<p>My impression is that there are a lot of professors on these boards so I am hoping to get some input regarding my son's desire to go into academia. He wishes to become a professor because he loves his subject and he has been told that he is a good teacher. I wonder, though, if that is enough for him to be successful at it. Based on his lack of organization and common sense, it is easy for me to imagine him as the clueless professor who is oblivious to the things around him. Are there some personality traits which align more to becoming a tenured professor? What exactly does it take and how tough is it? My kid has no concerns about money, but as a parent, the job security of being tenured would certainly put my mind at ease.</p>
<p>^What general areas is he interested in? Being a literature professor is vastly different from being a science professor, and not just in subject area. In fact, being a math professor or a theoretician is very different from a science professor, who must run a lab.</p>
<p>Also, it’s worth noting that if he is in a technical area (math, science, engineering), consulting can be a good-paying back-up even if he doesn’t get a faculty position. Just get a good GPA, go to a top college for undergrad or grad, and it’s not that tough to get recruited for a McKinsey/Boston Consulting Group position or a company like it. They do look for analytical people.</p>
<p>My kid’s interest is pure math and he hopes to teach at a large university. </p>
<p>collegealum, we have suggested that he get a minor in computer science, which is easily done with a few more classes, but he is not interested. His heart is set on being a professor and we feel obligated to fully support him because he is so passionate about his subject.</p>
<p>alh, I’ll be sure to read that article, but the the quotes you’ve highlighted are not very encouraging. Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>Fewer than one third of full-time professors are currently tenured, and that percentage will probably decline further. Colleges are moving toward a term-contract model of employment. Unoccupied tenure lines are being cut from strapped budgets and replaced with term-contract lecturers or adjuncts. </p>
<p>Most PhD students today cannot assume they will land a tenured position. Just something to consider.</p>
<p>bogibogi, from what you’ve posted previously, I would put money on your son to beat the odds and obtain a faculty position in mathematics at a research university, if that is where his interests lie. (Disclaimer: all money involved is virtual and not real!)</p>
<p>That’s not to say it will be easy. There are often 200 applications for a single tenure-track position at a research university, and maybe more. </p>
<p>He should choose his Ph.D. adviser carefully. That is probably the most important decision in terms of affecting his future. People with a good track record of having their students obtain the type of position he wants will be the best choices, other things being equal. He should pick someone whose style is compatible with his own. I would suggest staying away from fields that suddenly became trendy about 5-6 years ago, because the academic market is likely to be saturated in that area by the time he completes a Ph.D.</p>
<p>The culture of the department makes a big difference to the life of a professor. I will avoid commenting much on the quantity of work, having had a thread or two closed out from under me, other than to say that it tends to be a lot. It is hard to reach the point where one feels that one has done “enough.” (I do not mean to claim that the hours are longer than certain other fields.) It can be hard to have a normal life unless one is hyper-brilliant and lucky, or relatively old (yours truly), or able to shed criticism easily.</p>
<p>He should also bear in mind that a post-doc is generally expected in pure math, which will push the timeline out even further. The job market is particularly brutal right now because some of the students who would have been headed to Wall Street in '08 or '09 had their job offers yanked and went to grad school instead. As a former poster once said-- Someone pretty much has to die for a tenure track position to open up.</p>
<p>It’s not hard for a math major to get a job in software, regardless of whether they have a computer science major or any classes in that area. I’m not convinced the programming skills one would get in a computer science major are all that useful.</p>
<p>Don’t handicap him by trying to hedge his bets. Yes, it’s hard to get a math faculty position. It’s even harder if he’s trying to split his time during undergrad establishing a back-up.</p>
<p>Your son can always work at Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, or financial firms, which love quants. He can bail as late as a couple of years into his postdoc for these options. And, as I said before, there are other places which need math people, software companies being one of the major ones.</p>
