How do you become a professor and is it worth it?

How do you become a professor and is it worth it?

>not obese or skinnyfat
>clothes fit
>hair taken care of

fake

You get PhD, usually do a postdoc, then apply.

It's not worth it at all. The only benefit is that once you have tenure, you're your own boss for the rest of your career.

>It's not worth it at all.
What if teaching and research seem more appealing than any other options you have?

Depends on the field I guess, but if your field has an industrial aspect you're almost guaranteed to do better quality research in industry. And make more money.

>go into grad school
>be some professor's slave under the hopes of being a professor yourself one day
>not become professor when that professor takes credit for your work

Industry comes with a limited amounts of freedom that just aren't worth it. And no, that statement is not true unless you are an engineer or computer scientist, maybe physics and other soft sciences or graph theory or something like that.

>slave
getting paid to do cutting edge research
>professor takes credit for your work
the professor takes credit for the work you did in their program
>not become professor
that's on them, what you need to get a job as a professor in a good school is a few first author papers in high impact journals.

Industry is still better though.

I think I remember seeing a big job survey revealing that math professors have the highest job satisfaction out of every profession polled.

I mean, if you're good, you have a lot of freedom and unsupervised time to do things. No traditional boss to report to. Can do your job anywhere. Plus people have a decent amount of respect for your intelligence.

There's plenty more freedom in industry. Research in academia is stymied by the constant need to find funding, this rat-race sucks any sort of 'freedom' out of PI's and they quickly find themselves stuck in a niche writing grants for most of their life.

I can personally work on 10-20 different programs in a given year, I have a higher salary, more toys, and I don't have to write grants all day. I'd call that more freedom. PhD in synthetic organic chemistry.

>get paid
hohohoho
good one

>physics and other soft sciences

Hey, it's not a lot, but it's enough to live and if you're smart you basically get to do whatever you want in the lab. Some of my best days were spent in grad school.

I want this, but I fell for the industry meme. Getting a computer science degree instead of a math degree and now I'm on the path to becoming a code monkey.

Don't sweat it, if you don't have what it takes to break out in industry, you certainly don't have what it takes to actually make academia work.

eh, im doing this now. at first i hated it, but it's pretty good now. great insurance, good pay, my job lets me work remote pretty much whenever i want, don't work that hard so i have energy for taking care of myself and socializing after work. but if you don't work on relating to people you'll get in trouble. your problem solving ability isn't that important, at least where i work.

my friend's mom is a manager at a software company--was 100% real and told me she kept an incompetent guy on her team for two years because he was calm and easy to talked to, so he made everyone feel better when they were stressed out. eventually he got fired when the owner found out he was paying someone who couldn't code lol

nigga, industry is EZ. academics work their asses off by comparison.

>I don't work that hard
>industry is easy haha
Sounds fucking awful honestly. I really need to do a thing with my life. I'd rather work my ass off on something relatively meaningful than sit around on my ass 8 hours a day doing easy, pointless "work."

Professors/ Scientists/ Researchers are the
Professions that you get more respect when you get older.
>Followed by Doctor & Lawyers. Then Engineers & Managers.
>Respect for other professions decline faster.
Sportsman, Top Models & Pop Singers lose respect sharply after their prime in 20s.
Because Physical Skills, Women's Beauty & Singer Popularity decline sharply with age.
>Body declines faster than Mind.

well, i guess if you don't mind living with the insecurity postdocs/grad students have you could work for like a few years and literally self-fund yourself while you bum around a school and do research. talk to profs and see how you should get into grad school. etc.

i think you might be confusing easy with trivial.

if you aren't a glorified lab/code monkey, you are going to be in charge of a couple million dollars worth of stuff, probably hundreds. most of your day will be spent gathering information, discoursing with your peers, and just... thinking about things. corporations realize that trying to hammer creativity and analytical thought from its highly educated workforce doesn't work. its why companies like google are so successful.

hoohoo thanks for pointing that one out. Someone's got a real interesting opinion

describe how you are getting hammered.

