I want to get a job that will let me earn epic amounts of $$

[Surgo]

So anyway, what's this hot bullshit about professors having to RESEARCH?

That sounds a lot like homework, man.

I don't know what Doom is talking about, as here literally every professor is expected to have research chops. (At the same time, it is a "major Ivy League school" so maybe that's it.)

That said, there are places where research is considered pretty secondary. Liberal arts colleges care way more about your teaching chops than your research chops.

In any case, research is (supposed to be) fun. Nobody goes and is a professor at anywhere other than a liberal arts college if they don't enjoy research.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, I'm hearing mixed things about the professorship here in this thread. What's going on here? I think the point of contention is the whole 'Ivy League School' distinction--which I don't really give a crap about. I don't mind working for a lower-tier college as long as the job security's good and the pay is good. And also no research outside of working hours.

I keep those hours 90% of the year for $120k. It's an awesome field.

Let's hear those hours, ML.

Like I implied earlier in the thread, I do want Doom's job. Havng a large amount of cash would be nice, bt I'd rather have the free time to go with it. It's just that I'm wary of 'free time' where you're expected to do independent research or training--that's not really free time at all in my opinion. I'd rather have that stuff mandated by a schedule.

[Juton]

And also no research outside of working hours.

That's a kicker, at least in Canada. If you want to be considered a researcher you have to do a good amount of research, most tenure track professors work probably 50+ hours a week at my university. If you're not that gung-ho getting on the tenure track isn't going to happen, so you'll get less wages and less security.

[Doom]

The median number of papers published by Ph.D.'s is zero; 2/3rds of Ph.D.'s don't publish anything past parts of their dissertation.

Yes, you won't get the high end, uber position for the smartest person in the world if you don't publish...but if you can accept that you're not Einstein, you can do fine. I believe my whole college put together has zero publications in scholarly journals. If you count my trivial online articles (that have no scholarly content), I'm up there, but that has nothing to do with my job.

The whole 'tenure' thing isn't what it used to be, anyway. I've seen ONE professor get tenure in department I was in since 1989, and that happened after I left that university (I have to stretch the meaning of "I was in", otherwise we're at zero tenure awards). You're more likely to get revolving contracts now, I believe, even if you're fairly awesome...unless you're getting a political position, and that's a whole different can of worms.

[Sashi]

The only professors I've ever seen have actual low hours are the extremely lazy ones who managed to get a monopoly on a core curriculum class, extremely lazy ones who just don't care that they won't get paid well, and emeritus professors. In either case it takes a whole lot of work to get to the position where they can't just fire you for being lazy/old.

In terms of research, very roughly, there are three types of college:

Research University - Often considered "major" colleges. UCLA, UCIC, NYU. And other colleges that may or may not have acronyms for names. The real identifier of these colleges is that they grant Ph.D degrees and usually get a great deal of their funding from grants. The teaching requirement is pretty low (3-6 credits a semester) but you're basically an administrator trying to get grants (which requires research and publishing, usually).

Teaching University - The vast majority of these are "liberal arts" colleges, but also technical and agricultural colleges often fall into this. They usually offer bachelor's degrees with a smattering of MA/MS degrees in whatever their strongest subjects are. The teaching requirement is much higher (9 credits/semester) and the research requirements are consequently much lower. Usually professors just have a smattering of undergrads working during the summer and the grants are tiny. They're trying to ramp this up a bit because a lot of graduate programs are starting to "strongly encourage" undergraduate research experience beyond a senior project. Also: public universities actually lose money on students and are starting to look toward research grants as a source of funding.

Community Colleges - I think these show the largest variation. The only identifier is the lack of a significant baccalaureate program. Some have a very minor set of "college" courses and focus on technical certifications, others are almost entirely feeder schools that let people get their gen eds out of the way before transferring. Teaching expectations are all over the map, but there's usually zero expectation of your doing anything but teach.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The only professors I've ever seen have actual low hours

What would you consider low hours? I think that 35 hours/week grading, teaching, holding office hours, etc.. low hours.

