Pages: 1 … 73 74 75 76 77 … 129

 

2013-03-27 06:22:58
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256
senior academics do earn £100k+ a year. 'senior' means 25+ years in a profession that is incredibly hard to get into and to earn promotion in. 'senior' implies a lot of research excellence and a huge esteem in your field. thus the salary comes with it. you're the only person who has ever turned high-salaries into some ludicrous "academic slacker gravytrain" spiel. that's just your prejudice and ignorance. academia is one of the most difficult professions to get into, especially when you consider the huge cost/time investment required. it's the same amount of training in years and money as medicine... only medicine has a much bigger job-market. so it's not a "gravytrain". most academics are not "slackers". chances are, if they have a salaried full-time position at a top university, they've distinguished themselves a lot to earn it. though i'm sure this really bothers you to have to admit. because nobody can achieve better than you, can they. poor baby.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-27 06:23:46)

2013-03-27 06:27:45
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6107|eXtreme to the maX
OK but you've repeatedly pointed to the kudos and pay as being major parts of your motivation.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
2013-03-27 06:30:53
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256
no, i've only ever referred to them as figures when people say "lol engineering is godmode kekeke" or "lol you have taken a sucky path in life". the path i have taken in life is one i am primarily hugely interested in. it just so happens to come with ample pay and comfort. nobody with the intelligence or drive to get a PhD goes into it 'for the money' or 'gravytrain'. if you're intelligent, qualified, and motivated enough to get a fucking PhD, chances are you could probably get a decent amount of traction on an office-floor (i was offered a full-time salaried position with apple within 2 months of being there on an unrelated temp contract). it's really not something you do for the money. people do it for the love; that's the whole point. you can't spend a lifetime teaching and researching something you hate, or something you're only doing for the money. it's a comfortable lifestyle in terms of pay/reward, perfectly comfortable enough for me, anyway. feel free to go and look up all the times in the past i have mentioned the salary and material side of things. i can guarantee it will only ever be in the context of some inane jab by the "hurf durf engineers on top of the world" crowd.

if "kudos and pay" were what i wanted, i would have undoubtedly done a dry economics or law degree. i think it's fairly absurd to paint "kudos and pay" as prime motivations for getting a PhD. there is always more money to be made in the private sector/business. always. some of my graduating class, who graduated with lesser honours than me, are already earning figures in london that it'll take me to my late 20's to reach (i won't even have a salaried position til then). it's ludicrous to say i'm into academia for "kudos and pay". ludicrous.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-27 06:33:06)

2013-03-27 06:45:42
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5359|London, England

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

senior academics do earn £100k+ a year. 'senior' means 25+ years in a profession that is incredibly hard to get into and to earn promotion in. 'senior' implies a lot of research excellence and a huge esteem in your field. thus the salary comes with it. you're the only person who has ever turned high-salaries into some ludicrous "academic slacker gravytrain" spiel. that's just your prejudice and ignorance. academia is one of the most difficult professions to get into, especially when you consider the huge cost/time investment required. it's the same amount of training in years and money as medicine... only medicine has a much bigger job-market. so it's not a "gravytrain". most academics are not "slackers". chances are, if they have a salaried full-time position at a top university, they've distinguished themselves a lot to earn it. though i'm sure this really bothers you to have to admit. because nobody can achieve better than you, can they. poor baby.
A heavy workload for a professor in the states is considered to be teaching four courses. 4*3.5 hrs is 14 hours a week in a classroom. Add ten hours for grading, 3 hours for office hours, and you're at about 27 hours of work a week, with summers off. By any definition, that's a light workload for a large sum of money.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
2013-03-27 06:47:16
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6107|eXtreme to the maX
That would be a heavy workload by UK standards even in engineering, and grad students do much of the preparation, grading, labs etc.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2013-03-27 06:47:57)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
2013-03-27 06:48:13
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256

