I’ve made it to the end of another school. Unlike many faculty members, I enjoy the classes I teach and I enjoy working with my students, who are all great people.
In spite of that, I’m happy the school year is over. My other obligations don’t disappear just because I’m teaching classes. All of my teaching is on top of the administrative, service, and research duties. The administrative duties are heavy. I run the grad programs for our department and I edit a journal. And being a tenured faculty member at an R1 university means research expectations are high.
What gets pushed out of the way is my enjoyable activities that are not part of my paid duties. I like blogging, working on my betterr library, writing about things as I learn them, and creating new tools. Having to set those activities aside for months at a time is stressful. You might not realize that if you haven’t been in this position. Money is nice but it’s not a substitute for doing things you enjoy.
Do I still recommend academic employment? It depends, but I’d say for most people it’s the wrong choice, and extrapolating the things I’ve seen thirty years into the future, I recommend putting a lot of thought into all of your options. I don’t say this to be negative. I see lots of uninformed commentary out there (thankfully less than I used to) regarding the academic life. There are good points and bad points, and I don’t see a shift in favor of the good points any time soon.