I wish I was writing more. Unfortunately, as “they” say, sometimes life gets in the way.
There was the extended COVID sickness. Then not that long after I had that behind me, but before I had any chance to catch up, I got a different virus. That one was worse than COVID. It cost me two weeks. At the same time, my already full schedule was disrupted by some changes at home.
I know this is a first-world problem. That doesn’t mean I care that it’s a first-world problem.
The thing that’s saving me right now is the shift from a heavy teaching semester to a light teaching semester. If I had another semester with a heavy teaching load, I’m not sure I’d be able to continue. I’m very much looking forward to the summer - the lightest teaching load there is!
What a lot of people don’t understand is that the life of a professor generally includes spending large amounts of time doing things you don’t want to do. Some people have the mistaken belief that when you’re an academic, your only job is to publish. They think you can spend hour after hour contributing to humanity’s knowledge. The myth is perpetuated by a few academics claiming this is the case.
What could possibly suck about being a tenured professor? What do I mean when I tell people tenured professors don’t spend their days working on whatever they want? I’m glad you asked. Here are a few examples:
Let’s suppose you do spend your days on research. For academics at research universities, at least those without administrative duties, this is common. Don’t professors get the summer off? LOL. You’ll spend the entire summer writing what you think is a great paper. You’ll submit it to a journal, and the editor will reject on the basis of a dishonest referee report. Then you’ll submit it to another journal, and it’ll be rejected on the basis of a dishonest referee report, written by the same dishonest referee. Or maybe you’ll get lucky. You’ll be asked to revise. You’ll have to spend hundreds of hours carrying out a fishing expedition for a reviewer. After all that, you might get lucky and have your paper published, but it’s quite likely it will be rejected.
Spending an entire day on research is something that happens maybe one to two months a year. Something else that comes with the job is teaching. Graduate courses are insanely time-consuming to prepare. That’s actually not too bad, as is giving most lectures. But then there’s the ugly side of things. You have to grade homeworks and exams. You have to give low grades. You have to figure out how to write a test that’s fair to the students and does a good job quantifying their understanding of the material. You have to meet with students and explain why their dashed hopes were dashed for the right reasons.
Spending an hour going through a required IT security program.
Filling out forms to justify the continued existence of your department.
Making comments on the grammar in a dissertation.
Dealing with a large volume of email, most of it unsolicited, very little of it that brings you joy.
Organizing a visit from a seminar speaker. Things like setting up meetings with your colleagues and making sure everything is posted on the department’s website.
Administrative work really is a killer. Review applications to grad school and then reject almost everyone. Fill out an endless series of forms. Give GTAs their work appointments. Deal with many, many issues that pop up without warning.
Sure, there are worse jobs, but the idea of becoming a professor to live a relaxed lifestyle is not realistic. The stress might be different from other professions, but it’s still there, with the exception of those that are satisfied with punching in, doing the required work, and punching out. Very few of us get into this business for the 9-5 work experience.