Note: The following isn’t intended to be bragging or anything, I’m just making the case for this profession in a place where the role is routinely diminished, so I’m going to make a good case.
Well first of all the front page of HN with tons of companies laying off massive amount of their workforce is one reason. Professors have insane job security.
Another reason is that professors only have to work 8 months of the year. Quoted figures for professor salaries are for 9 month contracts. Your quoted figures are too low by 2-3x. Only the smallest no-name colleges pay $60k, and there’s no point in being an adjunct in cs with so many instructor openings at top schools.
To make up the difference in salary, I’ve established my own consulting firm and I do tech consulting. So I have the best of both worlds: stable salaried employment and I’m my own boss.
Speaking of being my own boss, I really don’t have one. The chair isn’t really a supervisor, and while I have accountability, how I teach and what I do day to day is determined by me.
Work life balance is really nice. Some days I’ll go in at 11:00 and be done by 4. Today I won’t be going in at all and I’ll work from home for 30 minutes and be done for today.
The rest of the time I spend on “research”, which is just my open source passion project. Most hackers are trying to figure out how to work on their own open source project full time, this is how I’ve done it.
Before being a professor it was impossible to get people to contribute. Now I have dozens of students who make contributions, and every year there is a fresh group who wants to get involved.
Also I’ve got access to alternative funding sources not available to people who aren’t professors. Yes, you may have a 400k salary at FAANG, but I’ve got a $4M government grant that I use as fun money to buy my own hardware for my own flights of fancy. Literally whatever I want to do, not what some FAANG CEO like Musk or Zuckerberg wants me to do.
Anyway, I like it, and I’ll never these kinds of job perks are hard to put a price on.
Well first of all the front page of HN with tons of companies laying off massive amount of their workforce is one reason. Professors have insane job security.
Another reason is that professors only have to work 8 months of the year. Quoted figures for professor salaries are for 9 month contracts. Your quoted figures are too low by 2-3x. Only the smallest no-name colleges pay $60k, and there’s no point in being an adjunct in cs with so many instructor openings at top schools.
To make up the difference in salary, I’ve established my own consulting firm and I do tech consulting. So I have the best of both worlds: stable salaried employment and I’m my own boss.
Speaking of being my own boss, I really don’t have one. The chair isn’t really a supervisor, and while I have accountability, how I teach and what I do day to day is determined by me.
Work life balance is really nice. Some days I’ll go in at 11:00 and be done by 4. Today I won’t be going in at all and I’ll work from home for 30 minutes and be done for today.
The rest of the time I spend on “research”, which is just my open source passion project. Most hackers are trying to figure out how to work on their own open source project full time, this is how I’ve done it.
Before being a professor it was impossible to get people to contribute. Now I have dozens of students who make contributions, and every year there is a fresh group who wants to get involved.
Also I’ve got access to alternative funding sources not available to people who aren’t professors. Yes, you may have a 400k salary at FAANG, but I’ve got a $4M government grant that I use as fun money to buy my own hardware for my own flights of fancy. Literally whatever I want to do, not what some FAANG CEO like Musk or Zuckerberg wants me to do.
Anyway, I like it, and I’ll never these kinds of job perks are hard to put a price on.