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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a professor and my ex-husband was also a professor, in a different field. I'd say:

1) Salary etc varies dramatically depending on field and univiersity (I teach at a professional school and make about $240,000/year, seven years post-tenure; ex-spouse is in the humanities and makes $200,000, 20 years post tenure). We both teach at top schools; salaries at State U of Outer Podunk are much lower. (Though so is the cost of living).

[b]2) As a mom, I love the job security and flexibility. As a human, I love not having a "boss." By and large I can teach what I want and write what I want.[/b]

3) Ex-hubby never took advantage of the flexibility: acts like missing a faculty meeting would be the end of the world. This was a source of maritial tension, since it meant that I ended up doing most of the child care even though in theory his schedule was every bit as flexible as mine.

4) Ex-spouse is currently living with one of his female former grad students; relationship started when he was on her dissertation committee. Not why we broke up, but yes, male professors hooking up with grad students/former students remains an embarrassingly common thing. Yuck.

[b]5) Despite the flexible schedule, it's true than the work is unending. Lots of pressure to keep churning out articles, serving on committees, going to conferences, teaching new courses. It is possible to resist some of those pressures but it is definitely not the case that academics don't have to work hard. If you want to a) get a good job in the first place, b) get tenure and c) be reasonably respected in your field and get raises, you have to work VERY hard, and the nature of the work is that it tends to bleed into everything. The flipside of flexibility is that there are no boundaries.[/b]

6) The people? They vary. Some are amazing; some are assholes. In my experience older male professors do tend to become overly fond of hearing themselves pontificate.
[/quote]Well said, pp.  Yes, the autonomy [#2] is fabulous and that is why I will always miss being a college prof.  I loved it.  But pp also does a great job of describing #5 -- as I used to say - academia is very flexible.  You have to work 12 hours a day but you can choose any 12 hours![/quote]

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