Reply to What's it like being married to a professor?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Sorry. I'd never marry someone with such low earning potential. If you're going to marry someone intelligent, why not marry someone intelligent enough to put that to work for a grown up paycheck?

At least you're honest.  [/quote]

This is so field and institution dependent.  Many areas of STEM and economics can make plenty of money if the individual is a superstar.  My husband's postdoc advisor (organic chemistry) took home about 500K per year.  Maybe 275K came from the university (every time another school tries to recruit you, they have to make a counter offer).  The rest came from awards, patent royalties, consulting fees from pharmaceutical companies, serving as an expert witness in patent lawsuits, etc.  Some academics start up companies as well, which is an additional source of income.

Of course, not everyone is a superstar, but the earning potential is certainly there in some areas.  Even without this, a paycheck for life is a pretty huge source of financial stability and very unusual.  Even pre-tenure, how many jobs guarantee you a job for 5-7 years?[/quote]

It's funny -- the lives of humanities profs and STEM profs are totally different.  Also being at a small teaching college, is generally totally different from being at a university.  And as the PP here suggests, some profs make a lot of money.

I am married to a superstar STEM prof and am a prof myself.  Very successful but not quite his level.  Honestly, our HHI would be acceptable to a serious DC lawyer, and goes a lot further because we live in a lower cost of living area.

My husband travels a lot (although he's cut down because we have small children), as to I.  He spends a significant amount of time serving on high level committees, talking to very rich people who want to give money to support academic research and a lot doing research.  Teaching (except perhaps mentoring more junior faculty) is a minor concern at most and he mostly teaches grad students.    They are mostly male and nerdy.  definitely no power trip.  Our jobs are more free than other types of jobs -- we choose our responsibilities and hours to an enormous extent, and our business travel is generally of our choosing and to good locations.  But otherwise, it's like what other PPs said.  Our lives are normal and like most other professional jobs, although tenure does change the equation a bit by creating a lot of job security.

No one owns tweed coats with elbow patches or sits holed up in a study working on manuscripts alone.  My husband wears oxfords and pants to work like any other professional, and when he writes documents, it is  done quickly and collaboratively.    There are no fawning young female (or male) students, no dynamic lectures with rapt audience (yes there was class, but it is just *not* a power trip, I don't know where you people come from..

Like everything else in the 21st century, academia is a business.  It's nothing like those Philip Roth novels you've been reading.

There are nice points -- my husband is very intellectually curious, even (and especially) outside his field of study.  He reads a ton and discusses what he reads.  He knows how to have fun and explore iwth a toddler better than most men I know.  He's hugely self-motivated.  But that's not the job.
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