Being a Professor is actually pretty great

It's not all gloom and doom in academia

Just to set the stage, I work at a small, regional, public university with declining enrollments, so I get all the angst in academia today. But, I’m not going to add to the torrent of tribulation you usually get from professors. You get enough of that from folks with way bigger platforms than mine. Instead, I want to tell you why my job is great and I love it so much.

First, they don’t pay me over the summer, literally, we don’t have 12 month salary spread here so when our contract ends so do our paychecks. It means I have to budget better during the school year, but it also means over the summer I have zero obligation to think about work. In reality, like most of my colleagues, I do think about work and take time to revise courses, tweak things, and so on, but I do it on my terms and when I want to. There is no requirement for me to think about work and so I often don’t. When I do read something interesting or have an idea for a class update, I can do that, but nobody is expecting me to turn things in or get stuff done, so it happens as the mood or idea strikes.

Second, the students want to be here and are engaged in learning. Sure, there’s always some who are checked out, but for the most part they’re here for a reason and want to do the best they can. The satisfaction of seeing students engage with ideas, expand their understanding, and connect classes to their interests is one of the best parts of the job. I teach urban planning and it brings me joy when students tell me about the terrible intersection in their hometown and now they know why it’s terrible. Or, they describe why they love one particular neighborhood and how class lessons explained why they liked it so much. There’s also the enormous satisfaction of watching students develop and grow into adults in their time with us. Then, of course, there’s the sense of accomplishment when you get the email telling you about the job they got, or the acceptance into grad school that makes all of it worthwhile.

Third, I get to travel a lot. Yes, it’s with students and there’s a ton of responsibility for them and for teaching while you’re traveling, but you’re still traveling. It’s really great to discuss the importance of third places while standing in Sky Gardens on top of a London skyscraper rather than showing slides in a classroom. Discussing public lands management in Yellowstone beats the heck out of doing it in a classroom. Being a professor at a small, public university means my salary doesn’t cover a ton of vacation travel; however, our school has a really strong study abroad program that encourages faculty to develop new courses, so I’ve been able to create two new classes taking students to the Netherlands and Norway this year. Our semester long programs provide even more opportunities for me to visit places I wouldn’t otherwise go or be able to afford to go.

Finally, you’re surrounded by really smart people with a diverse range of interests, experiences, and knowledge. When we’re not griping about students or administration the conversations can go in a million directions. We all have our expertise but we’re also interested in learning from each other. Conversations can range from urban issues to forestry to plant diseases, it can be a wild ride sometimes (okay, maybe those weren’t the best examples of a wild ride conversation, but you get the drift). And, those conversations inform my teaching so I can bring in ideas from forestry to talk about urban greenspaces, or geology when talking about land use planning. Few other workplaces have the diversity of knowledge available in a typical university building.

So, yes, higher ed has its problems and there’s plenty to complain about, but like anything else, we’re more likely to share negative reviews than positive ones. I’m just one professor, but I think it’s important to push back on the sturm und drang surrounding academia today. For those fortunate enough to be professors it’s a pretty great job and I just thought I’d share that.