[Doom]

I teach 5 courses a semester (3 hour courses) and have 10 office hours. 25 hours a week.

I've worked at 3 other institutions (universities), my full time load has never been much different (sometimes less classes, more other stuff).

Seriously, you don't believe me, come to Baton Rouge for a week next semester, I'll demonstrate my hours for your own eyes, not much more I can do than that. I'd offer now, but it's final exams week (5 two hour exams, 6 office hours), and then I get a month off, so not a fair demonstration.

Giving an exam right now, by the way, waiting on one student.

I don't publish, I have no chance whatsoever of working at UCLA or a top tier institution. I'm ok with that (not everyone gets to play in the NFL, either), and I'm so ambivalent about the value of "high end" research that my heart just isn't in it even when I could have gone that route.

Incidentally, it's not just 'research universities' that offer Ph.D.s, quite a number of non-major universities do as well.

In graduate school, I saw my professors doing about the same. Yes, some worked harder than others, some were lucky, some were not....explaining every possibility would take more than a note here.

[Sashi]

There was a computer science professor who automated all his grading and repeated his lesson plan almost verbatim. He was also the only guy at the college qualified to teach two of the languages he taught. He probably worked 10hours/week.

For everyone else it's all about how many credit-hours you're teaching, and how many papers and grant applications you're writing.

If you can't blackmail the department into putting up with lazy teaching, then you're looking at 1-5 hours of prep per hour of instruction, depending on familiarity with the subject and whether you've taught it before. Plus an hour of office time per section.

Grading is a strange beast. It takes me about an hour to grade 90 worksheets, And 2-4 hours to grade 30 300-400 level assignments. You know how some teachers are totally anal about homework formatting (name in upper left-hand corner, divider line between questions/one question per page, box answers, etc)? That's because it takes about 10x longer to grade a messy homework than a tidy one. And, of course, it takes 5 minutes to grade a basically infinite number of scan-tron tests.

You'll probably have a 1-2 hour staff meeting every week or so, and part of your evaluation for raises and such will depend on how many other (meaningful) meetings you're a part of, so look at 2-4 other comities meeting for about 8 hours/month.

Writing papers/proposals is the hardest part. The more hot shit you are the less writing you'll have to do (one guy in Engineering recently got thrown a $150k grant for writing a Whitepaper) but the more hot shit you are the more work you have already done. Basically, a research professor is writing more often than they're teaching, by far.

[Doom]

Prep time can vary quite a bit, but I don't think I've ever required an hour of prep for hour of course (granted, never taught past differential equations, but that covers MUCH of the curriculum).

Math hasn't changed much in the last few thousand years; it takes perhaps 15 seconds to 'prep' most courses. I look in the book, read the title of the section, that's usually enough. I can reconstruct every book of every course I've taught; I don't say that to be boastful, I know many of my colleagues can do the same, at least the 'legit' ones (as opposed to ones with 'math education' degrees). If you need 5 hours of prep time, you don't know your field at all.

Now, I'm lazy, I'll admit that up front. Some of my colleagues teach 'overload' courses (especially online courses, which are easy money past the first semester, did it myself for a few years, but got tired of the excessive cheating). A friend of mine turned 60 this year, regularly teaches 3 or more overloads a semester...and I promise you, he doesn't work any harder than I do on any of those courses, and has been doing it for a long time without being fired or harassed for 'lazy' teaching.

There IS a point where admin complains. One professor cancelled about half her classes, and always let her students go halfway through the class, whole semester. She did get a talking to...still works here, and still is pretty 'light' in her teaching.

I have a staff meeting every month...takes an hour, tops. And every year I have a meeting with the dean for job evaluation (rated highly, btw). We'll call that 15 minutes. So, yeah, I guess I've left a few things out. Should I mention the Xmas party this Friday? That'll be another few hours...I don't exactly call it working, though.