Jay wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

senior academics do earn £100k+ a year. 'senior' means 25+ years in a profession that is incredibly hard to get into and to earn promotion in. 'senior' implies a lot of research excellence and a huge esteem in your field. thus the salary comes with it. you're the only person who has ever turned high-salaries into some ludicrous "academic slacker gravytrain" spiel. that's just your prejudice and ignorance. academia is one of the most difficult professions to get into, especially when you consider the huge cost/time investment required. it's the same amount of training in years and money as medicine... only medicine has a much bigger job-market. so it's not a "gravytrain". most academics are not "slackers". chances are, if they have a salaried full-time position at a top university, they've distinguished themselves a lot to earn it. though i'm sure this really bothers you to have to admit. because nobody can achieve better than you, can they. poor baby.
A heavy workload for a professor in the states is considered to be teaching four courses. 4*3.5 hrs is 14 hours a week in a classroom. Add ten hours for grading, 3 hours for office hours, and you're at about 27 hours of work a week, with summers off. By any definition, that's a light workload for a large sum of money.
a senior professor who has few teaching hours is expected to do a lot of research. academia at top universities ("research institutions", it's in the name) want to spend as much time doing research and adding to knowledge as possible. most teaching in american universities is passed off to PhD candidates/young adjuncts/visiting readers. it's not a "low workload" at all. just you clearly do not understand the job role. forgive my skepticism about professors at top universities doing nothing, whilst their scientist counter-parts slave away. i think this is STEM fantasy.
2013-03-27 06:49:51
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5359|London, England
We're about to circle back to 'what could lit profs possibly research?' So I'll just stop and walk away.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
2013-03-27 06:50:11
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Jay wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

senior academics do earn £100k+ a year. 'senior' means 25+ years in a profession that is incredibly hard to get into and to earn promotion in. 'senior' implies a lot of research excellence and a huge esteem in your field. thus the salary comes with it. you're the only person who has ever turned high-salaries into some ludicrous "academic slacker gravytrain" spiel. that's just your prejudice and ignorance. academia is one of the most difficult professions to get into, especially when you consider the huge cost/time investment required. it's the same amount of training in years and money as medicine... only medicine has a much bigger job-market. so it's not a "gravytrain". most academics are not "slackers". chances are, if they have a salaried full-time position at a top university, they've distinguished themselves a lot to earn it. though i'm sure this really bothers you to have to admit. because nobody can achieve better than you, can they. poor baby.
A heavy workload for a professor in the states is considered to be teaching four courses. 4*3.5 hrs is 14 hours a week in a classroom. Add ten hours for grading, 3 hours for office hours, and you're at about 27 hours of work a week, with summers off. By any definition, that's a light workload for a large sum of money.
a senior professor who has few teaching hours is expected to do a lot of research. academia at top universities ("research institutions", it's in the name) want to spend as much time doing research and adding to knowledge as possible. most teaching in american universities is passed off to PhD candidates/young adjuncts/visiting readers. it's not a "low workload" at all. just you clearly do not understand the job role. forgive my skepticism about professors at top universities doing nothing, whilst their scientist counter-parts slave away. i think this is STEM fantasy.
lol 27 hours a week because of teaching/grading. ffs. literally 70% of an academics' time is spent on their own research. most academic job postings come with 'lucrative' offers of the division between teaching/research being predominantly research. they don't keep their jobs if they don't submit top-class research (which reflects, most of all, on the department they represent). academia is about research output. world rankings are about research quality, not teaching quality. it's research, research, research.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-27 06:51:33)

2013-03-27 06:50:28
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256

Jay wrote:

We're about to circle back to 'what could lit profs possibly research?' So I'll just stop and walk away.
yeah because you clearly know what you're talking about. a whole class of professor in the world's top institutions... running a fraud. they research nothing! there is nothing to research in the humanities! hahahaha it's all an illusion! wooohoo!

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-27 06:50:54)

