Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
Read More.Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
Search
College Professor, One of the Top Ten Jobs?
October 13th, 2009
So as is not unusual at any time, and especially not at a time when unemployment is up, I came across one of those articles about what are the best jobs out there today. Here is there list:
1. Systems Engineer
2. Physician Assistant
3. College Professor
4. Nurse Practitioner
5. Information Technology Project Manager
6. Certified Public Accountant
7. Physical Therapist
8. Computer/Network Security Expert
9. Intelligence Analyst
10. Sales Director
All the jobs take a lot of education and training, and that makes sense. And College Professor? Number 3? Okay, most days I do love it, and I know there are worse jobs out there. Here is their reasoning:
Median salary (experienced): $70,400
Top pay: $115,000
Job growth (10-year forecast): 23%
Sector: EducationWhat they do: Teach and grade papers, of course. But profs also spend about half their time doing research and writing articles and books about their field.
Why it’s great: For starters, major scheduling freedom. “Besides teaching and office hours, I get to decide where, when, and how I get my work done,” says Daniel Beckman, a biology professor at Missouri State University. And that doesn’t even take into account ample time off for holidays and a reduced workload in the summer. Competition for tenuretrack positions at four-year institutions is intense, but you’ll find lots of available positions at community colleges and professional programs, where you can enter the professoriate as an adjunct faculty member or non-tenure track instructor without a doctorate degree. That’s particularly true during economic downturns, when laid-off workers often head back to school for additional training. More valuable perks: reduced or free tuition for family members and free access to college gyms and libraries.
Drawbacks: Low starting pay and a big 50% salary gap between faculty at universities and community colleges. If the position is at a four-year university, you’ll probably have to relocate, and you’ll be under pressure to constantly publish new work to sustain career momentum.
How to get it: For a tenure track position, you’ll need a Ph.D. But all colleges want at least a master’s degree and prefer plenty of teaching experience.
Well, I’m at a Research Ia University with tenure, making more than the median in a part of the country with a low cost of living. Schedule freedom is a nice part of the job, but that cuts both ways. When I assign homework, I am assigning myself homework (grading) and there are deadlines and high stress. Still, this is worth blogging about because I have to point out something.
College Professor is a terrible job for some people. I’ve written before about all the sorts of things an astronomy professor has to do, and some of the negative issues about careers in academia. While it may seem cool not to have an immediate boss, that is a lot of responsibility. No one tells you how to do your job, or even what to do, exactly. They just want to see success with teaching, research, and related activities as measured in concrete terms (grants, papers, teaching evaluations, etc.). It can be stressful, and there are many chances to make major mistakes. Your decisions can affect the lives of others, although unlike medicine mistakes rarely cost lives, although they may cost jobs and even careers.
I took one of those interest inventory exams back in high school and college professor did score high for me. It is a good job. For me.
Still, there are those days where a 9-5 job with regular hours, a job and not a career, sounds nice. Learning to take real vacations a few times a year has helped. A personal assistant would be nice, too…but I’m too responsible to lean on my students that way.
Any other suggestions for top jobs in America today? For those interested in science and science fiction? And perhaps without requiring years and years in school? At the horror convention I met quite a few make-up artists, which was cool, and zombie movies ought to keep them busy. Any equivalent for sf types? Video games and cgi?
I’m not looking for a job — I have tenure — but I have friends looking.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I avoid working at any costs, therefore I’m a landlord. Money’s great, hours are amazingly flexible – I seriously wonder why more people don’t do it. People will say stuff like “Eww, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a water heater in the middle of the night” Even if that DID happen you still have people paying a mortgage for you, plus if you’re lucky, a little extra.
I have a friend from college who is a Physician’s Assistant. She went to school in Philly where getting a PA only took her 4 years. She has a nice gig – great salary (with benefits ~200k), flexibilty on where she works, and ability to set her own schedule – for a while she was working 2 weeks a month and by flipping the weeks (last two of Jan, first 2 of Feb) she had 6 full months off a year where she lived in Canada, skiing and hiking.
Ultimately, I think what’s important, more than what you make, is how happy you are.
I do like being a college professor. On balance the perks outweigh the burdens, although the public seems to understand the perks much more than they understand the burdens. It seems a bit ridiculous to put it on a top ten list though, because somebody who decided to pursue that path just because they saw it on a top-ten list would be almost bound to fail. If you’re going to enter academia, you’re going to figure that out because you develop a passion for something and you love sharing that passion.
I’ve seen my job land on some lists before; Quality Assurance tester. Yep, I test video games. No, I don’t play them, those two are completely separate. And I do enjoy my job for the most part. Here is what’s great about it to me: I get to test games long before they are released. I have a guaranteed work week and overtime pay. I get to hang out with some really cool people and sometimes the company pays for little company outings.
Downside: You don’t always get to be on a game you want. Sometimes the hours can drag on and on, however that is improving. Some people at work are dicks, but that’s anywhere. And there are periods where you’ll be on a project that’s just about ready to hit store shelves and you have nothing to do on it so it just becomes a brain drain. Another downside, most of the QA gigs are contractual so when the project is up you’re left packing.
It’s pretty easy to get into QA, generally high school graduate with great writing and communication skills. I certainly don’t want to be at this position or part of game development for too much longer, I’d much rather be involved in art. Either way I love this job much more than any other previous retail one.
I actually just started teaching as a graduate student at the University of Florida (I actually teach classes, not discussion sections or anything; just wanted to clarify). I would agree that this is not the kind of job anyone should do. You have to love it. I do really love it, even though I just started at the end of August (I hate grading, but I like the teaching part and working with students). But it’s a lot of work and it certainly is not for everyone. You either can hack it, or you can’t. It’s not like working at Taco Bell…you do a lot of work for not a lot of pay (at least for graduate students) and if you’re the type who doesn’t like being rewarded with success in teaching these kids something, then you probably shouldn’t do it.
That said, real professors with tenure and all do get more perks (better wages, job security, and obviously professors have more leeway in what kinds of classes they teach, at least in the humanities), but they still have to do a lot of work too :P.
I am a college professor with rank and tenure. People think I’m crazy for deciding that I am rolling my shirtsleeves up and going back into the trenches of my field. People think being a college professor is posh, that we work very little, etc. The truth is that we work nonstop and according to an amorphous schedule. Students only see that we have classes and office hours. They don’t see the prep and grading, the committee meetings and work, the research and publishing efforts, the conference preparation and presentation, the faculty meetings, the accreditation work, the “service” work that we have to do for our discipline, our departments and our colleges, the advanced comprehensive examination preparation/proctoring/grading, the state licensure preparation seminars we have to lead, the work we do with our state departments, etc. Then, we get the pleasure of hearing from students on course evals that we don’t respond to emails in a timely manner . . . I am looking forward to an 8-5 job with an occasional weekend . . . can’t wait to leave.
Yes, that’s true, and I’ve seen students very loudly proclaim things like this without a clue. There are days (and weeks) when I long for a simple, set 40 hour work week, without the career hanging over me all the time and obligations that sometimes reach back years. I always prioritize students, but the sense of entitlement in some is very strong and they expect instant gratification at an almost impossible level — at least email means that the manifestation is rarely calls at home in the middle of the night.
On one hand really cool!