I’ve wondered this. Apparently none of them have students. Leonard would probably be a decent professor, but Sheldon would be a daily recipient of death threats for being boring/belittling/obnoxious to them, Raj would be unable to communicate if his students weren’t all male or unattractive females, and Howard would have been fired on his first day for offering “extra credit” to any she-student.
There was one episode where Leonard and Sheldon are both speaking to a crop of incoming grad students trying to persuade them to pursue experimental/theoretical physics, and Sheldon does end up with one of the grads working for him. There’s also a mention in one episode of a class taught by Sheldon, though it’s considered an ordeal to take it (that’s one way to get back into his good graces, if you somehow offend him).
That said, though, it’s quite routine for a university to have some research faculty, who don’t teach unless they really want to, and might not even have graduate students. This is a great deal for the university, because they’re often completely supported by grants (rather than by a salary from the school), and the administration even takes a hefty cut off the top from all the grants. Basically, the school gives the professor office space and access to things like the library and the journal subscriptions, and the professor brings the school prestige and money.
Optimally.
- hope to get my iron ring in 2011
:smack:
Caltech faculty have a very light teaching load compared to those at most universities, and a lot of the teaching they do do will be supervising grad students and postdocs. Caltech actually has more grad students and postdocs than undergrads. The focus is on research, not teaching. That said, it does not bother me too much that we do not see them teaching (or researching for that matter). The show is about their personal rather than their work lives. But, like I said, their personal lives are like those of students, not faculty.
Leonad once had a date and told Sheldon to “get scare.” His reply was:
I’m a 25 year old published theoretical physicist with three Ph.D.'s. How much scarer could I be?
im a big BBT fan.
each season takes place in a year. in the first season howard announced he was 26, raj is also 26 and i’m gonna say that leonard and sheldon are the same age, either 26 or 27, sheldon’s probably the oldest in terms of birthdays (his birthday is in either april, may or june).
penny is 5 years younger than any of the boys, she said she was 22 in the second season. bernadette, in the third season is about 22. amy’s age is never mentioned, but i’d say she’s older than penny but younger than sheldon, let’s say 26-27 in the fourth season.
these are good guesses and i do have some evidence for them, i just cant bother writing it down.
Well, if you do, try using capital letters.
Scarce?
Well, I’ve recently come around to watching this show sometimes.
One episode that provides (confusing) evidence is “The Staircase Implementation” (season 3), which is set 7 years in the past, and the guys are still shown as faculty rather than undergraduate or graduate students. Penny says she was in high school 7 years ago, so at least that is consistent with the rest of the series.
You have an elegant proof, but this message board is too small to contain it?
You guys should watch the original pilot, where they aren’t rich PhDs and Leonard and Sheldon sell their sperm for money, and Sheldon has actually had sex. And there’s no Howard or Raj.
Jim Parsons is 38 in real life? I got the feeling that since he’d graduated college so early he would be the youngest character.
I’ve never seen them teach a class although Sheldon has given a lecture before. Leonard mentions that he pretty much sits and thinks about physics all day for grant money. That was in the most recent episode.
Raj is in a rat hole of an apartment and always talking about how awful it is to live in India but apparently he’s actually quite rich and grew up in an affluent household.
shows often use stereotypes and get mushy on details to extend their appeal.
the apartment building of Penny, Sheldon, Leonard has units that can be rented on a cheese factory waitress salary. graduate or postdoc students might share a unit to meet that level of cost. faculty members would not have to split costs and could afford much better, unless their toy budget was large or they paid for some of their research costs with their salary.
the guys are nerdy, then both retro and cutting edge fixated. so they pursue things they liked as undergraduates (even high school) to current age. so their behavior spans undergraduate to early faculty and then appeals to those age groups.
I always assumed they were non-faculty researchers. They never call each other or are referred to as “Professor,” so they are clearly not faculty. It’s always “Dr.” this and “Dr.” that, so a professor position is out. Whether or not CalTech actually has non-postdoc, non-faculty research positions, I don’t know – but other institutions do.
Howard is 28, he’s said so quite a few times. I think the rest are in their late 20’s.
I’d go with late 20s. They all have doctorates (except for that underachiever Wolowitz), and work in their fields, yet are still forming personal relationships. Since the shows been on a few years, they might be in their 30s now.
Well, the pilot doesn’t mention their jobs or education level, they decide to leave the sperm bank without donating, and Howard and Raj do show up. And there’s no reference to suggest Sheldon has had sex, although there is a moment where he tries to impress Penny, which I interpreted as he was attracted to her. And he drinks a beer.
We don’t know much about Leonard’s financial situation, but Sheldon is definitely living below his means. There was a plot involving him giving a loan to Penny, and it was made clear that Sheldon has money but doesn’t really care about money. It would certainly fit his character to eschew a more expensive apartment when his current dwelling is perfectly adequate for his needs.
And as someone else mentioned, they probably room together more for social than economic reasons.
At one point Sheldon refers to his job title as “Senior Theoretical Particle Physicist”, which doesn’t sound like a faculty position. Other people have commented that it doesn’t look like Howard should be working at Cal-tech at all. He should be over at JPL.
It doesn’t look like Raj has a faculty position either. In one episode it looked like his grant wasn’t going to be renewed and he would have to move back to India. On the other hand, Sheldon made enough grant money to hire him as an assistant. It is pretty clear he doesn’t spend most of his income.
That doesn’t mean that Sheldon is paying Raj out of his own pocket, though. It most likely means that he has grant funding which can be earmarked for various purposes, including the hiring of personnel. In other words, this doesn’t say anything about Sheldon’s personal income.