College professor amongst least stressful jobs
As an academic who works anywhere between 10 and 16 hours a day, I seriously object to the suggestion that being a college professor is amongst the least stressful professions. Apparently, that’s the result of a survey conducted by CNN Money. Ranked # 3 in their list of the least stressful jobs, you will find College Professor. I teach, I do research, I do consulting, I still have a few students who are about to graduate (so I need to read their theses) and on top of that, I do all my blogging and social media work. I clearly don’t see how being a college professor would be amongst the least stressful jobs.
My Mom is a professor, and my Dad has been a professor too. Two of my brothers have taught at American universities (both of them do, one of them though has chosen a similar pathway to mine and does mostly industry work but teaches one or two classes). So, in addition to my own work, I’ve witnessed first hand what being an academic from observing my parents and brothers. Seriously, what was CNN Money thinking?
PS – Ironically, you can see that # 4 in the list is software developer. Considering the kind of life that my very dear friends who are in the tech industry lead (e.g. how hard they work), I am still laughing at what CNN wrote.
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Yeah, I saw that story in the news and thought “What BS!” Having to apply for grants, which are extremely difficult to get even with excellent research ideas and a great research track record, a SEVEN YEAR probationary period (i.e., “tenure track”) after a decade+ of education, very few jobs compared to the number of candidates (meaning you can very well have to move somewhere you don’t really want to live if you are so lucky as to get a job)… and this is all on top of the long, long hours you mention.
Also, I have no idea where the author of that article got the idea that professors get summers off, but summers are the time when you get to focus on your research, so that’s often when you do the *most* work, not less work!
Raul (and Beth)
There is certainly a perception that a tenured prof has it made, and there are some in the field who believe the press. As a former student, I sure knew who thought that the job was “stress free” – the ones who had recycled their notes for the previous 10 years, and who didn’t seem to care. I was much happier in classes where the profs “brought their game”. I expect that they, like you, felt their job was stressful. Growth is stressful! No stress, no growth.
Having said that, would you really want your work to be stress-free?
My experience has been that the teaching is the most stressful part of the job… it’s the research (and especially the constant applying for research grants), because that’s what profs get rewarded for. Which is why so many profs recycle their notes and don’t put much effort into their teaching – for many profs, it’s part of the job they have to do, but they don’t get rewarded for doing it well.
Perhaps the most stressful part of being an academic is that you are completely responsible for the content of your work. It is you and only you. This means it’s different from other jobs, where you can walk away on Friday afternoon and forget about it. Academia never leaves you. If that isn’t stress, I don’t know what is…
Academia never leaves you…until you leave academia.
Having both worked for (and resigned from) the federal government, and taught for a large private school, I would attribute the stress of a professor to the bureaucracy of the institution, more so than the job itself. Being responsible for the content of your own work, while not necessarily having complete control of content selection, would certainly be stressful.
I like Catherine’s comment though. Stress is growth!
“Get busy living, or get busy dying” – Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption (from within the most shackling of institutions)
I’m not a prof but I did start teaching recently at a post-secondary institution and now I understand why teaching can be very stressful. I think it might get better once you have more experience but the pressures can be high. It’s a different kind of pressure though from working in a corporate job (i work in an ad agency by day). not to say one is more stressful than another but they are different types of pressure.
One of the hardest things I think is the constant motivation and energy you have to give to students when you’re lecturing. it’s also hard to see when some students dont’ really want to try no matter what you do.