<p>It is “well known”? Got any data to support that?</p>
<p>In every profession there are folks who work hard. Of course.</p>
<p>My specific statement was not that professors are the only ones busy. But that the OP argument that the prof is infuriating because she didn’t turn in the letter in advance, and she is paying for her salary, etc. is off. Way off. I am as likely to write a letter to a student on a full ride fellowhip than to someone who is paying tuition. I hate that attitude, since it makes me feel like I should treat students differently if they are rich or poor. I don’t, and I never will.</p>
<p>The comment reminded me of a mediocre student who told me he deserved an A because he was paying over 30k in tuition, and another student who earned an A had a scholarship so was paying less than him. Entitlement, much?</p>
<p>I like writing letters of recommendation (for good students). But I am an assistant professor. If I am denied tenure, I will be on the street and by that time I will have invested over 15 years (phd + post doc + tenure clock) of my life, and I could be on the street. My 1st year on tenure track I wrote ten LORs. On my yearly review, my department chair told me I should not do so much letter writing because, as an untenured person, any time not spend directly on research and teaching is endangering my future job stability, his words, not mine. I will likely write more LORs when I get tenure, but now I am selective (and this year I had 25 students ask me for a LOR. I had to say no to many because I did not have time to write a great letter to each. I think a mediocre letter is worse than telling them I can’t) </p>
<p>Do I like it? No, but as an untenured person I have to at least listen to my boss telling me to spend more of my time on research and teaching. At least until I get tenure (but don’t tell my department chair 
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<p>I think the prof. in this case should have told the student she is not going to be able to get her the letter until the deadline. And I am sorry she had to deal with a stressful situation while applying for grad school. When you have profs. who write you a LOR, a thank you note saying you appreciate the time he/she took is nice, just a bit of gratitude. </p>
<p>But, the fact that she is paying tuition is not relevant to the story. AT ALL. It would have been just as frustrating and wrong for the prof. to do this to a student who is not paying tuition.</p>
<p>In one respect, I have to say that Pizzagirl and her spouse have a more difficult time of it as a couple than some of my hardest-working faculty colleagues: Among the people of my generation, it is common for both adults in a couple to work full-time (+) outside the home. However, there has been a reversal of this trend among those who are 15-20 years younger, where one member of the couple (ok, it’s always the wife) is a full-time stay-at-home mom. In a lot of those cases, the woman handles all of the family “support” responsibilities, other than financial. This frees her spouse to spend a whole lot of time working. However, as a family group, two people with 80/hr per week commitments outdo those couples every time. I don’t know anyone who can work 160 hours per week on a continuing basis–although I have to admit that I looked into the Uberman sleep schedule at one point.</p>
<p>I am half of an academic couple. We are both working 80+ hours and make less money than bankers. And of course, I haven’t being able to have kids. So, I symphatize with Pizzagirl: 2 professionals in a couple in a stressful profession is the pits.</p>
<p>People in the business world may not write grant proposals, but many write contract proposals, presentations, many job reviews (often quarterly) and these are extremely time consuming. Both academicians and folks in the business world read, research, present information, travel, organize, supervise, participate in meetings, etc. Its not that anyone works “harder” than others. Sorry. Its about time management.</p>
<p>salander, there are so many opportunities to feel guilt about things that are left undone, when you are a faculty member! I hope that you will let go of some of them! And I hope that you will take the advice of your department chair, at the same time that I regret the circumstances that lead to that advice. There are almost certainly a lot of other members of your department who can write for the students for whom you cannot realistically write.</p>
<p>N.B.: I am not claiming that other professions lack opportunities for feeling guilty about work that is left undone!</p>
<p>You know, jym626, I really do not believe that it is “about time management.” That truly does not square with my reality.</p>
<p>I think the main difference between academics and some professions like investment banker is the pay, not the stress level or hard work.</p>
<p>And thanks, QuantMech</p>
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<p>Major difference is all of those things are mandatory and must be done because they are critical parts of how business executives and staff perform their jobs.</p>
<p>LORs fall outside of this in that the Profs are not necessarily mandated to write LORs as part of their jobs, or more importantly, SHOULD for every student who asks…including those with good grades/credentials if there are issues which prevent them from writing a good recommendation. </p>
<p>LORs serve not only as favors for students the Prof feels are most deserving, but also as a gatekeeping function to ensure unsuitable/unqualified students DON’T GET THEM. </p>
<p>Moreover, LORs are similar in some ways with currency. If the Prof concerns issues too many LORs, especially to mediocre/unsuitable students, graduate programs, faculty evaluating graduate, and sometimes even employers may not take that Prof’s LORs seriously or worse…regard them as a negative mark against subsequent applicants submitting them.</p>
<p>By the same token, nations which issue too much currency or with recent reputations of not having stable economies end up having their currencies depreciated or rejected by the domestic and international marketplaces. Examples include Weimar Germany and territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire after WWI, Hungary after WWII, Vietnam of the '90s, or Zimbabwe in the '00s. </p>
