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The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

matt-welsh.blogspot.com

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Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#21

Post by _delirium »

winzie wrote: post #19

I can certainly see the entrepreneurial aspect of being a professor -- managing a lab, hiring and firing people, and sourcing funding, and I don't disagree that professors are there to inspire the next generation. However, there is still a part of me that feels professors have that "safety net". Tenured professors are paid a monthly salary by the university, and often times at / above industry (that's true at least i…

> With a steady income, they have no risk, and the risk factor is a big part of being an entrepreneur.

For first-time entrepreneurs I agree, but there are a lot of "serial entrepreneurs" who sold a company for multi-millions, and are now founding new companies. Millions in the bank definitely seems like a big safety net that insulates you from most real-world risk...

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#22

Post by fadmmatt »

winzie wrote: post #19

I can certainly see the entrepreneurial aspect of being a professor -- managing a lab, hiring and firing people, and sourcing funding, and I don't disagree that professors are there to inspire the next generation. However, there is still a part of me that feels professors have that "safety net". Tenured professors are paid a monthly salary by the university, and often times at / above industry (that's true at least i…

I was an entrepreneur (failed twice), and I'm now a professor.

Being a pre-tenure professor is way more terrifying than being an entrepreneur was.

And, depending on the field, between 25% and 75% of your salary as a professor will come from being able to procure external funding.

If you can't convince the funding agencies to pay you, then tenure buys you an office, a teaching load and health care.

It's been terrifying for me because my hit rate is about the same as Matt's. I've had very little luck getting funding for my research.

And, at the last funding panel I served on, the funding rate was down to 5%. My own fund-seeking overhead is now at 60% of my time, and I'm still not getting any.

Either we have too many scientists, or not enough science funding. I don't think the current system is sustainable.

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#23

Post by nostrademons »

endtime wrote: post #10
amichail wrote: post #4

It's more fun to create something novel that many people use and appreciate (e.g., an iPhone game). Much better than research prototypes that go no where beyond a publication or two.

Seriously? You'd rather implement Tetris in Obj-C than make a fundamental, provable improvement to an important algorithm? We have very different ideas of fun.

If by "fundamental, provable improvement to an important algorithm", you mean something like discovering Floyd-Warshall, then yes. I'd rather be programming Tetris in Obj-C. Floyd-Warshall, while cool, wouldn't be recognized by 99.9999% of the people out there, while iPhone Tetris would be used by millions. More to the point, if you hack up iPhone Tetris, you have a game that you can play, while if you invent Floyd-Warshall, you have a graph algorithm that you can...er, it's bound to be useful sometime. Plus it takes maybe a day or two to hack up Tetris, while it takes several years to do basic CS research.

This is why I'm not an academic.

I can respect basic CS research without wanting to do it myself. I use the fruits of it all the time. But when faced with a problem, I'd rather hack up something that's good enough to get something on the screen than spend the time necessary to cross all the Ts and dot the Is for a publishable paper. To me, the code and what you can do with it speaks for itself.

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#24

Post by tensor »

winzie wrote: post #19

I can certainly see the entrepreneurial aspect of being a professor -- managing a lab, hiring and firing people, and sourcing funding, and I don't disagree that professors are there to inspire the next generation. However, there is still a part of me that feels professors have that "safety net". Tenured professors are paid a monthly salary by the university, and often times at / above industry (that's true at least i…

As others have said, you pay a LOT to get that tenured position. You also risk a lot. Imagine being 32 and just starting a tenure track position. All your friends in industry are already earning nearly 100k and have been earning decent salaries all the while you were in graduate school and post-docs for the past eight years. They already have houses, cars, and other items giving them some form of security. You are maybe in debt, and have very little if not.

Now you get to work for five years to earn your tenure. You work nights, maybe weekends. Your salary is better, but not that much better than your friends got out of university. At the end of the five years, you may be denied tenure. Are you going to give it another shot after that? Another five years?

Also, "and often times at / above industry (that's true at least in Canada anyways)", I do not see this to be true. Especially not for people of similar technical skill who work hard and long hours.

The biggest reason people do not pursue a tenure track position is a distinct lack of a safety net. The above only deals with the monetary aspect of it as well. The social cost is equally high: you never know where you will end up settling down.

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#25

Post by tensor »

nostrademons wrote: post #23
endtime wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You'd rather implement Tetris in Obj-C than make a fundamental, provable improvement to an important algorithm? We have very different ideas of fun.

