It may just be a pipe dream, but the only job I can see myself doing would be college professing. My aim as a professor would be visual art, mathematics, physics (mostly superstring…), film making, or even philosophy.
Any suggestions from professors you have met? What is the youngest professor that you know?
Thanks for anything that you can do to help!
What are some of the ways that a professor has become a professor?
Well, getting shipwrecked while on a 3 hour cruise, a 3 hour cruise…
How are you at building things from coconuts?
I attend college and deal with professors every day. The youngest professors I know are in their late twenties or early thirties. The vast majority of them are considerably older. They became professors by going to college, getting at least one bachelor’s degree, then getting their master’s degrees (a couple I know skipped this step somehow), and then getting their Ph.D.‘s. A large percentage of them started teaching while working on their masters’. It seems to help to be published and to be a member of the right professional organizations. Many of them have working experience in their fields (they’ve worked as journalists or teachers or whatever it is they teach). Most of the professors I know seem obsessed with their subjects. A few seem pretty laid back, but all of them claim to have worked their asses off and, for the most part, I believe them. My favorite professor describes his path to full professorship as “jumping through an ungodly number of hoops.” Sorry not to be of more help, but I’m just a lowly undergrad myself at the moment.
She gets a PhD, then started applying for jobs. She will probably have to do at least one post-doc in between, and it will sure help her if she has some articles published in peer-reviewed journals… a published book is even better.
If that sounds like too much work, you can try writing a couple of best-selling books about either how your uncles raped you as a child, or what a rotten place America is, and hope someone offers you a professorship on the strength of that.
I will get my PhD at the ripe old age of 26 and, since I will have solely authored articles in peer-reviewed journals at that time, I have a fighting chance at being a professor at 26, also. My father was hired as a professor at 26. My major professor was first hired as a professor at 26.
ZebraShaSha writes:
> My aim as a professor would be visual art, mathematics,
> physics (mostly superstring…), film making, or even philosophy.
You don’t even know what area you would teach, and you think that you can become a professor? Do you think that there’s such an open market for professors that anybody with a slight interest in it can become one? You, first, have to be quite talented in the area you’re going to teach. You, second, have to work hard for at least four years of college and four years of grad school to get your Ph.D. Then, third, you have to get hired, and in many areas that’s not certain even if you have a Ph.D. And, then, fourth, to teach in a well-respected department, you have to spend the next seven years getting a substantial amount of research published.
I remember I was at a computer conference many moons ago and there was a professor there who was 25 years old. He specialized in network security and encryption.
The way I understand it, you get your PhD, then you become an assistant professor, then associate professor, and then a full professor if you make the grade. Isn’t that how it works?
I know it is hard as hell, I doubt I would ever be able to do it. BTW… I have had an idea for a book on philosophy for about half a year now thats an idea that has been with me. Ok fine, destroy my credentials there too, but I myself know a guy who did not do well in HS, taught in Elm for a little, became a Principle of HS, and then became a professor so I know I have some fighting chance. But I just want to know details alright, Wendell?
Wendell Wagner said, “You don’t even know what area you would teach, and you think that you can become a professor? Do you think that there’s such an open market for professors that anybody with a slight interest in it can become one?”
thank you, professor know-it-all. how many people do you know that can honestly say they’re sure what they want to be? perhaps mr. shasha is interested in all of those subjects, and he was just listing them to see if anyone had some advice to provide for him…you know, incase he decided to seriously persue this professor thing. also, maybe there isn’t an open market for professors, but a huge interest always begins with a slight interest, does it not? it’s fine and dandy that you’re expressing your opinion on here, but if you could do so in a civilized manner, that would be much appreciated…your random rudeness was uncalled for, and frankly it bothered me.
at any rate…
sir shasha, i think that if you apply yourself enough, you could be a professor of any of those subjects–and a damn good one, at that. don’t let anyone discourage you, and just go for whatever will make you happiest. good luck on your quest, i’m sorry i wasn’t of any help. i don’t know much of anything about becoming a professor…
As ccwaterback hinted, once hired as a professor (that’s all you technically asked, ZebraShaSha…) you are an assistant professor. After being that way for 5-6 years, you come up for tenure. This is when the value of your teaching, publishing, and administrative work is weighed. The university decides either to promote you to associate professor, which means that you have tenure and basically can’t be fired unless you seriously break the law; or, the university decides to fire you. This is bad news, because universities in the same tier will not want to hire you–your best shot if you don’t make tenure the first time is a community college.
