<p>What do you know. Tosh is once again talking about things he has no clue about.</p>
<p>^I don’t have a clue? I talked to my economics professors who have PhDs, and they are pretty satisfied with their lives. (with benefits, work-life balance, vacations, etc) I’m thinking about teaching myself, probably when I reach 50+. By the way, my minor is in economics.</p>
<p>workingATbig4, what is your point? You don’t believe that professors have decent pay and work-life balance? Yet, I agree that teaching is not for everyone.</p>
<p>Wow! Another suprise! Tosh knows these things because he TALKED to someone. </p>
<p>Need to know something about accounting? Tosh can tell you. He knows people and talks to them. </p>
<p>And he knows PROFESSORS! So he also specializes in second hand knowledge of what it’s like to be a professor. </p>
<p>All they do is teach and get summers off! Right?</p>
<p>I’m gonna bust out the popcorn and watch Big4 and Tosh go back and forth. HILARIOUS!</p>
<p>I’m a bit inclined to side with big4 on this matter … tosh, while your perception of becoming an economics professor with a phD may seem like a good exit strategy, getting such a position at a university / college is hard to come by. You’re gonna have to have some stellar marks and be a heavy hitter in academia for you to even consider a position at a prestigious university (and there are many out there who think they are up to snuff; alot).</p>
<p>Given there is work-balance life to a certain extent, every profession comes with its stresses and you should be careful and avoid being liberal in how you give out advice. It’s often easier said than done telling someone to go get their masters, then get a phD and get that teaching position.</p>
<p>PhD and B.A. students, in any academic field, are not born equal my friend. To say that a person should go for a PhD automatically in order to gain better exit opportunities doesn’t even make logical sense. Apply your logic to yourself and you’ll see what I mean.</p>
<p>OMG, I just presented a good option relevant to what OP said about himself: the fact that he is interested in economics and wants to work 8 hours in the future. You guys sound like I’m forcing him to go that route.</p>
<p>1) bowlhead, “while your perception of becoming an economics professor with a phD may seem like a good exit strategy, getting such a position at a university / college is hard to come by.”</p>
<p>Although I agree that it is hard to get a full time position at a prestigious university, you can still work as an adjunct for a few universities/colleges, and make a good living. For instance, at my public college professors have offers between 100-155k, which is not bad at all. There are bad things about teaching though, like having to deal with stubborn/stupid students who stress you out, and having a responsibility of grading papers on the weekends, etc. Yet, it is still much better than a lot of industries. </p>
<p>2) workingATbig4, “All they do is teach and get summers off! Right?”</p>
<p>Wow, it seems like a “very knowledgeable” description to me. workingATbig4 is envious that he doesn’t have summers off at a big 4. What is it, two weeks? And even then you cannot take the vacation at any time you want, so it completely sucks.</p>
<p>Moss, enjoy your show :)</p>
<p>Tosh. You dont get it, do you? The point is you have responses to EVERY post here that cover a wide variety of topics. Your source is always “I know somebody”. You are the equivalent of an expert on Yahoo! answers. Someone who reads other posts/Internet information and regurgitates it as fact and claim you “know a person”. </p>
<p>I mean, do you REALLY believe that anyone with a shred of common sense would believe that you somehow found out the range of salaries of professors at your school? I mean…does this question come up in your daily interactions with teaches? “Today’s lecture was awesome, by the way…how much do you make?”. Give me a break. If you want to give information out, that’s fine…but quit acting like you are stating facts…you’re not. </p>
<p>You are a college student (if even that) who provides information gathered from other Internet sites and it is so obvious. Why? Because your facts are nothing but the common rumors that are created online (i.e., Professors have easy jobs and make awesome money). </p>
<p>As for my summers - you show your ignorance again. I get 5 weeks paid vacation during the year. This summer I took 2 full weeks off and the rest of the summer was 95% 45 hour weeks. The one week I did have long hours and worked a Saturday I received a $300 bonus. I also left almost every Friday by 3.</p>
<p>Where do you get the information that at big 4 you cannot take vacation when you want? Let me guess…you know someone?</p>
<p>I was a GA for a teacher looking to get tenure and it was horrible. The guy often worked 60+ hours doing research.</p>
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<p>Depending on your specialization and school, an Econ professor probably starts around $120,000 at a research school and $75,000 at a teaching school. The research professor is paid to teach about 6 sections per year and research, the teaching professor is paid to teach 12 sections. Also, there are no raises. These salaries are fixed for 6 years until you’re evaluated for tenure.</p>