2013-03-27 06:52:49
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6107|eXtreme to the maX
Basically they get to pursue their own interests in their own time and have to do ~20hrs work a week in return.
Doesn't seem too bad a career.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
2013-03-27 06:55:24
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5359|London, England
Seems rather easy and fun.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
2013-03-27 06:57:12
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5359|London, England
Life as a hedgehog would bore me to tears though.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
2013-03-27 06:57:59
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256
'their own interests'. that's a career. they have to write several published articles and books a year. it's not exactly a light workload. and lecture all over the world. and organize conferences/research seminars. and give pastoral help to crying and stressed students. there's a lot of responsibilities. plus a professor every year will get assigned some of the administrative/departmental work, i.e. rotating the 'department head' or 'department admissions' roles. but yes, mostly it's their own research. if you don't understand what constitutes academic research output, or how the entire university system and world-ranking is based on research output/citations, then that's your problem. a doctor/hired staff won't keep their job for very long if they aren't putting out world-class research, boosting the department's stats/esteem. there are 10 others knocking at the door, waiting for their opportunity to get a salary. tenure is a 50 year old fantasy. the ones who write world-influential/game-changing books maybe get given tenure, and the opportunity to do what they want. that's maybe the top 10% of all university staff. there are 3 at my university, and one of them is a former poet laureate - the most senior literary position in british public life, perhaps. it's not a gravytrain. for every tenured professor there's a CEO or board chairman, raking in just as much for just as little. i think you are a little bias.
2013-03-27 06:59:54
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5359|London, England
You act like every professor works at a ranked university and is asked to publish voluminous amounts of research on an annual basis. That's largely only expected of endowed chairs here in the states.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
2013-03-27 07:25:25
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256
no, it's expected of every career academic at reputable american institutions. i know. i spent the better part of 6 months emailing and researching a doctoral path in american institutions myself. american academia is hideously competitive, just as much as british academia. to get onto the career ladder, your foot in the door, for a hotly-contested post-doctoral hiring, you have to be publishing right out of the gate. there's a mantra/dictum in academia: "publish or perish". that's the rules of the game now. a post-doc will be expected to teach all of the lesser courses and do the donkey work, whilst also struggling to get their own new work published, to distinguish themselves and prove themselves in an unstable job-market. you really don't know what you are talking about. "only expected of endowed chairs". the ONLY way to get hired/earn promotions in academia, from the very junior level, is to be published in note-worthy/resume boosting journals. to win prizes/endowments. how do you win them? through your submitted work. nobody progresses through an academic career/junior adjunct role by being good at teaching. the teaching is just a requirement thesedays. universities are so intensely research-focused that undergraduates are far from the top priority (at large research institutions, anyway).

can i speak for your low-ranked, no-research-output institution? no. i'm sure there are plenty of deadbeat academic-career dropouts flunking in small community colleges and regional/local colleges. but that's not what we're talking about here, is it? we're talking about 'academia'. not 'higher education'. the fact is that every note-worthy institution in america/europe/the world are note-worthy nowadays because of research output. the top 'teaching' institutions do not rank in worldwide esteem. american liberal arts colleges specialize in undergraduate excellence, and they have very little to say outside of american liberal arts college rankings. the paradigm has shifted since post-ww2 reforms saw america invent a new definition of the 'modern university'. it is all predicated on research. to get a first-job, you need several pieces published. to get a salaried position, you need published books and multiple promising journal publications/prizes/guest-visiting lectureships to your name. nobody gets a foot-up because they're touted as good teachers thesedays.

but please. tell me some more how it works. i am intrigued. keep me posted. can i take your pager number?
2013-03-27 07:37:22
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256

Jay wrote:

Life as a hedgehog would bore me to tears though.
lol. we get it jay. smart/intellectual people intimidate you. you have to reduce them in some way. it's okay. you're almost middle-class now. maybe you can raise intellectual kids. give it a shot.
2013-03-27 07:45:12
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5359|London, England

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Jay wrote:

Life as a hedgehog would bore me to tears though.
lol. we get it jay. smart/intellectual people intimidate you. you have to reduce them in some way. it's okay. you're almost middle-class now. maybe you can raise intellectual kids. give it a shot.
No, it's got nothing to do with being smart or intellectual, it's about getting locked into one single specialized thought process for the rest of my life. I got my bachelors in engineering, I'm getting my MBA with a specialization in statistics and management philosophy, and I would love to teach history when I approach retirement. My interests are simply too varied to ever want to specialize in one academic field for the rest of my life.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
2013-03-27 07:47:14
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256
yep you clearly know a lot about the broad range of academia please tell us more.
2013-03-27 07:56:35
Pochsy
Artifice of Eternity
+702|5544|Toronto

Jay wrote:

We're about to circle back to 'what could lit profs possibly research?' So I'll just stop and walk away.
I'm going to weigh in on this question, just because I think there's an obvious answer you always seem to overlook.

English Literature teaches you how to read and write at a higher level than most any other subject. What do my professors do? Two give professional advice to Supreme Court judges on how to write verdicts. They teach rhetoric so complex you need to hold 3 degree just to understand the terminology. Many lit students themselves go on the be in the publishing/editing business, and deal with the written word daily.