<p>It’s not too different from how some employers may avoid hiring from some colleges because of perceptions/past experiences of their graduates not cutting the mustard in terms of basic skills, work ethic, intellectual ability, etc.</p>
<p>It appears the thesis of some posters that professionals of all types have roughly the same set of work expectations in terms of hours/responsibilities. Do people really believe this? </p>
<p>So, for instance, the average dermatologist has a similar schedule to the average neurosurgeon? Both of these are hard to get into, but one of the reasons why derm is sought after is because of the lifestyle.</p>
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<p>Um, ask any scientist? We know plenty of people in academia and in industry.</p>
<p>Great analogy, cobrat. Thanks!</p>
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<p>NP. Was just thinking of how Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation got so bad that they ended up demonetizing their own currency some years back in favor of using US dollars.</p>
<p>Also, I happen to have a large bronze 10,000 Mark Notgeld coin from 1923. Ones issued later in the year went to 100,000 and even 1 million Mark.</p>
<p>If one wants to reference something from US history, the Confederate States’ Dollars weren’t exactly worth very much by late 1864-5.</p>
<p>There are also different types of “working hard.” No one doubts that medical residents have a long and demanding work schedule, but it’s not quite the same thing as being a startup of a CEO or an assistant professor of a new research group where you are required to have some creative direction.</p>
<p>"Major difference is all of those things are mandatory and must be done because they are critical parts of how business executives and staff perform their jobs.</p>
<p>LORs fall outside of this in that the Profs are not necessarily mandated to write LORs as part of their jobs."</p>
<p>My clients’ human resources department sends me forms that ask me to provide 360 degree feedback on them. These are time-consuming forms. I don’t “technically” have to do them to fulfill the contracts of the specific projects I do, but I’d look like a jerk if I said, oh, I’m just so busy, I can’t do them.</p>
<p>“No one doubts that medical residents have a long and demanding work schedule, but it’s not quite the same thing as being a startup of a CEO or an assistant professor of a new research group where you are required to have some creative direction.”</p>
<p>Um, lots of professionals are required to innovate, provide creative direction. It’s not just limited to working in a lab.</p>
<p>"It appears the thesis of some posters that professionals of all types have roughly the same set of work expectations in terms of hours/responsibilities. Do people really believe this? "</p>
<p>No. The thesis is that PhD students and academics in labs are not on one extreme end of the bell curve like they seem to think.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: I never said I was in one extreme of the bell curve. I don’t know. But neither do you, unless you have been in academia. Do you know how the peer review process work? Have you written a dissertation? Those are things people outside of academia never see. Under the same note, I have’t done your job, so I cannot compare. But I am fairly confident they are both hard.</p>
<p>As Atticus Finch said: “You never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them”</p>
<p>I know a person who went from IB to academia (in social sciences) and found the latter more stressful (lack of rewards), and the same for a lawyer in a big firm who dropped out of my PhD program. But I am 100% sure that doesn’t mean A or B are more stressful. An N of 1 is too small to make any inferences.</p>
<p>Wow, I took my son and his PI (principal investigator) out to lunch last fall. The P.I. spent lunch talking about how many all-nighters they pulled. The PI drinks coffee, the post-doc smokes cigs, and my son drinks juice/coke. They could not count the number of times they stayed in lab doing these all-nighters. At one point, my son’s g/f told me she felt he was being abused, as she never worked the hours that he does. My son seems to laugh about these crunches. It is my belief that some profs do this often, but the majority do not. His prof has risen fast in the field, and is a super smart man.</p>
<p>I have stayed up until 2 am finishing reports, but I have never stayed awake all night since I was an UG, learning time management skills</p>
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<p>Apples to cranberries. LORs aren’t feedback forms from HR departments that are mandatory in the corporate/business world. </p>
<p>LORs are discretionary in the sense that grad departments/faculty and clued in employers understand that they’re partially meant to serve as a gatekeeping function. </p>
<p>Part of that function is that Profs are expected to exercise their own discretion as to who they should be getting them or NOT. And like Holistic admissions…it’s not solely on the basis of topflight grades, but also suitable fit for the grad program being applied to and an endorsement of the most exceedingly minimums of social skills. If an applicant can’t find at least 3 Profs to recommend them for a graduate program…even with topflight grades…that alone is a pretty damning statement about him/her to grad programs/faculty. </p>
<p>If a Prof tells a given student he/she can’t write a rec for him/her for whatever reason, that means that that given student has not met the Prof’s standards in those areas and he/she doesn’t feel confident to put his/her name and reputation on the line to provide an effective endorsement of that student’s suitability for the graduate program/employer concerned. </p>
<p>As I said before, students aren’t automatically entitled to LORs on the basis of existing or even getting excellent grades. They have to EARN them according to each Prof’s own standards.</p>