From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: Concerning academia
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 04:29:51 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park
Originator: clin@coke.eng.umd.edu


   Always hate thinking of subject names....

   I recently went to a talk given by the chairman of the electrical
engineering dept. here at Maryland.   From the talk, he sounds like
quite a chairman and I hear the same thing from people who know him.
Anyway, his talk was aimed toward graduate students interested in
going into academia.  Needless to say, it was quite well attended.
I am going to recount some stuff from memory because it's probably
relevant to many people.

   First he told about life in academia.  He had mentioned that he
had a hard time in getting his first job due to financial situations
similar to now (recession, etc.).  He had to get a post-doc at his
grad institute and stayed there until he was hired here to do post-doc.
This lasted for a while until he started getting some offers and
the dept. decided they needed to keep him around and found someway to
get money.  This was to illustrate the difficulty he faced when
trying to get a job in academia.

    He did finally get to be a prof.  and he says it is the early years
that pose the great difficulties.  First of all, one doesn't have
tenure.  One also doesn't have much money or a reputation either so
funds are typically needed to start up and sometimes the dept. chair
finds the needed funds for the starting person with the understanding
that they will eventually have to start their own research group.

   The early years are also difficult since one has to start publishing
papers, finding ways to secure grants, and so forth, and again a good
chairman can help in that respect.  Usually after 6 years, one becomes
an associate prof. and gets tenure.  After an additional 5 years, one
can be up for full professorship.  Once becoming a full prof. you
get the luxury of not having to crank out the number of papers
that one had to in the past.   The nicest aspect of being a prof. is the
academic freedom one gets.  It allows one to basically select whatever
research avenues.  However, to get tenure, it seems that (at least in
experimental research) one tries to do "incremental research", i.e. no
new revolutionary ideas, but good solid extensions on current
work.

   Once one gets to be a full prof. then one can for somewhat more wilder
if that's waht's desired.  Industry, on the other hand, doesn't give
you this freedom, and often may not let you publish (with certain exceptions
like Bell Labs).   This can hurt if you wish to go to industry and
then go to academia.   This is a real possibility as the numbers
nationwide suggest that very few people get into academia and even
beyond that roughly 60% of assistant profs. go onto get tenure.

    Of course, one could complain that one can only do research in
areas where there's funding.  That's partly true, but with creative
means one can allegedly convince the grant giver to want to fund
what you want to research.

    One might also worry about the salary.  While salaries for Ph.D.
may be higher in industry, one might expect to get paid up to
$60,000 (I'm not sure at which stage this occurs) as a prof. and
make at least that much or more consulting.  The university
has a requirement that only one day of the week may be used for
consulting, though profs. again find ways of streching out
the number of days (working on weekends, working on vacations)
and hence can get paid at least their salary or more by such work.
Hence, one should not complain so much about salary.

    An additional benefit comes from teaching.   The chairman related
how he likes it when the students look like they have understood
what he's taught and can also tell when he's lost them.   He says
that being an educator means providing an influence on students
lives and finds it an important aspect of his career.  He also
said that if you aren't interested in teaching, don't go to
a university.  One is being unfair to the students if teaching
isn't important to you.

   He mentions a few drawbacks such as the amount of work one has
to do to become tenured and established.  Also, it can get hard
to be enthusiastic about teaching the same course ten times, but
he cliams the benefits of teaching is that he is very solid
on the fundamentals and that he gets many of his ideas from
students -- even undergrads.

   As far as hiring a potential prof., there appears to be a
semi-arduous task.   Some people apply by sending letters
to the dept., and while this isn't the usual means of hiring,
they do look at the applications.  Often, they check which school
the person came from and if they're not in the top 15 EE schools,
they may not check it out.  Sometimes a letter is sent back
expressing interest, and the person sends back additional info
for the school to review.  Once it gets to some stage where
the person is being considered seriously, the background info
of the person is reviewed by the appropriate groups of profs.
in that area.  Several profs. look it over.  It is also
checked whether the dept. needs the person or not, though
the chairman expressed that given the choice between a very
good candidate that is not highly needed vs. one that is
mediocre and is needed, the first is selected.

   Other ways of finding new profs. include advertising for one.
Usually 500 replies may result due to such advertising for
a single position.  Other methods include having some prof.
that the dept. knows calling up and telling this dept. that their
grad student is quite good and is looking for a job.

