SoCal
Hollywood
Do professors still lecture though, or only to Postgraduate classes
?So what is a "post doc"? Is it a Postgraduate publication
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becoming a professor (1 Viewer)
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santaslayer
Active Member
yea.....i havnt been taught by any professors at all.....!
SoCal
Hollywood
I suppose the most prestigious Universities to do this at are found overseas
?
SoCal
Hollywood
I haven't either, but when my dad did his Masters I think he was taught by Professors (I am not sure though, I will have to ask him when he gets home)
.Been at Uni way too long.
Seriously, though, I'm a PhD student, have friends who are are Post-Doc-ing, includining O/S, and have been around the system for ages.
Yes, most Professor's do undergraduate lecturing, although they tend to do more at senior levels (like 3rd year) than at 1st year level - After all, rank does have its privileges.Originally posted by Merethrond
Do professors still lecture though, or only to Postgraduate classes
So what is a "post doc"? Is it a Postgraduate publication
It also depends on how many Professors there are in your field. For many years, Psychology at USyd had only one Professor.
Also, there is such a thing as research-only academic staff, who only do research and postgraduate supervision (Honours, Masters by research, and PhD), and there are research-only Professors.
Senior academic staff (mostly D's and E's) will also generally conduct coursework for Honours students - how much of this there is varies very much from field to field.
A Post-Doc (or Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, to give it its full title) is a research position within a research group, second only in seniority to the academic (or academics) that lead the group. Post-Docs do not (generally) have any teaching responsibility, although they will usually be involved with the supervision of graduate students (Honours, PhD, etc). The position is used as a stepping stone to becoming an academic. demonstrating your skills to work on research in an unsupervised way. After all, if you become an academic, you will be leading a research group, so you need to be able to come up with interesting areas to research, along with ways to solve research problems, write papers, and generally be the one 'in charge'. Since the idea is to demonstrate independent skill, it is the norm to Post-Doc somewhere other than the Uni where you got your PhD. If you do Post-Doc at the same Uni, it will almost certainly be in a different research group.
You suppose correctly, although which University depends on the field - and can even vary within fields. (For example, UNSW has a better rep than USyd in some areas of Physics, but not in others.)Originally posted by Merethrond
I suppose the most prestigious Universities to do this at are found overseas
In many ways, more important than where you Post-Doc is with whom you Post-Doc. If you Post-Doc with someone well known and internationally respected, they can substantioally increase your chances of getting an academic position (somewhere) with a phone call.
Yes, it's still by research. Consider all the postmodernist theory that underlies HSC English. That is all development through the English literature and academic discourse, in the same way that Science theory develops. It's all research.
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A couple of other random thoughts that occur that might be of interest...
1. The PhD is the lowest - yes, that does say lowest - form of doctorate.
In most fields it is possible to get a higher doctorate, like a DSc (doctor of science). This will generally be after many years of additional research work, and will usually involve writing another thesis. Such qualifications are rare below the D - Associate Professor level. However, people with such qualifications will be internationally known in their field. I know one Professor who simply lists his qualifications as DSc, FAA (Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science - a bit like FRS - Fellow of the Royal Society - in England. Such a fellowship is conferred, you can't study to get it, you just have to be really good in your field.) His full qualifications would be BSc(Hons I), PhD, DSc, FRACI. CChem, FAA - but the "DSc, FAA" mean all the others can be assumed - I'm not sure I'd be inclined to do the same, as the amount of work in getting to the PhD is enormous, and I'd want people to know about it!
2. The ability to be promoted to the rank of Professor is relatively new, and there are several different types of Professors.
It used to be that the rank of Professor could only be attained by being granted the right to occupy a chair. There were two types of chairs. The first is an institutional chair - such a chair exists at an institution. For example, USyd has the Chair in Inorganic Chemistry. Whoever is granted the right to occupy that chair does so (as a Professor) until the retire or choose to leave the institution. A chair may be occupied only be one person, and so it was only possible to occupy a chair (and thus be granted the title "Professor") once it had been vacated. Some of these chairs are enormously prestigous, partly because of the people who have previously occupied the chair. For example, the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge, currently held by Professor Stephen Hawking FRS, was previously held by Newton.