If by "fundamental, provable improvement to an important algorithm", you mean something like discovering Floyd-Warshall, then yes. I'd rather be programming Tetris in Obj-C. Floyd-Warshall, while cool, wouldn't be recognized by 99.9999% of the people out there, while iPhone Tetris would be used by millions. More to the point, if you hack up iPhone Tetris, you have a game that you can play, while if you invent Floyd-W…

I would guess that Floyd-Warshall has affected far more people than Tetris has, despite the fact that most people do not recognize it. Personally, I would rather have a positive impact on the world than simply be recognized. Hundreds of years in the future, Floyd-Warshall will still be used.

Will Tetris be used? Maybe. But it is a game. It is not solving real problems. Famous people today being recognized far in the futre? Even less likely.

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#26

Post by [deleted] »

timr wrote: post #18
abstractbill wrote: post #5

This nicely sums up a bunch of reasons why I decided not to do a postdoc, and instead joined my first startup after finishing my PhD. I'm sure it works for some people, but I just couldn't see myself being happy with it.

Same for me. I had a few opportunities for good post-docs, but I just couldn't see the point. I didn't really want to be a professor, and if you don't want to be a prof, a post-doc is just a really low-rent job.

[deleted]

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#27

Post by frossie »

fadmmatt wrote: post #22
winzie wrote: post #19

I can certainly see the entrepreneurial aspect of being a professor -- managing a lab, hiring and firing people, and sourcing funding, and I don't disagree that professors are there to inspire the next generation. However, there is still a part of me that feels professors have that "safety net". Tenured professors are paid a monthly salary by the university, and often times at / above industry (that's true at least i…

I was an entrepreneur (failed twice), and I'm now a professor. Being a pre-tenure professor is way more terrifying than being an entrepreneur was. And, depending on the field, between 25% and 75% of your salary as a professor will come from being able to procure external funding. If you can't convince the funding agencies to pay you, then tenure buys you an office, a teaching load and health care. It's been terrifyin…

Either we have too many scientists, or not enough science funding.

A little bit of both, to which I would add a third: the way we fund science is... I'm going to charitably say "sub-optimal"

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#28

Post by anongradstudent »

timr wrote: post #18
abstractbill wrote: post #5

This nicely sums up a bunch of reasons why I decided not to do a postdoc, and instead joined my first startup after finishing my PhD. I'm sure it works for some people, but I just couldn't see myself being happy with it.

Same for me. I had a few opportunities for good post-docs, but I just couldn't see the point. I didn't really want to be a professor, and if you don't want to be a prof, a post-doc is just a really low-rent job.

Do you think there's a point to getting a PhD at all? I've been debating dropping out of my PhD program (after one year), mostly for personal reasons, but partially because most grads from my (top N) program end up not being able to land a research or academic position after graduation. If I end up like 95% of the graduates from my program, will it have been a waste of time?

Is there any value in a PhD if you do your own startup, become a dev at a huge company like Google, or become a dev at a small company like Yelp? And if so, what does it get you over having five years of experience? I don't mean in monetary terms -- a PhD is obviously a net negative monetarily; what I'm looking for is the chance to make a living working on 'interesting' problems.

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#29

Post by greendestiny »

amichail wrote: post #4

It's more fun to create something novel that many people use and appreciate (e.g., an iPhone game). Much better than research prototypes that go no where beyond a publication or two.

Those downvotes seem harsh. I agree with you. While amazing, groundbreaking research is possible in academic computer science - the general lifecycle of research is some irrelevant poorly made prototype that ignores any number of real world concerns and leads to a couple of uninspired papers that noone reads.

The point of making game is actually in having an effect on people, mostly the point of writing papers is padding out an academic resume.

Re: The Secret Lives of Professors (What Being a Professor is Really Like)

#30

Post by smokinn »

anongradstudent wrote: post #28
timr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for me. I had a few opportunities for good post-docs, but I just couldn't see the point. I didn't really want to be a professor, and if you don't want to be a prof, a post-doc is just a really low-rent job.

Do you think there's a point to getting a PhD at all? I've been debating dropping out of my PhD program (after one year), mostly for personal reasons, but partially because most grads from my (top N) program end up not being able to land a research or academic position after graduation. If I end up like 95% of the graduates from my program, will it have been a waste of time? Is there any value in a PhD if you do your…

Well I've heard that Apple won't even bother considering you if you don't have at least a minimum of a master's degree in something related if you're applying for the Spotlight team.

If you're studying something hard and you get good at it someone will want to hire you. You will have essentially paid for a good chunk of their R&D for them.

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