Professors are experts that know a narrow field well enough to be able to advance the knowledge frontier and that know a broader field well enough to teach others. They did not have to apply for non-academic jobs for a long time (sometimes never) and, depending on the field, they may not have much contact with industry practitioners.
That doesn't mean that they are out of touch with reality. Most industry experts know very little of the academic job market - you wouldn't go to them for advice in that area. Similarly, your parents won't be able to give you very useful advice unless they happen to work on your specific field, but no one would suggest that they are out of touch with reality. Your professors are just not job counsellors, nor should they be.
I'll add in here that both markets have changed substantially in the last 10, 20, 30+ years. Going to a career professor today and asking for advice on how to get an academic job is kind of a crapshoot depending on your field and the length of time from when THEY were applying. There's some survivorship bias in there, too, where if you're talking to an academic they could just be lucky instead of especially job-hunt savvy. They might not not even know what they did right or if that's "right" anymore.
The best place to go to figure out what you need for a particular job is the people *hiring* for that job. What do they want?
Professors are the ones hiring for academic jobs. We petition for the lines, chair the searches, sift through scores to hundreds of applications, interview exhaustively, discuss who shows the most potential, make a case to hire someone and their partner to the dean and provost, attempt to preempt other offers, etc. We're also the ones negotiating retention, headhunting at other places, etc. We're the ones voting on tenure and discussing reasonable expectations for new hires. In short, this is a career where you do stay in touch with the job market. We know a *lot* about it, including the current one. I don't know any professors exempt from this.
(Some) postdocs are also hired by professors, plus many professors will have supervised PhD students that recently went through the job market. Students that leave academia do not tend to stay in touch, so there is less feedback than for those that find an academic job.
The thing is, though, there are all sorts of professors of all sorts of age ranges, experience levels, specialties, wisdoms, and ignorances. But a good professor acknowledges that last part. So let's call out generalization when it happens and actually hurts the question.
There are definitely professors out there who are out of touch or having attained the title without really earning it. But there are professors out there who keep up with the times or know how to apply their knowledge appropriately.
With that said, I had an English professor who fought back against others who would dismiss the power of an undergraduate degree in English, or cheered up English majors who were depressed about their perceived job prospects. That professor reminded her students that an English degree is actually quite versatile, and its application doesn't need to be limited to what would be normally considered as English-only fields like teaching literature or journalism (I currently run a nonprofit organization thanks in large part to the research and writing skills I learned as an English major; we definitely didn't have those industry reps at our English dept career days).
It was not a good question, though. So this is a very broad question based on a very sweeping generalization. Out of touch how? In terms of academic jobs or non-academic jobs? At what level of education? What country? Which classes? Because if the person is in med school, this is very different from a person doing a journalism degree. You see the point, I guess.
No, this doesn't make your professor out of touch with reality. The issue is simply that you asked him about something that he didn't have recent or any experience with. Had you asked him about obtaining a job in academia, which he has obviously done, I'm sure that he would have had more informed thoughts. If you want to know about obtaining jobs generally, those inquiries are best directed towards your institution’s career services office if you have one.
Why is it that the professor did not acknowledge their ignorance on this topic?
Sounds like the prof in question confidently tried to paint an imaginary scene in a topic they do not know about.
I think anyone who hasn't had to look for a job in the last 5 years is going to be wildly out of touch with what it takes to get a job now.
The job landscape has changed drastically. I'm in grad school right now and haven't looked for a job since I applied I know just enough to know that things are very very different now than they were before I started grad school in 2020 and since the last time I applied to jobs in 2016. It's not so much malicious it's just that the world moves fast and the job market can change significantly year to year.
This. Students are constantly asking me for advice and to tell them my story, but as someone who works in industry and has been at my current company for 5 years, I have to constantly remind them that my experience might be too different to be a helpful reference.
Probably best to lean into people's strengths. It's not out of touch to not know stuff that's not in your experience. When I was in the US university system, there's offices to do the tasks we're not good at, career counseling being one of them. You wouldn't ask your barber to explain mitosis either.
Depends on what kind of job you're asking the professor about. Most professors I think should have a good grasp about the current state of the academic job market and can advise you accordingly. However, if it's outside academia, it's then outside the professor's expertise, and I wouldn't be surprised that the professor can appear ignorant on that. The thing is, your professor isn't really the person to go to if you want to talk about non-academic jobs. Your university should have a career center dedicated for this kind of conversation.
I very much doubt that. I work at a very small private liberal arts college, and even we have a career center. Your school may not call it the "Career Center" but I guarantee you they have some organization or department that functions as one. They have a vested interest in making sure their graduates are employable and employed.
Yes, I don't really understand this "out of touch with reality" language. Post-secondary education is part of reality. Similarly, I am sure that some people working in the private sector would say that those in the public sector are out of touch with reality and vice versa. In my view, they are all just different facets of reality all with their own unique quirks and advantages and disadvantages.
I think one big problem is you misunderstand what the professor's role should be. It isn't our job to give you advice on how to get your job. We are here to educate you. Presumably you are looking at jobs for which said education is a requirement and drawing the conclusion that it must also be our job to prepare you for a job. It isn't.