Note that leaving an institutional chair meant relinquishing the title of Professor, unless you could move to another chair, or (as was the case frequently upon retirement) you were granted the honour of retaining your title, becoming an Emeritus Professor. (This is what cheesegrater was referring to.)
The other type of chair is a personal chair, which means that the institution creates a chair for you to occupy. Such a chair is granted to you personally, and so cannot be occupied by anyone else, and is taken with you as you move to another institution. In some ways, this can be more prestigous than an institutional chair, as it meant that notwithstanding the lack of an instiutional chair for you to occupy, you were of such merit to warrant the granting of a personal chair. In older days, since chairs (both instutional and personal) were funded by grants, this might mean the institution subsidising your chair even if you chose to take it to another institution, if that instution could not / would not fund it to an equivalent level.
It is not uncommon that someone with a personal chair may simultaneously occupy it and an institutional chair, when one becomes vacant.
These days, the funding is quite different, but nonetheless it is only very recent (late 1990s in the case of the School of Chem at USyd) that it has been made possible to be promoted to Professor without occupying an institutional chair, or being granted a personal chair.
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truly-in-bliss
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woah.... u srsli do rock!
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Pfft, some of my professors (we've been taught by a few already I think) deserve at least a couch.
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two of my lecturers are associate professors and they obviously lecture undergrads...but i cant answer for that next level up, but i presume they would..Originally posted by Merethrond
Do professors still lecture though, or only to Postgraduate classes
jm1234567890
Premium Member
THe higher you get up the ranking they less teaching you do.
The pay for academics in australia isn't all that good. But the trade off is you have very good job security.
Overseas the pay is **alot** better
In addition, overseas qualifications are ranked highly in australia. That is, if you go to a good overseas uni to do your PHD when you comeback there is a good chance you will get a decnt position, assuming you perform.
Also, in the USA, PHD takes 5+ years cause they build in a kind of masters type thingy into the PHD degree.
so, if you add the years up
4(bachelors) + 1(masters) + 5(phd) = 10,
thats alot of years for little pay.
So if you want to be an academic, don't
do it for pay. Do it if you enjoy research.
The pay for academics in australia isn't all that good. But the trade off is you have very good job security.
Overseas the pay is **alot** better
In addition, overseas qualifications are ranked highly in australia. That is, if you go to a good overseas uni to do your PHD when you comeback there is a good chance you will get a decnt position, assuming you perform.
Also, in the USA, PHD takes 5+ years cause they build in a kind of masters type thingy into the PHD degree.
so, if you add the years up
4(bachelors) + 1(masters) + 5(phd) = 10,
thats alot of years for little pay.
So if you want to be an academic, don't
do it for pay. Do it if you enjoy research.
santaslayer
Active Member
ok, so what about areas like law and medicine?...........i mean, if u have the potential to perform that well in ur field, wouldnt u just go and work for a transnational corporation (law) or a be the head of a hospital?
i guess this just reiterates the point jm1234567890 said about enjoyment over money.....
i guess this just reiterates the point jm1234567890 said about enjoyment over money.....
SoCal
Hollywood
Thanks a lot for that information CM_Tutor. So what does MEd stand for; Master of Education?
.
. So what does MEd stand for; Master of Education?I assume a Professor becomes a Professor because he wants to do research and learn more about his particular field, not for the money
.yeah im gonna apply to tutor 1st year international business next year..considering I got HD's for the subjects in both semester 1 and 2
apparently u get paid around $80 an hour (but u only take a couple of classes and attend a couple of meetings a week)
jm1234567890
Premium Member
$80 an hour? i thought it was like $40....
mabye UNSW pays more
When I was doing my Honours year, I did some tutorials for a 3rd year module. The pay was about $66 per hour for the first tutorial, and $44 per hour for repeats of the same tutorial. There was also an mid-$80ish rate, but that was only if you had a PhD.Originally posted by jm1234567890
$80 an hour? i thought it was like $40....
mabye UNSW pays more
By contrast, demonstrating lab classes (to first, second and third year) only pays high-$20s for Honours students and post-grads, although there is again a higher (but not that much higher) rate for demonstrators who have PhD's.