Seven Ways that Faculty Life Differs from Graduate Student Life

 A few months ago, I gave a virtual presentation to a group of fellow scientists about my journey into academia.  Since most of the folks attending my presentation were graduate students with a few of them contemplating careers in academia, I decided to include a few slides about how faculty life differs from graduate student life, at least from my own experience.  Thus, I present seven ways that my current professional life as a faculty member is different than my previous professional life as a graduate student.

1. Increased salary and benefits as a faculty member.

This is probably the most obvious difference between a full-time academic faculty job and graduate student status.  I do not pull in a six-figure salary, but I do have a solid income with benefits like health insurance.  For that, I am thankful.  In the spirit of fully disclosure though, I will say that I did receive a merit fellowship, stipend, and benefits as a graduate student, as did my husband when he was a graduate student.  Neither of us ever incurred any educational debt during our undergraduate or graduate school days. And for that I am REALLY thankful.

2. Greater autonomy and flexibility as a faculty member.

In one of my previous posts, I discussed how one of the reasons I decided to pursue a career in academia is because of the autonomy and flexibility that a faculty job affords.  While I don't really get to decide my teaching schedule and class assignments, there are a lot of things that I do get to decide as a faculty member, two major ones being committee involvement and my scholarship agenda.  I really appreciate these freedoms that my academic job afford me, because it means that I have a lot of control over what I decide to take on and when.  

However, this does not mean that I have unlimited autonomy as a faculty member.  I work in a program that is under the supervision of an accreditation body, so there are obligations that I have to make sure I regularly attend to because our accreditation body says so.  In order to successfully achieve tenure and promotion to Associate Professor, I had to make sure that I was consistently working towards meeting the standards and criteria outlined in my University's faculty handbook for teaching, mentoring, scholarship/professional activity, and service.  If I decide to go for promotion to Full Professor in the future, then I will have to make sure that I meet the standards and criteria that my University has determined for successful promotion to that faculty rank. Having a job with increased autonomy and flexibility means that I have to have a strong sense of intrinsic motivation, time-management, and the ability to set goals in order to be continually productive and successful.  No one is going to tell me how to do it.  Which brings me to...

3. Having to proactively seek out mentorship as a faculty member.

Unlike when I was a graduate student, I do not have an advisor as a faculty member who tells me what to do and when.  Since my academic unit doesn't have a formal faculty mentoring program, I've had to seek out those connections on my own.  In doing this, I've come to realize that it is often unrealistic to expect that one person will be able to effectively mentor me in all areas of faculty life.  I have some folks whom I go to for teaching advice, others whom I go to for research advice, others whom I go to for advice about how to be a good committee Chair, and so on.  Honestly, I am glad that I have multiple folks to turn to for advice.  Raising a successful academic definitely takes a village, in my opinion.

4.  Greater variety in professional responsibilities as a faculty member.

When I was a graduate student, I mainly focused on coursework, research, and my TA responsibilities.  As a faculty member though, my areas of focus are greater and more numerous.  The biggest area that claims the greatest proportion of my workload is teaching and mentoring.  Next comes scholarship and service. I am involved in multiple research projects each year, for some of which I am a collaborator who focuses on one aspect of the project, whereas for others, I am the PI who oversees and participates in every aspect of the project.  I sit on multiple committees, one of which I chair, and that role alone is a major time commitment.  There are also the "other duties as assigned" portion of my job, which include updating sections of our program's policy and procedures manuals each year, conducting admissions interviews for prospective students, attending department and University-wide faculty/staff meetings, and so on.  Don't get me wrong, I was a busy graduate student, just as I am a busy faculty member.  The big difference is that I didn't have to pay attention to as many different aspects of academia when I was a graduate student as I do now.

5. Being expected to figure things out on my own regarding how to succeed as a faculty member.

When I was a graduate student, there was a pretty clear roadmap laid out in front of me, guiding me through nearly every aspect of my Masters and PhD degree requirements. My faculty advisor oversaw my progress, as did my comprehensive exam and dissertation committees.  It was pretty clear what I needed to do to be a successful graduate student and earn my degrees.  However, once I became a faculty member, the path to success wasn't as clearly laid out in front of me.  Yes I have the standards and criteria to look to in my University's faculty handbook regarding what makes a successful faculty member at each faculty rank, but it's not necessarily going to tell me exactly how to get there.  I have had to figure out on my own how to effectively teach my courses, how to start up a research lab, how to maintain (and pay for) my research agendas, how to mentor students, and how to effectively chair a committee, among other things.  Fortunately my graduate school training gave me many tools for success in these areas, but I have had to take the next steps on my own.  It's required that I be open to trial and error, putting in extra hours to learn new skills and increase my own knowledge, and not being afraid to ask others for advice and help.

6.  Being okay with receiving much less feedback as a faculty member.

As students, we become accustomed to receiving regular feedback regarding our performance and progress.  Whether it is course grades, feedback on a lab group presentation, comprehensive exam decisions, dissertation proposal and defense decisions, or regular meetings with our advisors (to name a few), we get pretty used to knowing where we stand as students, what we are doing well, and what we need to improve upon.  However, the frequency of feedback that I receive as a faculty member is far less than what it was when I was a graduate student.  I do receive course evaluations 3 times per year (because I teach 3 courses per year), and I have an annual meeting with the Chair of my department once per year, but that's really about it.  If I want other pieces of feedback regarding my job performance, I have to solicit it.  

7.  Proactively planning vacation and "down-time" as a faculty member.

As students, we basically got automatic breaks we were between semesters.  Once final exams were over, we could pretty much detach from school and enjoy semester break.  As I got further along in my PhD, this wasn't necessarily the case, especially when I was in the dissertation phase.  And as a faculty member, it is definitely not the case.  Teaching is about the only cyclical thing about my job, and once a particular semester ends, I don't get an automatic break like my students.  I still have research and service obligations that I have to attend to, because those things often get shoved to the back burner while I am in the teaching-intensive times of my schedule.  No one is going to plan my vacation or down-time for me; I have to intentionally do that myself.  

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There are certainly some other smaller ways that I think faculty life differs from graduate student life, such as I can't wear my pajamas to class 😄.  If you are a professor, how does your professional life as a faculty member differ from your professional life when you were a graduate student?