What do you think of university professors and researchers? Would you like to be one of them?

What do you think of university professors and researchers? Would you like to be one of them?

I'm not exactly a researcher, but I'm attending university and currently a course where we are practicing on making our own research. My field is really practical, so I didn't really think this would happen but... researching an interesting matter is really fulfilling and fun.

I live in a country where we get paid for studying. Makes easier to roleplay a real researcher.

I'd rather kill myself.
Actually I'd rather kill myself in general, this life is not worth living anymore.

I'd love to do it, but I'm not cut out for an academic environment.

Same desu. I'm too much of a hothead.

I aim to become an academic, but I have some worries.

I fear that if I do, I'll be constrained to only publishing in my own area of interest, and it would prevent me from publishing in other areas.

For example, if I wanted to become an English professor, I would probably find it hard to publish a theory on aesthetics.

I speak as someone about to finish my PhD in English lit, having experience with both teaching and research.

I think teaching is one of the greatest things I could do: to introduce my students to the study of literature, to reading and interpretation and to the history of literary criticism, and then challenge them to integrate the knowledge and skills into an ethical life. I consider good and effective teaching to be something noble, to which I aspire.

I struggle with the research side of the academic profession. I can do it... the research, the publishing, the collaborating, the grant chasing... but I think a life of research exacerbates the worst tendencies of academics... the minute specialization, the egos, the greed, the ersatz-celebrity, the anti-social awkwardness, etc.

It's a hypocritical situation... good teaching depends, to some degree, upon having access to the knowledge that comes from good scholarship, but being a good scholar will not translate into good teacher.

My ideal job would be at a smallish college (community or lib arts) that emphasizes teaching while allowing some time for research and scholarship. Once the academic's focus is taken away from the classroom, the inner autist starts to grow.

I'm too lazy, dumb, and bad with deadlines. My attempts at education have all ended in disaster, and I doubt that change if I tried again.

Same here. I'm getting my master's in bio and I thought I was going to enjoy the research more than I am. Might not go for a PhD after all.

Insuffurable retards with huge egos

How full of yourself are you? Worry about finishing undergrad before you start thinking that your beautiful theories will be constrained

hows that being under a hubris? I just don't want to be chained to one field

If you have something well research and interesting to say a journal isn't going to shut you out just cause your phd is in a different discipline. They might even give you preference if they are looking to create a crossdisciplinary image.

Some journals might decline to publish if you are not provocative enough I hear. Like The American Historical Review is a notorious shit stirrer.

It's hubris because you should be grateful if you ever get anything published at all. It's hubris because you probably don't even have enough expertise or knowledge to publish anything even in one field. Also "being under a hubris" is a ridiculous turn of phrase which shows you don't even know how to write properly. I'm not trying to be needlessly cruel, it's just that odds are you'll never have anything published at all.

Not even that user, but you're being a dick. It's not hard to get published, and I you find it hard, you probably just aren't trying hard enough. Journals will take most if it's not terrible.

Also, "being under a hubris" is correct.

That aside I'd avoid academics. Too many gamphrels and hotshots running about

>"being under a hubris" is correct.
No it isn't

Neat.

Is it really so hard to get published in journals?

>so hard to get published in journals

Not really, if your ambitions are reasonable and your argument is backed up with reference to relevant scholarship. Sure there's needlessly pompous people working at some top-flight journals, but if you've done your homework and can argue your point well (and you're attentive to the reviewer's comments) you can get published.

Once you're in the position to start publishing (i.e. finished your MA, working on a PhD) you'll have a pretty good idea of what it takes. An argument that can withstand the precedent of previous scholarship while arguing something new, that breaks a bit of new ground, ought to be published. In my experience, having been both accepted and rejected multiple times, most people that work (volunteer) for academic journals are decent people that are eager for students to break some ground and make a name for themselves.

Some truly are insufferable, shells of a human being. Some, I imagine, are genuinely good people.

No, I think they're failed nerds that couldn't make it in the real world.

Usually. The bad ones always overshadow the good though.

There is a large nugget of truth to this. If tenure was ever abandoned, many academics that I know could hardly make it in the academy, let alone the "real world".

I dislike most of them, especially in the humanities. mostly good for nothing. I'd like it if we no longer produced any new ones, we already have more than enough.

Interesting. Can we discuss this point more in depth?

bump

If I want to get a Phd in Theology what time of time commitment am I looking at?

'Bout three-fiddy

10 years