Effective communication is a more useful thing than you are suggesting. "Communications" degrees only teach the medium, Eng Lit is about the message and how to detail it.
The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
2013-03-27 07:58:41
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256
that's not really his question, and i think it belittles english professors to say that their core skills are "writing really well". really your response is a dumb disservice. what he is asking is "what does humanities research consist of?" it's the typical line trotted by STEM grads here, whose only conception of research is the 'scientific breakthrough' or 'new results'. they don't understand what a journal article or academic book is. what it's for. what its contents are. nevermind the written standard or rhetorical skill on display. they don't understand the endeavour, period. therefore, the only conclusion they can reach, seemingly... is that humanities academics do nothing. okay.

really it pains me that the reading comprehension / level of understanding you display 'in defense' is so poor. i am wincing.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-27 08:00:29)

2013-03-27 08:05:51
Pochsy
Artifice of Eternity
+702|5544|Toronto
The point of my "dumb disservice" is to identify the value in examining abstracted thought in the form of Eng Lit. The research consists of knowing how to approach extremely complex and condensed ideas, and explicating not only their content, but their method. This, then, is the value added: a way to build on the giants. So what does it consist of? Finding the gaps in our understanding of masters, and explaining how we can move towards use of language in such a perfected manner. This may be the obvious answer, but it's the obvious answer msot asshat STEM students can't even find themselves. If we started explaining anagogical value we'd be skipping 10 steps ahead.
The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
2013-03-27 08:06:16
Uzique The Lesser
Banned
+382|4256

Dilbert_X wrote:

Basically they get to pursue their own interests in their own time and have to do ~20hrs work a week in return.
Doesn't seem too bad a career.
and no, that's precisely its benefits. you distinguish and qualify yourself to such a level that your core 'job' activity basically consists of researching and writing on a topic that coincides exactly with your personal-intellectual interests. yep. that's why it's a great job. doesn't mean all that research and article/book-writing and lecturing isn't 'work'. it's just work that fits with one's personal interests. possibly to a degree that STEM graduates may find uncomfortable, or perverse. that's your problem, though. as i said, academia seems like a great job for me. not because it's easy, or a gravytrain, but precisely because it's intellectually fulfilling. the boundary between work and genuine interest/curiosity is basically nil. that's great. doesn't everyone aspire to have a job like that? isn't that always the fantasy? perhaps this is where the (self-)loathing comes up.
2013-03-27 08:28:52
Cybargs
Moderated
+2,285|6717
those holding engineering PhD's are just doing it so they can have a slack job.
https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png
2013-03-27 17:29:56
coke
Aye up duck!
+440|6710|England. Stoke
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21958361
2013-03-28 01:35:29
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6107|eXtreme to the maX

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

'their own interests'. that's a career. they have to write several published articles and books a year. it's not exactly a light workload. and lecture all over the world. and organize conferences/research seminars. and give pastoral help to crying and stressed students. there's a lot of responsibilities. plus a professor every year will get assigned some of the administrative/departmental work, i.e. rotating the 'department head' or 'department admissions' roles. but yes, mostly it's their own research. if you don't understand what constitutes academic research output, or how the entire university system and world-ranking is based on research output/citations, then that's your problem. a doctor/hired staff won't keep their job for very long if they aren't putting out world-class research, boosting the department's stats/esteem. there are 10 others knocking at the door, waiting for their opportunity to get a salary. tenure is a 50 year old fantasy. the ones who write world-influential/game-changing books maybe get given tenure, and the opportunity to do what they want. that's maybe the top 10% of all university staff. there are 3 at my university, and one of them is a former poet laureate - the most senior literary position in british public life, perhaps. it's not a gravytrain. for every tenured professor there's a CEO or board chairman, raking in just as much for just as little. i think you are a little bias.
Several articles a year? I don't believe the books part seeing as no academics I've known have published more than one or two books in their whole career.

~20 hrs a week, most of it regurgitating a lesson plan written only once, long holidays, a full salary and the rest of your time free to pursue your own personal interests with the resources of a University and grant budgets to play with.

Doesn't seem too bad really, no wonder theres competition to get in.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!

 

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