Astronomy professor Pauline Barmby likes that professors have a lot of
independence. Although they often collaborate with students and other professors,
they are in charge of managing their work.
"As a professor our jobs are not very micromanaged," says Barmby. "I don't
have a boss coming in and checking on me every other day to see if I made
up my class for tomorrow or if I've written a research paper."
That independence also means nothing gets done unless you can motivate
yourself.
"You have to be able to be very self-motivated and self-managing," says
Barmby. "You have to be comfortable with never really finishing things. ...
Research projects get finished but they're never perfect and you have to be
able to live with that kind of ambiguity and the idea that you never really
leave your job at work -- that you're always thinking about it."
Having independence means being able to set your own schedule much of the
time. This lets professors accommodate family responsibilities and other activities.
Doug Bamforth decided when he was 16 that he wanted to be an archeologist.
"I didn't start off thinking, 'I want to be a college teacher.' I started
off thinking, 'I want to be an archeologist,'" says Bamforth.
Fortunately, Bamforth enjoys teaching. But not all professors enjoy teaching
and having to deal with students (hard to believe, but true!).
"People who don't want to teach shouldn't be looking at academia," Bamforth
adds. "If they want to do research in a particular area they should maybe
look at a career that just involves that, and not so much involves the classroom
-- because if you don't like being here, the students figure it out real fast."
Barmby also ended up teaching because it was a way to have
a career in something she loved. In her case, that was astronomy.
"It's a job kind of like Renaissance literature scholar in that there are
not a lot of jobs... that involve being an astronomer that are not being a
professor," says Barmby. "I wanted to be an astronomer from very young --
I was probably 10 or 12 years old. I don't think I realized at that point
that it was going to involve being a professor, but I probably figured that
out at some point early on in university."
Fortunately, Barmby also enjoys teaching. But should you only become a
professor if you think you'll enjoy teaching?
"I think if you want to be totally happy in your career, that's the case,"
says Barmby. "But there are people who manage to be professors who don't like
teaching, and... it's the price you pay for getting to do the stuff you really
want to do."
Something all professors must endure is being flexible about where they
live, especially early in their career.
"Something that people don't often consider is that you can't usually choose
where you're going to live," says Barmby. Professors often have to move wherever
they can find jobs in their field.
Gregory Pasternack didn't start his university studies with the intention
of becoming a professor. He was "just focused on getting educated," he says.
"The possibility was there from early on but it was never a goal at the
outset to become a professor," says Pasternack. He still wasn't sure by the
time he had completed his master's degree in environmental water resources
engineering, nor when he started toward a PhD in geography and environmental
engineering.
Unlike some graduate students, Pasternack's area of study gave him many
options, including in the private sector. He found he especially enjoyed doing
research.
Pasternack is now a professor of hydrology at the University of California,
Davis. His choice wasn't based on the money, he says, since he could make
three times as much in the private sector.
There are two things Pasternack most enjoys about being a professor. One
is the opportunity to share knowledge and to see students' understanding grow
over time. The second is the academic freedom professors enjoy.
"More than anywhere else, you have the freedom to pursue what you want,"
says Pasternack. "It's funny because people talk about how Google is this
phenomenal workplace to be in, and one of the top reasons that's cited is
[that] they tell their employees that they can use something like 15 percent
of their time towards whatever projects they want.
"Well, I use 100 percent of my time to do what I want," says Pasternack.
"[T]hat great flexibility comes at the cost of perhaps a lower salary, but
that's really the benefit of being in academia -- having that academic freedom."