Professors are notorious for whining and complaining about being overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, and misunderstood. Novelists such as David Lodge, Richard Russo, Kingsley Amis, and Jane Smiley have depicted this side of academia, often in hilarious ways. No doubt, what they depict is some people’s reality, but it certainly has not been mine. For me, the dirty little secret is how great being a professor is, at least being a tenured or tenure track professor at a research-oriented university. At a time when we all are bombarded daily with depressing news, a brief focus on some good things in life might be welcome. In that spirit, here are six ways in which being a professor is great:
- The thrill of insight. Being a professor at a research-oriented university provides the time needed for insights into issues that fascinate us. Several times in my career, I’ve had insights that I was pretty sure no one else had had and that I thought were valuable. These include the ideas underlying the rule assessment approach, a method for identifying children’s problem solving algorithms (Siegler, 1976); microgenetic designs, a means of studying discovery of new strategies (Siegler & Jenkins, 1989); overlapping waves theory, an approach that identifies variability, choice, and change as central components of cognitive development (Siegler, 1996); linear board games, a way of improving young children’s numerical understanding (Siegler & Ramani, 2008); the number line task, which allows assessment of numerical representations (Siegler & Opfer, 2003); and the integrative theory of numerical development, a framework for unifying acquisition of understanding of whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percentages (Siegler & Braithwaite, 2017; Siegler, Thompson, & Schneider 2011). After 50 years in the field, such insights still provide inordinate pleasure.
- Becoming smarter through writing. Although many people find the writing process onerous, the adage, “No pain, no gain” applies. Writing journal articles requires us to state our thoughts clearly and precisely, anticipate and address the views of people who disagree with us, and summon logic and data to support our conclusions. With practice, such thinking becomes reflexive and makes us smarter.
- Pursuing your interests and avoiding boredom. Professors have tremendous freedom to study whatever we want, whenever we want, with whomever we want. Many successful people in other professions retire before traditional retirement ages; few professors do. One reason is that the freedom to pursue new ideas with new techniques and new collaborators helps us avoid boredom, the silent killer.
- More collaboration than competition. To an unusual extent, academia involves cooperative rather than competitive relationships. Colleagues’ comments on our ideas help us recognize and sharpen the good ones and cull the bad ones. Successes of departmental colleagues help us, as well as them, in attracting high quality students, winning program project and training grants, and motivating us to do better work. We collaborate in conducting research, helping students realize their potentials, evaluating grants and journal articles, and trying to improve our departments and universities. We also compete for some scarce resources, but the ratio of collaboration to competition seems higher than in most fields. The primacy of collaboration is reflected in the many close friendships that emerge among faculty members, as well as between mentors and students, over the years.
- Foreign relations. I have had the privilege of conducting research with students and faculty from countries around the world: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the U.S. In addition to the diverse perspectives, I have gained from interacting with them, I have been able to visit their countries and others, often being hosted by colleagues who were interested in showing me a good time, inviting me to their homes, and helping me see how people live in their countries. Getting to know people from societies throughout the world is another underappreciated bonus of being a professor.
- Seeing students succeed. The lifespan development theorist Erik Erikson identified generativity, concern for establishing and guiding the next generation, as a major goal of successful aging. Professors have unusually great opportunities to enjoy such generativity. Following and promoting the careers of former students, interacting with them at conferences and electronically, and sometimes continuing to collaborate on new research with them are all joyful and deeply satisfying activities. Some former students do research that builds on what we did together, some do other types of research, yet others pursue different careers altogether. Regardless of the path they take, seeing their success is an additional great reward of being a professor.
References
Siegler, R. S. (1976). Three aspects of cognitive development. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 481-520. doi: 10.1016/0010-0285(76)90016-5
Siegler, R. S. (1996). Emerging minds: The process of change in children's thinking. New York: Oxford University Press. Translated into French and Portuguese.
Siegler, R. S., & Braithwaite, D. W. (2017). Numerical development. Annual Review of Psychology, 68, 187-213. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010416-044101
Siegler, R. S., & Jenkins, E. A. (1989). How children discover new strategies. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Siegler, R. S., & Opfer, J. (2003). The development of numerical estimation: Evidence for multiple representations of numerical quantity. Psychological Science, 14, 237-243. doi: 10.1111/1467- 9280.02438
Siegler, R. S., & Ramani, G. B. (2008). Playing linear numerical board games promotes low-income children’s numerical development. Developmental Science, 11, 655-661. doi: 10.1111/j.1467- 7687.2008.00714.x
Siegler, R. S., Thompson, C. A., & Schneider, M. (2011). An integrated theory of whole number and fractions development. Cognitive Psychology, 62, 273-296. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.20