Quote Originally Posted by Dogmama View Post
Sorry, I have problems feeling sorry for most professors. They b*tch & moan if they have to teach over three classes/year and please, don't ask them to teach any class over 30 students without a teaching assistant to do the grunt work. And, they get tenure which means "job for life." I saw very few professors who really gave a damn about the students.
Clearly you've never taught a class and have very little idea of the effort (and time) it takes to do so well. You also clearly have very little understanding of EVERYTHING that is expected of a Professor....here's a hint: teaching classes is less than 1/3 of the responsibility.

I've never seen a professor moan about 2-3 classes a semester (that's 4-6 a year...not 3 a year...) for starters.

Here's an estimate of the time involved: 2-3hrs to prepare a lecture X twice a week, per class. Maybe you've already taught it before, that's still 1-2hrs to go over your notes and recall/update, per lecture, per class. So, if you are teaching 3 classes a semester that's 6-18hrs per week just in preparing lectures. Then there's grading. A 5-10 question multiple choice quiz will take 5 minutes per student to grade; 3 classes at 30 students a piece (forget the large lecture first year/non-major courses that can easily have 50-200 students...) that's 450 minutes or 7.5 hrs. A mathematical or scientific problem set homework of 5-10 questions...easily 30 to 45 minutes per student to grade. 5-10 page essays, an hour per student. Tests, midterms, finals, 45min-1hr per student. You'll have at least one of those a week. Then there's office hours: 3-5 hrs per class per week where you may or may not have time to do something else. O, and you'll be all but expected to hold review sessions as well.

That is a full time job, but remember it's 1/3 of the expected responsibilities. Maybe you have graduate assistants to help with grading, review sessions, office hours, but it's still a significant number of hours.

Then there is research. They want you to publish 1-3 meaningful articles per year in peer reviewed journals (or be writing a book). I can assure you that is a full time job as well, even if you have students doing some of the research.

Then there are committees, admissions boards, new faculty interviews, community service, conferences (which you had BETTER present at...), etc.

If you can't keep up with that FORGET getting Tenure, and MANY MANY professors DO NOT HAVE IT. "Associate" "Assistant" = NON-TENURED.

I've come across a few professors that "didn't care" about students (ONLY a few). Most cared and would do anything in their power if they actually knew you (yea, that meant actually talking with them, showing up at office hours, etc). Most were also completely frazzled. Trying to keep up with all the expectations at work, trying to get tenure (because if you don't within an alloted period you are GONE, not because they wanted a "job for life"), trying to raise a family, trying to actually get home before midnight, dealing with the ridiculous "we don't have enough paper for you to print that test" crap, etc, etc.

Despite that a lot of them actually enjoy their jobs, kudos to them!

And no, I am not a professor and do not want to be.