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Exactly! Nobody graduates with a degree in Lady Gaga or the Science of Superheroes, but it does teach critical thinking skills. Outside the box, as it were. Some of those courses sound pretty interesting.
Anyone who brags about critical thinking should just try taking Quantum Mechanics or Real Analysis (both offered to undergraduates in most schools). One has to have "critical thinking" to understand the basic concepts there.
Are people really this dumb and can't comprehend that the title of a course may just be a "hook" that allows the course to become salient in a course catalog?
A class that is simply labelled "Gerontology in the 21st Century" suddenly is no longer respectable when its title becomes "Aging like The Rolling Stones" - even though the content is identical. Seriously?
I think the type of "criticism" provided in this thread is a much better indicator of reasons why people can't get a job... And boy, is it sad.
PhD's aren't working as cooks though. Actually, if I had more interest in teaching I would get a PhD. $150K starting salary, royalties from books, and summers off.
Uhum. I have double Ph.D.'s and used to be a Professor at an Ivy League University where I taught graduate students. Admittedly, that was quite a few moons ago.
Your starting salary is NOWHERE near $150k. Even in private industry (and my degree is in one of the highest paid sectors), you probably won't start any higher than $120k and ONLY if you are in a major business center like NYC and ONLY if you are quite talented and ONLY if you are in a high-salary field. Out in the fly-over states, you are not going to make that type of money. If you wanted to stick to teaching, you can most definitely bid that type of salary bye-bye.
When I started teaching, I got paid $520/hr of teaching - more than anyone else in my cohort or in department history at that time. Which sounds great - until you recognize that you're only teaching three or four paid hours a week but that prep work, meetings, office hours, faculty discussions, department duties, and other obligations provide you with a lovely 80 hour work week.
In order to make more, you have to work more. I, for example, worked conferences. I had many weeks that consisted of seven days of work. I'd leave the house at 6am, have a working breakfast with staff, work all morning, have a working lunch, spend the afternoon lecturing, have a working dinner with participants, provide evening lectures until 10 pm, have meetings afterward, and be in bed sometime after 1 am. I'd do it all over again the next day until I was desperate with exhaustion. Every single day of the week, including weekends. Not exactly an easy life but I will say that supplementing this way earned a whole lot of money. It also makes you realize that you'll have a heart-attack before age 40, that it is socially isolating, that you can't have a relationship, and that you cannot spend the money you earn. The promise of a heart attack made me get out of the game eons ago. I also wanted a family - and in my line of work, this was simply out of the question.
To have this type of career, you'll have to make sacrifices.
Depending on your field, some universities will start adjuncts off at MUCH less. Even if you should be able to secure an Assistant Prof. opening (which is quite unlikely, given the huge aging population in academia that clings to its tenure jobs like a price tag clings to the inside of a coffee mug), you might be unlucky enough to start at a measly $35k (happened to a friend of mine who taught at Emory). As an adjunct, you'll simply be worked to death without much monetary compensation and essentially no hope of rising in the ranks.
You only receive royalties if you actually have the time to write and publish books AND if those books sell. Most people don't...
You do not have summers off. You work. If you don't work, you don't earn money.
You have a lovely, yet disturbingly naive and idealistic perception of this type of work... I think it's safe to say that you have had no exposure to the realities of academia.
Uhum. I have double Ph.D.'s and used to be a Professor at an Ivy League University where I taught graduate students. Admittedly, that was quite a few moons ago.
Your starting salary is NOWHERE near $150k. Even in private industry (and my degree is in one of the highest paid sectors), you probably won't start any higher than $120k and ONLY if you are in a major business center like NYC and ONLY if you are quite talented and ONLY if you are in a high-salary field. Out in the fly-over states, you are not going to make that type of money. If you wanted to stick to teaching, you can most definitely bid that type of salary bye-bye.
When I started teaching, I got paid $520/hr of teaching - more than anyone else in my cohort or in department history at that time. Which sounds great - until you recognize that you're only teaching three or four paid hours a week but that prep work, meetings, office hours, faculty discussions, department duties, and other obligations provide you with a lovely 80 hour work week.
In order to make more, you have to work more. I, for example, worked conferences. I had many weeks that consisted of seven days of work. I'd leave the house at 6am, have a working breakfast with staff, work all morning, have a working lunch, spend the afternoon lecturing, have a working dinner with participants, provide evening lectures until 10 pm, have meetings afterward, and be in bed sometime after 1 am. I'd do it all over again the next day until I was desperate with exhaustion. Every single day of the week, including weekends. Not exactly an easy life but I will say that supplementing this way earned a whole lot of money. It also makes you realize that you'll have a heart-attack before age 40, that it is socially isolating, that you can't have a relationship, and that you cannot spend the money you earn. The promise of a heart attack made me get out of the game eons ago. I also wanted a family - and in my line of work, this was simply out of the question.
To have this type of career, you'll have to make sacrifices.
Depending on your field, some universities will start adjuncts off at MUCH less. Even if you should be able to secure an Assistant Prof. opening (which is quite unlikely, given the huge aging population in academia that clings to its tenure jobs like a price tag clings to the inside of a coffee mug), you might be unlucky enough to start at a measly $35k (happened to a friend of mine who taught at Emory). As an adjunct, you'll simply be worked to death without much monetary compensation and essentially no hope of rising in the ranks.
You only receive royalties if you actually have the time to write and publish books AND if those books sell. Most people don't...
You do not have summers off. You work. If you don't work, you don't earn money.
You have a lovely, yet disturbingly naive and idealistic perception of this type of work... I think it's safe to say that you have had no exposure to the realities of academia.
Financial engineering ans accounting professors can command $150K/year.
Yet people with a college degree still out-earn, on average, those that don't. Are there some ridiculous courses out there...sure. But I have never run into someone who says "boy I wish I didn't have this college degree...". More often than not a college education at a reputable institution entitles a person to a career that they enjoy, rather than one that just pays the bills and keeps them trapped in the working, lower-middle class.
Quote:
More often than not a college education at a reputable institution entitles a person to a career that they enjoy, rather than one that just pays the bills and keeps them trapped in the working, lower-middle class.
This quote shows one of the major issues this country faces today.
Love how the leftist academics rationalize turning teenagers into forever debt slaves so they can lead the life of Riley.
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