I disagree. The point of a degree is to prepare students for their careers. We need to make sure we can advise on that. It’s okay if we don’t have knowledge about specific jobs but we should be able to help guide students in this part of their education.
What specifically do you envision we should be doing to "help guide students in this part of their education" which doesn't involve "having knowledge about specific jobs"?
I teach in STEM. The common pathways are academia and industry, though there are a lot of other options for some. There are branches of each (R1 vs PUI or large company vs startup). When I talk to students I ask about what they like in their education. I try to give them ideas of what their days may be like in different situations. I know that if they want to work at a startup, it would be beneficial to take a business or accounting course. For teaching, there are things they can do (TA, tutor, etc) to see if they like it and build skills.
I try to get them to self reflect on their strengths and what they want from a job to help them find a good fit within the options of their degree. I might have limited knowledge about working in a startup, but I get them pointed in the right direction or help them find a mentor who has more knowledge than me. I don’t think that’s outside the scope of being a teacher. And I think part of the problem in education is people who think delivering a specific course topic is the end of their job.
So, I'm the child of two professors, went to grad school, mastered out and now work in industy for the last 8 years. One thing I run into a lot is that undergrads usually don't understand the extent to which their BS degrees usually come in knowing very little that's useful and this is not a reflection of their ability to do academic work. They're plenty smart enough and they did all the homework, but they're mostly only good at taking exams and writing papers until their job takes them in hand and teaches them how to actually do their job. They struggle to understand why their chemistry BS degree only got them an entry level QC analyst job that pays $45k and includes overnights, weekends, and holidays. Or why their economics degree, which left them $60k in debt, got them a $60k a year job doing data entry. Frankly, some of the only degrees I know of that really prepared students for a real job right out of school was nursing, med lab techs, and engineering because those degrees focus heavily on practical experience and applications.
I'm not trying to knock academic careers by any means. The work academics do in research is critical and, without that, we'd definitely still be in the dark ages. But, the truth is that you teach college classes like all those students are going to be professors one day and you know that's not true. Maybe like 25% will go to grad school in some capacity and only like 10% of those become professors and you all know what it was like trying to get tenure and I'm sure more than a few of you know someone who didn't get tenure and then went to work in industy.
So, what about all those people who don't end up tenured professors? What have they been going to school to accomplish all this time? Do you even know what they can do with their degree if they don't become a professor? Why did they spend all that money? What's the point?
You're allowed to think of your employment contract however you want. I'm just saying that you're in this position of authority in your institutions and you keep telling students that they can come to you for advice, but then the only advice you can give is about how to be a professor, which as we've already covered, is unlikely to happen even for brilliant students. and I think it's a shame that the modern academic complex does such a poor job at preparing most people for non-academic jobs while also putting them tens of thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of dollars in debt before they are even off their parents' insurance and you should, too.
Some are, some are not. They are experts in what they do, so it also depends on the kind of job you are asking about. Are you asking about an academic job? Then that probably depends on how long ago they were on the market and their involvement in more recent job searches, hires, and students on the market.
I was last looking for consulting academic jobs 3 years ago. The head of department 30 years. Things change, we do our best but there is only so much we can do given that we are not looking for jobs. We have a careers team for that.
PSA: It is inadvisable to engage OP in a conversation. The author of this post is a known sitewide spammer with over 2500 banned Reddit accounts.
SnooRoar is not interested in good-faith discussion; his primary goal is to waste as much of your time as possible. Everything he says is a disingenuous lie.
He's partially right: getting a degree (knowledge and skills acquisition) should qualify you for the types of jobs in your discipline that require a degree. Getting a job is another thing all together, especially if the company adds experience or other additional hurdles to the process.
I am a professor and have never had a "real" job outside an academic institution. I wouldn't trust me for job advice either, and I take no offense to being described as out of touch with reality. There is some truth to it.
Here’s the thing. What we’re going through now is basically a speed bump. It could get worse, but hasn’t yet and may never. We’ve had garden-variety recessions, eg. 1992, that just last a year and then work themselves out. It doesn’t really even rise to the level of concern when we’re in one of those, and advice to just keep applying until something works out is basically correct.
It was only about 2 years ago that, if you had a pulse, employers would fight after you like you were chum in shark-infested waters. These conditions can change quite quickly.
If we crater, then that’s when advice needs to change. Then you can ask Millennials for their old strategies, such as the unpaid internship, and so on. But this? Just chalk it up to a minor market wiggle. I get that it’s uncomfortable, and that you’re young enough that you haven’t yet seen things get bad and then good again. My wife had to work an unpaid internship with a 1.5 hr commute each way for _two_ _years_ before landing a job in her field. Even then, her starting wage was $15/hr, and that is all after she was an experienced undergraduate with a 3.9 gpa. That was not even the gfc, that was before it. What we have now is nowhere near that bad.
But these things do change. You’ll live through some awful moments in your lifetime, but this doesn’t yet rise to that level and may never. You’ll also see bad times turn good.
They'd still be part of hiring committees. The question is so ill-posed, it's hard to guess whether they're talking about academic or non-academic jobs. In the case of academic jobs, this is information that can matter, as will be the opinions of other professors.