Once (if!) promoted to associate professor, you may at any time afterwards be promoted to full professor. This depends entirely on your merit and/or weaseling talents. Above the rank of full professor, some universities have “distinguished professors.” I guess it comes with a pay raise.
So what do you honestly think, everyone. Should a HSer even attempt to persue it first, or would it still be the better bet to keep it in the back of your mind, excell in a field, and then become one?
Is it a waste of time to try to aim for such a lofty position right out of HS?
Trying for it right out of high school - yes, definitely a waste. If you mean go to college, get a bachelor’s degree, then a Ph.D, and then work towards a professorship - that’s not a waste of time.
CrimsonRegrets writes:
> it’s fine and dandy that you’re expressing your opinion on here,
> but if you could do so in a civilized manner, that would be much
> appreciated…your random rudeness was uncalled for, and
> frankly it bothered me.
I was trying to make ZebraShaSha realize the difficulty in what he/she is aiming for. His/her OP made it sound like he/she didn’t have any idea of how hard it would be. First, being good at
visual art
mathematics
physics (mostly superstring…)
film making
philosophy
requires entirely different sorts of talents. The notion that if you don’t become a professor of one of them then you can try another is bizarre. The notion that anyone can just work hard and become a professor is also bizarre. There have been some people who were smart but who had never applied themselves before college who eventually became professors. But the fact is that it’s clear even before beginning college that most people could never make it through all the hard work. If you’re not talented in an area by that point (and, almost always, seriously interested in an area) the chances that you can make it to becoming a professor are almost nil.
And, furthermore, ZebraShaSha wrote “the only job I can see myself doing would be college professing.” I can’t imagine any worse way to set oneself up to be seriously disappointed. Right up to the point that one gets tenure at a university, anyone who wants to be a professor should have a set of alternate careers in mind. Even most of the smart, dedicated, hard-working people with serious interest in a specific subject drop out of the track for becoming a professor somewhere between entering college and getting tenure. They don’t do well enough in college, or they don’t do well enough in grad school, or they get a Ph.D. but don’t get hired anywhere, or they get denied tenure and can’t find another teaching job. They have to find another job that uses the knowledge that they acquired in their education and in their work experience at that point. And most advisors in college and grad school will tell you that quite explicitly. If they’re good advisors, they will tell you about the other sorts of jobs you can get with your education.
I spent four miserable years fagging through a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience, because everyone advising me told me that there’s no room for anyone in the humanities. But, I’m not an awfully good neuroscientist–I don’t have the dogged patience it requires, and this reflected in grades and lab work. If I’d stuck with biology, there is no question that I wasn’t PhD never mind professorial material.
I am, however, a crackerjack linguist who finds the work, even in graduate school, embarassingly easy and sails far ahead of whatever everyone except my excellent major professor expects of me. I’m getting my master’s degree in one year and my PhD in two; I already have half a dozen publications and even more presentations. I am the department’s top student funding priority. I am, in short, a star. I am not one of the people who will not be able to find a place in the humanities.
My point is that advice like Wendell’s, whether well-intentioned or not, should be taken with a grain of salt. If you know that you really are good at something and, even more important, that you really love it, then do it. Money will come. What I can tell you without reservation is that it takes a serious work ethic to get there. You need to love learning, just for the sake of learning. You need to teach yourself more than other people teach you. Academia is not for the faint-hearted, whatever branch you go into. You need to be the kind of person who takes the hardest science, math, and literature available (in high school, at least); you need to be the kind of person who bothers to go to class and to do extra credit. If you aren’t that kind of person, you need to be a rare genius.