<p>If you spend time as an adjunct (i.e. a lecturer) you’re paid on the teaching school salary range - probably about $15,000 for every two classes you teach. If you’re lucky enough to find a school that’s in real need, you can get about 5 classes per semester in Fall/Spring and make maybe $75,000 per year. Though it’s not guaranteed that you’ll have enough classes available to cover that and you might have to split that time between universities (and driving back and forth). </p>
<p>Do you get summers off? If you do, it’s not paid. Research professors sometimes get what’s called summer support to cover their salaries for 12 months. If you don’t get summer support, you are only paid for 10 months and are unemployed for 2. But it doesn’t matter if you have summer support or not - you’re writing papers and solving models all summer. After all, you need to publish enough papers in the right journals to get tenure. At the end of the day, you’re probably working 60-80 hours per week every week.</p>
<p>Is it all doom and gloom? Not really. You set your own hours. So if you want to go home at 2pm or come in at noon, you can. But you’ll be working on the weekends or late at night to make up for it. Research professors also get more leeway over their schedule. So you can teach your entire workload in Fall then get 8 months “off” from school. Of course, you’re still researching and working towards tenure, but you don’t need to go into the office.</p>
<p>1) workingATbig4," I mean, do you REALLY believe that anyone with a shred of common sense would believe that you somehow found out the range of salaries of professors at your school?"</p>
<p>In order to find the range of salaries at your school, you have to simply log in to your college’s website and find open positions for professors, and how much they offer. Or you can use the Google. For instance:</p>
<p>[Baruch</a> College The City University Of New York Salary](<a href=“Company Salaries & Employee Pay Information”>Company Salaries & Employee Pay Information)
<a href=“Goobie.com - contact with domain owner | Epik.com”>Goobie.com - contact with domain owner | Epik.com;
[Baruch</a> College Salaries | Glassdoor.com](<a href=“http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Baruch-College-Salaries-E31199.htm]Baruch”>http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Baruch-College-Salaries-E31199.htm)</p>
<p>2) "I mean…does this question come up in your daily interactions with teaches? “Today’s lecture was awesome, by the way…how much do you make?”</p>
<p>I mean it is your problem that you didn’t make close relationships with professors at your school, when you could just talk about anything. I do not ask people directly for how much money they make because it is impolite. Yet, they reveal their salaries themselves. </p>
<p>3)“As for my summers - you show your ignorance again. I get 5 weeks paid vacation during the year.”</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about your office, so I cannot say anything about that, but there are people who only get two weeks (sometimes 4 is a max). Regarding the big 4, what about busy seasons? You do have a right to take vacations whenever you want, but can you really do that? As you may know, if you do take a vacation during a busy season, it will have a bad reflection on your career.</p>
<p>A lot of these “a day in the life of” are very flowery and sound much more extreme than it really is, especially for investment banking and management consulting. If you are doing a presentation for a CEO as a client, you are suppose to work endless hours on it. You do not want to embarass yourself and your company. I mean, “can’t get any extra sleep because I need to iron my shirt” really? Should have ironed all your shirts on Monday or just spent a little bit more and get a non-iron shirt.</p>
<p>There is life outside of banking and big4. A lot of jobs are real 9-5 jobs and you can make a nice living with vacation and summer days. Just need to find them and work your way into them</p>
<p>Tosh, even if everything you state is true, your point still doesn’t make sense. Just because an individual enjoys the field of economics does not mean he or she will find researching and/or teaching economics for the rest of his or her life as a viable career option. I enjoy accounting more than many others do, but I would never consider pursuing a doctorate in accounting.</p>
<p>Want a job with stable hours and have an econ degree? Work for the government.</p>
<p>^As I said, it is just an option for him to consider, and nobody forces him to do that. It is for OP to decide what to do. You guys are arguing against me instead of offering a useful advice, and that what he is looking for.</p>
<p>I had one more question for you guys. Why does everyone bash on a business major, even if it’s quantitative economics? In my opinion, and those have taken the major it es a pretty difficult major. Sure it’s not electrical engineering or other difficult science majors but it’s not a cakewalk like regular business (no offense to anyone out there). If I say I want to major in econ everyone says ‘oh so you wanna party 5 nights of the week’ or ‘all you need is a pulse to get through a business major.’</p>
<p>Who cares what other people think man. I am sure they will be smug with their hard major when you are making six figures. </p>
<p>The less time you spend listening to what other people say the better you will be.</p>
<p>alright, haha that makes me feel better thanks. maybe they think that i think im just gonna coast through a major, but i’ve been a straight-a student (a b+ here and there) and will be trying my best to stay above the 3.8/3.9 range.</p>