>get up and take a shit after lunch
>get text message "Where are you? The team is working and we need this feature tomorrow"
there was some uneducated mba chick who had the boss's ear who thought the way you get work done is by hurting people until they do what you want. eventually she freaked out and left the company

Industry work is degenerate.

it really isn't unless you let it be desu
>read Bible and pray
>meditate
>no longer bothered by silly human stuff
>save a bunch of salary
>now know you can probably make it multiple years without income unless you have an emergency
>now work is chill even if other people stress
>you're a calming influence on those around you and things improve
>making the world a better place

Sorry, bro. You don't "make the world a better place" by chilling out and taking the easy path. Also God doesn't exist. ;^)

>You don't "make the world a better place" by chilling out and taking the easy path
could be true, i probably will end up having to take on more difficult stuff to feel like my career was worthwhile

>you're your own boss for the rest of your career
yeah but then you're a slave to your work. my advisor is tenured pimp, and his still working his hair off

Do you want to be a slave to your work or your boss? Pick one.

Professors are badass so yes

phd -> postdoc x2 -> lecturer -> assoc prof -> prof

chilling out does make an epslion-ball centred at you a better place imo

But what matters is the radius of chill of the ball.

>cs degree
>code monkey
If this is the case, you don't have the aptitude to do math.

hit for a PhD its the usual, worth it? honestly don't be surprised if you don't become a professor for a while since academic jobs very rarely have open positions

you can always finish your cs major and go for a major of your liking hell why not double major?

>go into job
>be some dillweed's slave under the hopes that you will get to wear a big dillweed man's hat some day.
>not become master dillweed when you get laid off for having sub par productivity due to petty office squabbles.

its epsilon

Not worth at all. Big competition, low salary, politics heavily involved.

You are fooling yourselves. World is a may place. You will end up bitter and disillusioned.

Dude I got an A in linear algebra lol :^)

I'm an American and too poor to afford that extra schooling.

salary isn't that low it's from average to high depending on what you teach however the chances of you actually getting employed are very slim to none

Being a tenured professor is sweet. Getting to that point is brutal and highly unlikely. You basically have to dedicate your best years to low paying postdoc hell, praying for a tenure track position to open somewhere in the country. If you're lucky you get to graduate from low paying postdoc hell to low paying adjunct professor hell. When that position appears, you get to compete with thousands of people like you for a shot at it.

Average postdoc salary is 45 k/yr in a stem field. Average PhD salary in a stem field right after graduation is 75 k/yr.

If you can't get a tenure track position, your only options are to keep digging the low paying hole you've made for yourself, or give up entirely on the career you have dedicated decades to. Meanwhile all your friends you did your PhD with who went into industry instead of academia are better paid and have a better work life balance.

1. Become the kiss-ass student of the desired subject/field.
2. Apply for student aid/professor's assistant positions, if applicable.
3. Score a 4.0 in desired field unto graduation.
4. Drown in student debt.
5. Become hired on as new/substitute professor at said college.
6. Forever live in debt as a professor in your studio apartment.
7. Commit suicide before seeing your children graduate highschool.

>sqrt (x^2 + 1) = sqrt (x^2) + 1

you done fucked up, teach

On my uni, math and physics faculty isn't plagued by grant-hunting. We get 90% of funds that go to our uni. It's the humanities that have to hunt for grants. Our country doesn't fund bullshit research so if you're doing a doctorate in gender studies or climate science, you have to bend your ass over for EU where competition is much higher.

Becoming a professor isn't that hard. You just need to be 3 things:
1) Somewhat intelligent
2) Narcissistic
3) Dishonest

2 and 3 are the most important. Without dishonesty you will not become a professor.

>climate science is bullshit research
Oh boy here we go again

>Without dishonesty you will not become a professor

Why though?