Zebra, you’re in high school right now (I assume that’s what HSer means). Go to college. If you still like academia, go to graduate school. While you’re in graduate school, fight tooth and nail to get some publications under your belt. If after all that you still like academia, go get that professorship. If not, having a graduate degree isn’t exactly a handicap, no matter what you end up doing. Your lack of focus now isn’t a problem. I dabbled in computer science, psychology, biology, English literature, and linguistics as an undergraduate, besides all of the supporting subjects that all of these require (calculus, physics, organic chemistry, history). I ended up with two bachelors’ degrees, a minor, and a certificate in five years because of this indecision. You just need to swim in the waters for a while before you pick your current. You do, however, need to be completely serious about wanting to swim.
Right out of high school, yes, particularly if you don’t have your heart set on a particular field. “Being a professor” is really synonymous with “having a secure college teaching job,” and you really need to think about it that way.
One thing people haven’t mentioned: If you decide to become a philosophy professor, there are certain requirements you’ll have to fulfill. Regardless of gender, there’s a three-tweed-jacket minimum, and each has to have a specific type of elbow patch. Also, you’re going to have to buy a pipe, and it’ll help if you start using a bodifying shampoo on your eyebrows. They’ll never get bushy enough if you just leave them.
I could always tell who the full professors were. I didn’t have to look up their names in the program to figure it out. After a few classes, if the teacher sits in one of the chairs with the rest of the students, then casually starts a conversation with the class about the subject being taught, I knew I had a full professor on my hands. 
LOL! But you’ve forgotten two important things needed to complete the mixture: 1.) A library. Oak and or cherry shelves, complete with all of the classics-Marx, Aristotle, Tolstoy, Goeth, Montaigne (sp?), Pascal, Euclid, Archimedes, Apollius of Perga, Nicomachus, Boswell, Thomas Aquinas, Gibbon, Virgil, Milton, Darwin, Plotinus, Kant, Hegel, etc…(Buy these, or you will not be a true thinker). And 2.) A leather, “contemplation” chair…(preferably positioned near a fire…yep, yep, professor material…
I think the OP is asking about alternative or non-conventional ways of becoming a professor. I’m not really sure about other fields, but in the physical sciences there is only one way to become a professor. In the humanities it might be possible to be installed because of overwhelming merit in some other field – for example, you might be made a professor of English if you write a truly groundbreaking novel (though it’s probably impossible to do that), or a professor of political science if you manage to become a highly successful politician without being a lawyer (which is mostly the stuff of movies). Maybe film-making would be the easiest thing to become a professor of without following the usual path – just become a renowned director, and they’ll let you teach classes. But if being a professor is the only job you can see yourself doing, being made a professor because of merit in your field isn’t terribly likely.
As I said, in the physical sciences (which covers mathematics and superstring physics), there is one way to become a professor, and that begins with getting a bachelor’s degree in a field in which you are passionately interested. Then you get a PhD and sometimes a Masters (it’s possible to get the former without the latter – you generally begin trying to get a Masters, and switch to a PhD program just before you earn it, without formally graduating). Then you conduct post-doctoral studies in your field for a few years until you get to become a lecturer. I knew of actual professors in their late 30s, but anyone younger was a lecturer. (I’m not sure if the junior lecturer/senior lecturer/assistant/associate professor/professor hierarchy is used in the US, though.) Publications are not so much of a concern since almost everyone gets published at least a few times during the course of their graduate and post-graduate studies.
One thing you’ll need to consider is that physics and mathematics are probably vastly more complex and difficult subjects than you currently understand them to be. If your interest in math and physics comes from being good at high-school math and reading non-academic books about superstring physics (books without equations) – even it does come from reading academic books – you might find college-level physics to be harder than you expected. You would have to be really passionate and talented at one of these subjects to excel in them. Even if you are, you stand the chance of being overwhelmed by the cold, impersonal environment of lower-year undergraduate studies. Many colleges really will do all they can to destroy you in your first two years.
Last thing – having an idea for a book on philosophy probably won’t impress academics much, though it might be useful on your college applications. I mentioned the book I had been working on (for 5 years at the time) on my application, and for what it’s worth I got in. Now it’s been 9 years, and it really hasn’t counted for anything. Writing, as I’ve been told countless times, is like that.
It’s a huge concern if you don’t have any.
I know, you meant it’s not the most difficult part of the qualifications, but in most fields of science it’s absolutely necessary.