Bottom line, it's a cushy job, I was a stockbroker before I tried academia, before that yard worker and before that sheet metal roofer (back when $5 an hour was amazingly good money). I know what work is, don't like it much at all.

[mean_liar]

I keep those hours 90% of the year for $120k. It's an awesome field.

Let's hear those hours, ML.

Honestly? Maybe 10hrs of real work a week most of the time, and then occasional blasts of up to 30hrs in a very busy week (with maybe 10-12 of those hours coming in a single day).

[Calibron]

Doom is my new role model.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Bottom line, it's a cushy job, I was a stockbroker before I tried academia, before that yard worker and before that sheet metal roofer (back when $5 an hour was amazingly good money). I know what work is, don't like it much at all.

Blue collar jobs are the worst. Not because the jobs in of themselves suck, but because until you at least get into middle management you get treated like the dung on the bottom of a hobo's shoe. People with the hardest jobs onboard our ship (aircrew, reactor, boatswain mates) got treated the worst, while people with cushy admin jobs got treated the best.

I really fucked up enlisting as a navy nuke for six years; if I was in Ops or some kind of yeoman--or better yet, in the air force--I'd probably still be in the service. Growing fat (or fit, you have a LOT of time to work out; the hardest-working departments are also the most out of shape), always wearing a nice uniform, spending my whole day at the computer and listening to music... beats the living fuck out of 80-hour workweeks in port in the hot bowels of the ship.

The gap between blue collar and white collar really is that bad. So if I come off as really lazy I apologize. I just went to college to AVOID all of that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This is an old thread-bump, but I wanted to ask mean_liar something:

I've been reading up on project controller and all of them state that you need a bachelor's in accounting along with an MBA or an MSF. Now while I'm okay with getting an MBA, I do want to earn my electrical engineering degree. I don't think I'd ever find peace with myself if I didn't get this BSEE degree after craving it for 10+ years so voluntarily going off course isn't the question. I'd also like to avoid getting a second major, as with an MBA + 4-years bachelor I'll be 30 years old when I get out of school. Eff that.

The way you made it sound like though is that you don't necessarily need an accounting degree, though.


Doom's teaching plan made it sound like being a shady professor is still a backup option, but everything I've read about being a professor requires a PhD and I don't think I can handle 8-9 years old college.

[mean_liar]

I'm quite successful at it with only a Mathematics degree. However, I started at my job about 11 years ago and so things could have changed a little, but I doubt it.

Looking at...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_controller

"'Industry experience' is often a pre-requisite and so controllers often have undergraduate degrees in related fields. Also, many analysts originally enter this domain through their practice as consultants or accountants and so a very wide range of qualifications is common."

Project controls is VERY niche-dependent. The skills I use for scheduling are universally-applicable, but when I then apply that scheduling with respect to a change order I need to be able to know construction means and methods as well as have an idea of what the real nature of the work is in practice in the field. I'd hire X with five years construction field experience before I hire Y with ten+ years financial experience, even at the same compensation package.

I do construction project controlling and have never worked with nor would really consider hiring an accountant over an engineer. Accounting would be useful and would pretty much ensure that they'd be able to handle the analysis part of the job, but so can an engineer. Field experience is worth a lot more than the degree, period, and an engineer at least as some grounding in construction that can be built off of. I have a basic understanding of every system in a building (mech-elec-plumbing-comm-finishes-structure-civil) because I need them, and the only real way to get them is with practice and exposure, and that's something that an accountant just isn't going to have access to.

Professional certification with an MBA or MSF wouldn't be useful in construction, but I imagine there's plenty of project controllers that could get work with those... just not in my portion of the industry. Even as it is I don't really consider ASCE or PMI accreditation to me of much merit (as I generally work in the field rather than as a claims consultant where you'd really want to have those letters), just like I don't consider MBAs to be all that useful in general.