   At some point, they are invited to campus and several
interviews are made with people within the person's specialty
and outside it to.  There is a feeling out process to see
how this person will fit into the dept. and how they will
help the dept. out.   The chairman feels the need for the
dept. to like the person and this plays an important role
before that person can be hired.  Special considerations are
made to people who are historically disadvantaged when it
comes to profs.

   A new prof. also has to give a talk on any topic of his/her
choosing.  It turns out that this plays a major role in the
selection at this university.  It demonstrates the ability to
teach as well as think on one's feet (by answering questions).
The chairman says that if a prof. is being considered 
for tenure, then some combination of teaching and research
is needed.  A great researcher who can not teach will not be hired
(though this use to happen all the time -- i.e., they would
get hired) and a great teacher who does no research will also
not be hired.  So either a pretty good teacher with decent
output, or a very decent researcher with moderate teaching
skills are those that are typically considered and are usually
kept on for tenure.

   One consideration for startinf profs. is how much monsy will
be needed for starting up.  Often research equipment is expensive,
so experimentalists may need more startup money while theorists
often want computers and the like.  The chairman said he usually
tries get the person the needed money (as long as it's not too
outlandish) to startup and offers advice.

   Of course, he still needs to compete with other schools for
the same person.  He mentioned that he is usually quite
persuasive and manages to get about 80% of the people that
the dept. wants.

   I should mention that the final stage is to have a meeting
of all the profs. (assistant profs. too as the chairman does
not like to differentiate between assistant and tenured profs)
so final opinions can be given and if the majority approve of the
person, (who by that stage has gone through a lot of screening)
then an offer is typically given.

    He suggest to potential profs. that they should not
focus on top 15 schools since there are plenty of fine
schools available, and with the economy as it is, not every
one is in the hiring mood.   He also says (as mentioned earlier)
that schools like Maryland do look at top 15 schools when making
their decision.  It has nothing much to do with the belief
that top 15 schools will always provide the better people, but
that it is some attempt at minimizing the number of bad researchers
one could get.  One could be a genius from U. of South Dakota
but that is sometimes difficult to ascertain.

    He says that one should try to be informed.  If one knows
the kind of research that the chairman does, this may be
mentioned.  At least,  it shows interest in the school and
the people there.  In addition, don't make any kinds of demands
prior to being given an offer (like I need $1 million to startup
and a salary that's comparable).  It can be overly intimidating
to someone hiring as they may be responsible for finding the
money.  Doesn't leave a good first impression.

   One can also attempt to go into industry, though one should
aim to places that allow results to be published (this can
be problematic as some companies want to keep things secret).
This will allow those who want to hire to get an idea of
what kind of researcher one is.  He suggests that one doesn't wait
TOO long before trying to come back and that there are preferences
for new Ph.D.'s (salary is cheaper for one).  Sometimes going to
a top notch research place (like IBM - Yorktown Heights and
Bell Labs) may offset the school you came from as long
as good work is done.  One might be hired at the associate
level or have to serve a shorter stay at assistant prof.

    The other advice is to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse your
talk.  One should know it backwards and forwards.  It should
last exactly the time needed including time for questions.
Basic terminology and background should be laid out so that
profs. that are not in the area can follow at least the
early parts of the talk.   The talk is considered one of the most
important parts of making the decision as to whether the person
will be hired or not.

    Now suppose you're hired and up for tenure and for one reason
or another, are not given tenure (about 60% get tenure on average
nation-wide).  Then, one can hope that the faculty helps out
(assuming you are still a good candidate) and highly recommend
this person to others.  One can also get hired at a school of
lower "level" than the current school.  It just may be that
one is trying to get hired at MIT or that there are other
problems (like recently 7 profs. in computer science were up
for tenure, but due to money problems, only three could be
hired.  Well, my advisor was one of them, so that was nice)
which may be resolvable.

     Well, there's the main gist of the talk.  Sorry I couldn't
relate it as smoothly as he did.  

--
   ______    __    __   ___  ____
  / ____ \  |  |  |__| |   \ |  |    Charles Lin
 | /    \_| |  |   __  |    \|  |    e-mail: clin@eng.umd.edu
 | |        |  |  |  | |  |\    |   
 | |     _  |  |  |__| |__| \___|    University of Maryland
 | \____/ | |  |____                 "I hate big sigs." -- Moo
  \______/  \_______|
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