<p>If all you want is enough computer science to get a programming job, then I would recommend taking an algorithms class. I’ve seen more than one friend start off as a math or physics major, but take an algorithms class as their only computer science class, and then do an internship at Google or Facebook, or something similar. They’re usually interesting enough for math majors to take anyways - I’ve had quite a few math PhD students take algorithms classes with me just for fun.</p>
<p>I agree that there are enough job opportunities for a math PhD that pursuing one is not a big deal. Even if he is not able to get a tenure track position, there are still other options.</p>
<p>I feel like one thing that doesn’t get talked about enough is that the quality of your PhD program seems to correlate to finding jobs. Someone with a math PhD from Harvard or MIT is going to have, on average, an easier time finding a job than someone with a math PhD from a random unranked college.</p>
<p>NJSue, thank you so much for that link. It is very informative and I will definitely pass it on to my son.</p>
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<p>I wish you would comment on it QuantMech; it was that thread which prompted me to start this one. I didn’t know how ignorant I was about the academic life until reading some of the comments from professors. How does one balance research, teaching, publishing, mentoring, etc and still have a vibrant personal life? It sounds very demanding and I’m not sure my son realizes how hard it will be.</p>
<p>^^I am pretty interested in more of that discussion, too.</p>
<p>bobibogi: I have been on this board so long that all my offspring will soon be finished with PhDs. For my own children, the opportunity to go to graduate school, receive a living wage stipend to study what they love, and spend time with others with the same interests has been an extremely positive experience even if they don’t end up tenured professors. They have had great fun and made life long friends. For our family it was important to see graduate school as worthwhile in and of itself. </p>
<p>I know a whole lot of PhDs. None of them are unemployed, unless by choice. None of them have ever expressed regrets about attending graduate school.</p>
<p>I can’t come up with one single draw back to doing graduate work in math, regardless of the career path. There is not one single reason for someone who truly loves math and has a talent to stop it until he/she is forced to do so due to circumstances outside his/her control.</p>
<p>If that circumstance happens to be a need for employment outside academia, the routes to solid work are so many, it would be silly to even consider stopping now.</p>
<p>In math, creativity, insight, and sheer intellectual firepower are important. Strength in these areas can compensate to some extent for a lack of organization. In terms of common sense, as long as your son doesn’t knock over the department chairman in the hallway and just keep on walking, or get stuck outside the building in the freezing cold because he’s locked his keys in his office (so far, common enough and no problem) and then decide to start a bonfire to keep warm (now, it’s a problem), or something similar, I don’t think that a weakness in “common sense” is likely to hurt him.</p>
<p>Congratulations Alh! That is quite impressive that all your children will receive PhDs. I can only hope that my own son’s pursuit of advanced degrees will be as positive as it was for your kids.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link to the higher education article. It was very enlightening and even though it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, I will continue to encourage my kid in that direction.</p>
<p>Well, I’m doing a PhD in pure mathematics at the moment, so I can try to answer some of your questions.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Tenure track positions in pure mathematics are very, very hard to get. There isn’t a lot of funding for pure maths.</p></li>
<li><p>Lack of organisation and stuff isn’t a huge deal. What matters is being able to do the maths and get published. That’s what the big research departments want, to be honest. I know a lot of professors who’ve gone far, despite being disorganised, or despite being arrogant and rude, just because they’re fantastic at maths.</p></li>
<li><p>The ability to teach is good, and most professors are required to teach at least a few classes, but again, research and publishing is more important.</p></li>
<li><p>I should also note that academia is hard. It is very difficult to have a work-life balance and still be a very successful academic. You have to make a lot of sacrifices, including multiple postdocs, delaying settling down and having a family, working long hours and weekends, travelling to conferences and summer schools and being away from family, etc. There’s also a huge amount of pressure to be the best. All of this is the reason I’ve realised I can’t stay in academia after this PhD. It’s something not a lot of undergrads truly realise; I didn’t until 8 or so months after my PhD started.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>When looking for a grad school internship as a grad student (recognizing academia for two may not work out), he found many with Big Math, only a few in his area. </p>
<p>I think your fears are not grounded in current reality.</p>