They certainly seem to get the executives all hot and bothered, though; as a longer-term plan it'd probably be worth it but getting your foot in the door wouldn't need it.

Plus, in tech and financial fields you're less valued. Construction as an industry doesn't generally attract lots of number-crunchers and analyzers and proficient writers and negotiators all rolled up into one package, and I benefit from it. Its the difference between being the IT maintenance guy at an accounting firm or the IT maintenance guy at an IT firm.

[Doom]

SHADY professor? Jeez. I'm no different than the vast bulk of professors I've known (might be easier to say I've only known a handful of actual researching professors...and I never wanted that life, anyway).

[Lago PARANOIA]

Pish posh, Doom, everyone knows that REAL teachers spend 60 hours of their week teaching, doing lesson plans, staying in their office hours well into the night, personally solving every problem in the textbook every semester, and putting together a cirriculum that will engage and enlighten even the most disaffected of students with some common sense and homespun wisdom.

Anything less than that is slacking.

[echoVanguard]

Lago - you might also consider a CPA certification as an alternative to an accounting degree - an MBA with a course concentration in accounting prepares you for the CPA exam pretty handily. However, I'm not sure if you specified whether or not you were willing to travel extensively - that's a major component of the job mean_liar describes, as well as many other high-paying jobs, including lobbyist.

mean_liar - Why would you value an engineering degree, but not a PMI certification? How familiar are you with the accreditation process?

echo

[Ikeren]

Just a comment on Canadian/US differences and researching: If you aren't researching at a Canadian university and publishing papers, you do not get tenure. If you do not get tenure, you get paid relatively little; even if you are tenure track (This is specifically referring to philosophy departments, which I have the most knowledge of). If you do not get tenure tracked, you have basically no job security.

I'm at a decent university, but I've talked to several of my professors about what it's like elsewhere. If you want to teach and teach alone in Canada, you do collage. If you want to teach + research, or research focus, you do university. If you want money, you don't get a philosophy degree either way.

[mean_liar]

mean_liar - Why would you value an engineering degree, but not a PMI certification? How familiar are you with the accreditation process?

Because the people I've worked with who hustled hard for PMI certification were mostly annoying ladder-climbers looking for letters after their name to sell clients, not a wider or better-developed management technique.

Construction management and construction project controls are, in my opinion, best learned from experience. Certification wouldn't make me think less of someone, but for me it would only really come up as a tie-breaker. More pertinent things for me:

1. How many claims have you had to deal with?
2. What's the largest percentage of Change Orders you've had on a job, relative to original bid price?
3. What're the largest schedule claims you've had to deal with? Who was involved? What was the outcome?
4. What project delivery models have you worked under (DB/DBB/CM-at-Risk)?
5. What size projects have you worked on and in what capacity?
6. What's the most insulting thing a contractor has called you, and why?

That said, if you're going to work as a claims consultant, you want those certifications to provide expert witness testimony. That'd actually be pretty key for your side's counsel to establish legitimacy; the other side is going to attack your findings anyway and the arbitrators, judge or god help you mediators or jury probably aren't going to be able to follow your process very well to tell if you're bullshitting or not... making those letters pretty key. However, for what I do I generally consider it extraneous.

[echoVanguard]

the people I've worked with who hustled hard for PMI certification were mostly annoying ladder-climbers looking for letters after their name to sell clients, not a wider or better-developed management technique.

Construction management and construction project controls are, in my opinion, best learned from experience. Certification wouldn't make me think less of someone, but for me it would only really come up as a tie-breaker.

Doesn't that criteria apply to every field, though? Literally every field I've encountered from private security to agriculture prefers experience to education - including the PMI certification requirements.

echo

[mean_liar]

That depends if you're hiring someone outside your area of expertise or working with someone within your area of expertise. Certifications are good benchmarks if you don't know what you're looking for: they offer a guarantee that the person in question is competent.

