a lower-level, but well accredited school should be fine. Accounting is an example. There are other fields in demand, but nothing that I know of sounded as dramatic as that.

It just takes so long, and you have to forgo income and study so hard to get a PhD. It is definitely not for everyone. You are also heavily invested in a very niche field. It does making searching for jobs a lot easier because there are a few websites you go to, look at jobs, and jump through the hoops to apply.

Doctoral studies can open up positions abroad. China used to hire a lot, but I hear they have kicked English teachers out. I am not sure how they did with university faculty who had tenure and such. In China, there is always the threat of some kind of crack down on freedom looming over your head, but it is getting to be that way in the US as well. A Korean former PhD student of mine went back to Korea to teach. She is not at one of the SKY schools, Seoul National, Korea University or Yongsei, and I don't know about the pay at those places. It sounds like she makes about 25% or a third less than average market rates. I'm probably 15% below, but at a place near where I want to live with lower publishing expectations and a lower cost of living than most areas, so it is cool, and I get paid close in the range of market rates for overrides for large classes. My Korean friend gets bonuses of several thousand, I think, for publishing, so the salary might balance out because of that. I think the cost of living is a bit higher there, though. It's also crowded. At this stage of life, I'd want to get paid big bucks to live in Korea and have the school pay for my children's international school and the extra tax I'd have to pay on that above my tax free income.

The middle east has other fairly close to market employers in academia. I think western Europe pays a little bit less, somewhere around Korean levels for the field I am in. There are good jobs at reputable schools. When I was on the job market, I applied to schools in the UK, Ireland, Middle East, China. I was negotiating out a job in China before getting a job in Indonesia, but then ended up in the US. The Indonesia job had me clocking in like a 9-5 job. One of the board members was opposed to that and threw the time cards away, but HR seemed to almost run the school, which was weird. I remember putting in a 70-hour week once, and 50 hours was not that uncommon. I don't put that in here. I doubt I put in 40 hours most weeks, but then I'll have weeks where I have a stack of grading or a paper due where I put in more. The flexibility to be available during business hours and not to have to take off work to take a child to the doctor or pick up a child after school is good. I think I'll take the long drive to work to get away from my wife asking for help, though. There is always some emergency project around the house since we moved. As it is, I drive to the office two, sometimes three days a week most weeks. I can work from home, if I can work on the school stuff at all.