Becoming a Professor at a University

Career Opportunities & Internships
1

<p>So I really want to become a Professor at a 4-year University, or especially at a UC. My major is Psychology, and I will be graduating from UC Berkeley in 2 years for my Undergrad. I want to get my Master's and PH.D from UCI, and work under the Professor during my time there. </p>

<p>I'm not exactly sure what else I can do to be able to teach at a 4 year besides getting my Ph.D. Are connections key?</p>

2

<p>What type of professor? If you are talking about a full prof., the only thing that really matters is research.</p>

3

<p>Publish or Perish.</p>

4

<p>Becoming a professor is not hard-- adjuncts are a dime a dozen. Becoming a TENURED professor is tough. </p>

<p>Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a glut of underemployed non-STEM PhD’s?</p>

<p><a href=“http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/joshuarothman/2014/06/fixing-the-phd.html”>http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/joshuarothman/2014/06/fixing-the-phd.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>Well, there is this article also:
<a href=“Education: The PhD factory | Nature”>Latest science news, discoveries and analysis;

<p>Think of it by the numbers. A tenured faculty member may supervise 20 or so PhD students to PhD completion. I.e. s/he “produces” 20 or so times the number of PhDs that will be needed to replace him/her when s/he retires.</p>

<p>It is not hard to see that most of those PhDs will end up in jobs other than tenure track faculty at universities:

  • non-tenure-track faculty at universities, including adjuncts
  • industry or other non-academic research jobs, if they exist for the field
  • faculty at community colleges, often as adjuncts
  • faculty at high schools, may require a teaching credential as well
  • unrelated or indirectly related jobs (e.g. math, statistics, or physics PhDs working in computers or finance)</p>
6

<p>We have so many psych Ph.D’s at my work because they couldn’t find teaching positions. You need to publish, research independently, and have a productive private practice to even be considered as a substitute teacher for a class. Getting hired requires you to bring in $$$$$ research dollars and have a shelf of publications with your name. </p>