So, they serve a purpose for selling yourself to clients, but not really for getting peers to hire you, unless you're trying to get a position where you're selling expertise absent contacts or context. Certainly in Lago PARANOIA's case he's asking about a career path and its entry requirements rather than what he might need to hang out a shingle of his own doing project controls, or to act as a project controls supervisor on a large $1B program or some-such.

Engineering degrees are nice to have for the field because it generally means that you've got at least a good grounding in one discipline, which means at least one subcontractor is going to have a harder time screwing the owner while you're around. That's valuable. Having a PMI certification means that you managed to hang around the construction industry for 5+ years, with no real harsh judging of your merits past your class and extended education credits.

[echoVanguard]

Engineering degrees are nice to have for the field because it generally means that you've got at least a good grounding in one discipline, which means at least one subcontractor is going to have a harder time screwing the owner while you're around. That's valuable. Having a PMI certification means that you managed to hang around the construction industry for 5+ years, with no real harsh judging of your merits past your class and extended education credits.

This is the crux of my question - why do you feel that a degree in engineering automatically confers grounding in a field, but independent accreditation does not? I've known a lot of graduates from various academic institutions, and completion of a degree path in any field is no guarantee of competence or even familiarity with the subject matter. As with any type of education, the value it confers is dependent upon the determination of the student to retain and apply the teachings of the discipline in question. I'm intensely curious as to why you feel this is not the case with an engineering degree.

echo

[mean_liar]

Why? Because of my experience. I'm sure that's come up in my previous posts.

In my field, I generally work with the following:

Architects
Engineers
Contractors
Clients

The group who consistently seem to understand scheduling and claims better are Engineers, regardless of experience. I think its the math and analytical background, but it helps that they UNDERSTAND THEIR DISCIPLINE BETTER THAN THOSE THAT DON'T.

Quit shitting up the thread with your pointless jackass questions. I've answered this fucking thing three times now. Re-read what I've written, ask something new, or fuck off.

[Blasted]

This is the crux of my question - why do you feel that a degree in engineering automatically confers grounding in a field, but independent accreditation does not? I've known a lot of graduates from various academic institutions, and completion of a degree path in any field is no guarantee of competence or even familiarity with the subject matter. As with any type of education, the value it confers is dependent upon the determination of the student to retain and apply the teachings of the discipline in question. I'm intensely curious as to why you feel this is not the case with an engineering degree.

Engineering degrees are audited to meet international standards. Graduates should meet minimum standards as set down by the various accords. So with an Engineering grad, almost regardless of background or country, you know what you're getting. While there are always poor students, who manage to graduate in spite of their own failings, accreditation and standardized syllabus give you indication of what they should know.

With an independant accreditation, you don't know even what they should be capable of. There's limited oversight of independant institutions - it's a lottery.

In addition, at least in Oz, for many engineering positions it's a legal requirement to have an engineering degree at minimum. For my part, I wouldn't hire a project manager to work in a field where they have neither experience or accreditation. I'd probably consider PMI's courses as highly as any other independant college degree.

[RobbyPants]

the people I've worked with who hustled hard for PMI certification were mostly annoying ladder-climbers looking for letters after their name to sell clients, not a wider or better-developed management technique.

Construction management and construction project controls are, in my opinion, best learned from experience. Certification wouldn't make me think less of someone, but for me it would only really come up as a tie-breaker.

Doesn't that criteria apply to every field, though? Literally every field I've encountered from private security to agriculture prefers experience to education - including the PMI certification requirements.

echo

It depends on the circumstance. I landed my first programming job because I had an education and no experience. It was for a really small company, and they didn't have enough money to pay a respectable salary, and they didn't want someone experienced who was set in their ways.

This isn't typical, but there are some times when they're looking for someone who can do the job cheap. It seems that you can try to bargain more with experience than you can simply by having a degree.

Edit:
Although, to be honest, I did have a lot easier time getting interviews the second time around when I had three years experience under my belt.