Hush mathlet. Men are talking, you can go practice your bra and anal so you can rediscover nonlinear optimization. Parameter fixing works much better in that environment, you might be able to fool undergrad freshmen that your models say what you want them to.

helllll no

>it's a "math major thinks he understands all other majors better than they do" thread

Top kek

No shit, it's a stock photo

Not really, but i can see parameter fixing when i see it. And you'd be hard pressed to find better examples than in climatology :^) learn from CERN guys, they are really good at stats, far better than me or any math major is.

>Becoming a professor isn't that hard. You just need to be 3 things:
>1) Somewhat intelligent
You have to be extremely intelligent to Be top of your class in a Top Uni. (not a Meme State Uni)
>2) Narcissistic
Everybody I know is Narcissistic as fuck including Animals as my Pets.
Except perhaps Jesus. Parents care for own child.
People nowadays do Charity only to show off & market himself in social media, not with trully good intentions.
>3) Dishonest
There is Heavy Nepotism (favor granted to relatives or close friends)
not only in Academia, but also in Business, Politics, Entertainment, nothing new.
I don't know how someone could survive Graduate School cheating every time,
unless the cheater is extremely rich to bribe every time.

I wanna be a professor of physics? Is it a chill job?

What about lecturer? That seems pretty chill.

lmao. good catch

Depends. How much do you like ramen noodles?

field is saturated

im just starting my phd and already nervous

Have fun publishing at least four half-assed arcticles each year. Seriously, switch to math as long as you still can, mathematicians will be happy about "switchers" from my experience since physicists are generally more humane.

I'm doing theoretical physics, so it's like math but slightly less autistic... or more autistic depending on your pov

Maybe you should really consider working in a math-department. Less pressure to publish and kind of more freedom, in the sense that you do not need to link your mathematical work (which I assume is always a part of your research) to physical interpretation. Every physicist in my math department was a nice guy and collaborations with them is pretty chill. And yeah, you guys are still pretty autistic, at least more autistic than most applied mathematicians.

I don't mind the pressure to publish in the sense that those will look good for postdoc, etc. apps anyway so I should be doing it regardless, esp. with a good PI

i love math of course but physics is my true interest, I won't be able to escape that, shit is just too cool to me

Then I wish you good luck! If the situation with publications gets worse, you can always become a traitor and come to the mathematicians.

thanks man, since my endgame is insane, white-haired professor it's certainly always an option

Get a PhD at a high impact lab or do high impact work. Get a post doc at a high impact lab or do high impact work. Apply for associate professor position. Get it and have fun writing grants. I mean you can work on nearly whatever the fuck you want, if someone will find you. Publish or perish. Personally I like industry but in the twilight of my career I want to teach only at a small school.

You type like an asshole

lol hes a professor

Are certain fields easier to become a professor in than others or do they all have about the same amount of super competitive difficulty like what is describing?

> not worth it
> you are your own boss

In order to become a professor you need a high number of publications. That is the most important thing. The problem is that in research it is impossible to predict whether your project or experiment will be successful. The vast majority of experiments fail no matter how smart you are. In order to have a high number of 'successful' publications you must be dishonest or outright fraudulent.

As an example, my gf was recently working on a synthesis project with a professor. She did 10 experiments and only one of those was mildly successful. The professor told her not to mention the other 9 experiments as they invalidate his hypothesis and to keep deleting data on the 'successful' experiment until it matched his hypothesis. Unless she does this no journal will publish her experiment. Needless to say, that professor was highly acclaimed and prestigious.

>random capitalization
Holy shit, it's Chris-chan.

>I think I remember seeing a big job survey revealing that math professors have the highest job satisfaction out of every profession polled.

That's because the modern day system of academic research was originally based on the model created by mathematicians who did research in their spare time, while teaching for a salary to survive. You don't need to spend endless hours writing grants and hoping you can get the next 5 grand you need to keep your state of the art equipment up and running.

That's not exactly uncommon even if it is shitty grammar