Boy, these responses are really interesting to me, because in Germany ( and I think most of Europe) the system is completely different. Here’s how it is for Chemical Engineering in Germany:
You first have to get an under-graduate degree (by this time you’re usually 22 years old, since you don’t start University until you’re 20!). Then you have to get a graduate degree, which means you’re now 24. Then you have to get your PhD (which takes between 3 and 5 years for ChemEng), so you’re now 28. If you did some tutoring and things like that during your PhD work, and you’re interested in continuing in Academia, you can then become a “Docent” (something like an assistant professor I guess), if you are offered the opportunity by a University. During your time as a “Docent” you actually have to work on a proffesoral thesis (like a doctoral thesis, but longer and harder). After another 5 to 8 years, if you have finished your professoral thesis, you have to defend it (this is called a “Disputation”). The professoral thesis is called a “Habilitation” and the doctoral thesis is called a “Promotion”. So, by this time, you’re about 35 years old, and you can finally call yourself Professor.
In other words, forget about becoming a professor before your thirtieth birthday in Germany. It’s just humanly impossible. (Unless it’s some kind of “honorable” degree, and you never had to write a “Habilitation”).
I also just noticed that the whole system will be changed in the near future, thanks to the “Hochschullehrerdienstrechtsreform” (you’ve got to love German for being able to create words like that 
). You can Google on that word if you’re looking forward to some really dry reading. Also, make sure not to put any typos in your Google search criteria, or you won’t find anything, and I doubt Google will answer with:
Did you mean: Hochschullehrerdienstrechtsreform
My best advice to you is: don’t.
I got a PhD in mathematics in 1962 and was immediately offerred a 2 year limited instructorship at Columbia. Two years later I was offerred several jobs (including one that totally unsolicited) and took one. Three years and three or four (pretty good) papers later, I was a tenured associate professor. My career then took a slightly different turn, but by 1972 I was a full professor and stayed that way till I retired.
At the beginning of my career, I did my teaching, published by research (in journals, publishing books rarely gets you much credit in math) and ducked committee work (I was advised to do so). I cannot say I worked that hard, although in a certain sense I was working all the time since I was obsessed by my research and thought about it all the time.
Nowadays, it is all different. A person might spend several years as a postdoc, doing some teaching and lots of research. At the end of that time, if he has a lot of publications he might send out 500 applications and, if he is very good or very lucky, get one offer at Podunk U. So he goes there and finds that he has a large teaching load, is expected to continue his research and, to have any chance of tenure, must do a fair amount of committee work (mostly bullshit, IMHO). He must maintain a career dossier that includes all his teaching evaluations, all his papers, and documenting his committee work. Sometime in his sixth years, he will be evaluated for tenure. Letters will be solicited about his reearch and they will go over his teaching evaluations with a fine tooth comb and maybe, just maybe, they will grant him tenure. If not, he will get a one year terminal appointment during which he can look for another job (Ha!, he will probably become a programmer–at least if there are programming jobs).
The worst part of this is the teaching evaluations. Yes, there are good teachers and terrible teachers, but except for the latter, the students are not in a position to judge. When I started out, there were no teaching evaluations. Then they were voluntary, then obligatory. But I quickly discovered that the main thing that correlated with my evaluations was the difficulty of the midterm exam. Easy midterm = good evaluations, hard midterm = bad evaluations. So I adjusted by giving easy midterms and hard finals. Wonderful, the students trapped into thinking that this course was going to be easy and then blindsided by the final (which came after the evaluation). I think that these evaluations are the #1 reason for grade inflation. But that is another topic.
When I began, professors had a degree of autonomy. It was considered that the professors were the university and the administrators were employees that they hired to do some of the scut work. What always happens in such situations, though, is that the administrators became the real exceutives and the professors have become their employees. Just as one example, it used to be in my school that we had complete autonomy to admit graduate students. This meant occasionally admitting one who for one reason or another did not have the equivalent of our bachelor’s degree. Now secretaries in the grad school office regularly turn down our choices because they don’t meet their standards. Usually because they have too low a CGPA (“But they have straight A’s in math.” “Doesn’t matter; we have to maintain standards.”)
Why anyone would put themselves through this is beyond me.