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[quote=Anonymous]OP if you are an undergrad or considering a career in academia (and the long road that comes before it) talk to your professors about it or reach out to an old one to discuss it.

If you are professional thinking you can switch to a tenure track role and do not have a terminal degree or teaching experience, look at private high schools (where you don't need licensure) or adjuncting at a community college.

Highly competitive tenure-track jobs begin with Assistant Professor, which can lead to Associate Professor 5-10 years later if you earn tenure...otherwise you're out, which can lead to Full Professor another 5-10 years later.  Pay can be good for some majors at some schools, or as low as $45K/year for humanities at lower ranked schools.

You typically need a PhD unless you are in a field where the terminal degree is different (JD for law, MFA for art, etc...).

The market is cutthroat for most positions. Sometimes a particular discipline may have 10 openings in a year across the US in random cities, and your particular wheelhouse might fit three of them. Others are less competitive. Sometimes you fit the job description perfectly, but the posting is to fill a vacancy left by someone who retired who had a very niche role or skill and you don't get looked at unless you have that too. For my job, 21 people applied (this is less competitive).

All tenure track jobs have teaching, research, and service loads.

Teaching is your classroom obligation. At smaller schools you might teach 4 classes each semester. TAs are less common. Profs at big name universities in science might teach 1 class each semester + huge lab expectations (including you bringing in the funding through grants). In my experience teaching is kind of an innate talent. I have seen people who excel at it naturally, and others who flounder and can't overcome their difficulties.

Research is scholarship. For a lab science this might be experiments, papers, presentations, grants that fund your work, etc... For English, peer reviewed competitive journal articles, conference presentations, often books don't count as the highest bar because they are not peer reviewed but they are good to have. For smaller teaching focused schools tenure might require maybe a few articles to get tenure versus an R1 where you must have many prestigious articles and tons of competitive grants and people still might object to your application for tenure.

Service is the work of running a university but also has to do with associations and the industry. Service I have done is on university committees dealing with budgets, hiring, DEI, etc.. I have served in leadership roles for professional associations and conferences. I have been an expert in articles and helped to write white papers. I sponsor student clubs and run departmental events and meetings. Serve on hiring committees. Etc... These things are absolutely endless and thankless. ...and the least important to the tenure committees, but still necessary.

Academic job interviews are often 2-3 days long, involving meeting with just about every stakeholder, giving teaching presentations, and giving a presentation on your research agenda. You often have to sit on a panel and defend your candidacy. Endless meals out. It's a social and mental marathon. They will fly you out and cover expenses.

Once you get the job people vary from being run down to loving it. I pretty much love it BUT I teach at a lower pressure university and have a good balance in a field that is less hardcore (and lower paying because of that - people would be shocked how little I make for how much I work).

I am required to be on campus for class (I am luck to pick my class times, mostly), office hours (which I set),  and for some meetings. I'd say for 75% of my meetings I can choose to be remote. I go in about 3 days per week, and can pick my kids up most days. But I think about work all the time, check emails all day, and often work at night. I do not mind.

You will have to go up for tenure within 5-10 years depending on a university's rules. If you do not get tenure, you're fired (typically you get 1 year to find something else). More humane deans will counsel you out if there is writing on the wall, but sometimes denial is a surprise. Scroll back up to see that if this happens, your next job may be in another state, or you may not find one in academia.

Check out The Professor Is In on Facebook and The Chronicle of Higher Ed message board.

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