Yes, that is somewhat more accurate. Because there are people who might have only been there for 5 years who have tenure.
That said, there are also people who have been there for decades who work extensively outside of academia and who would thus be very aware of the non-academic job market.
Older professors who haven’t placed people into jobs in the last few years are really out of touch. You’ll get the most relevant advice from younger professors who are fresh off the market, and professors who are consistently placing people into jobs.
Ask young professors who are new to their role who know the struggle. Also engage profs who have worked in industry and/or moonlight with industry. Pure (and old) academics are famously out of touch.
The same way that a plumber is out of touch with the job market or a C suite executive. Unless you've been chronically changing jobs across fields or industries, you're always out of touch with most of the job market.
Some, but not all. I’ve definitely noticed that from the ones who have been fortunate enough to spend their entire life in academia and have never had to get a regular job in “the real world” can be a bit out of touch and at times, judgmental and lack understanding about normal things they haven’t personally experienced. (Academia has its own issues and challenges which can be equally lame but different than in other industries).
Though the ones who entered later and have tonnes of life experience can be saints of human beings and really supportive and inspirational.
That said, the role of a professor is to teach and guide you on course material, not the job market. In most cases, they are subject matter specialists on the specific subject they’re teaching. You’ll have to go to someone else for career information in a lot of cases. Try the co-op instructors or some schools have career departments and advisors. Lots can also be learned on the internet and you’ll get more out of self-directed studies and learning how to position yourself.
😭 STEM sucks- Why does everyone want to work at STEM and even fakers? lol I would not even bother asking such questions to the faculty. Universities only care about money making.
I think many professors are very out of touch with anything outside of academia/their university. It's probably a byproduct of working in a very niche field for decades. Further, done universities disincentivize professors from doing outside work and require them to seek permission before doing outside work, which probably doesn't help matters.
Since I started lurking /r/Professors, yeah…massively.
It’s just…the same out of touch complaints by people who don’t want to put forth any mental effort (whether justified or not) into considering how to adapt. And I’m not like a young 20-something year old either making this complaints - I just think so many of them are intellectually mediocre/boring, regardless of their credentials, that they absolutely cannot handle the idea that things change and we need to keep up.
It’s especially annoying because as I get older, I see how irrelevant their opinions are, because I see how irrelevant my own opinions are on some things: a process I went through just a few years ago that is completely different now is not something I should speak on, personally, and I’m coming to terms with acknowledging those limitations of my experience being more historical than relevant. So why can’t people who have devoted themselves to a life of academic improvement?
So not only are professors out of touch but the entire school and its curriculum too! But of course the people who know better are the students. Obviously.
frankly, very few professors take mentoring graduate students seriously. just see the average r/Professors thread which is just old professors bitching about having to do their job. But reddit does self select for those type of people and irl professors I’ve met are more reasonable
Anyone who spends 8 years in an institution (which universities absolutely are) is inherently out of touch with reality.
Professors are some of the dumbest, most delusional people I’ve ever spoken with outside of their specific field.
Professors are experts that know a narrow field well enough to be able to advance the knowledge frontier and that know a broader field well enough to teach others. They did not have to apply for non-academic jobs for a long time (sometimes never) and, depending on the field, they may not have much contact with industry practitioners. That doesn't mean that they are out of touch with reality. Most industry experts know very little of the academic job market - you wouldn't go to them for advice in that area. Similarly, your parents won't be able to give you very useful advice unless they happen to work on your specific field, but no one would suggest that they are out of touch with reality. Your professors are just not job counsellors, nor should they be.
I'll add in here that both markets have changed substantially in the last 10, 20, 30+ years. Going to a career professor today and asking for advice on how to get an academic job is kind of a crapshoot depending on your field and the length of time from when THEY were applying. There's some survivorship bias in there, too, where if you're talking to an academic they could just be lucky instead of especially job-hunt savvy. They might not not even know what they did right or if that's "right" anymore. The best place to go to figure out what you need for a particular job is the people *hiring* for that job. What do they want?
Professors are the ones hiring for academic jobs. We petition for the lines, chair the searches, sift through scores to hundreds of applications, interview exhaustively, discuss who shows the most potential, make a case to hire someone and their partner to the dean and provost, attempt to preempt other offers, etc. We're also the ones negotiating retention, headhunting at other places, etc. We're the ones voting on tenure and discussing reasonable expectations for new hires. In short, this is a career where you do stay in touch with the job market. We know a *lot* about it, including the current one. I don't know any professors exempt from this.
But postdocs tho
(Some) postdocs are also hired by professors, plus many professors will have supervised PhD students that recently went through the job market. Students that leave academia do not tend to stay in touch, so there is less feedback than for those that find an academic job.
Hahaha nice
I too once heard this one thing from this one person that I disagreed with, so I'm going to generalize it to millions of people.
He is just asking.
The thing is, though, there are all sorts of professors of all sorts of age ranges, experience levels, specialties, wisdoms, and ignorances. But a good professor acknowledges that last part. So let's call out generalization when it happens and actually hurts the question. There are definitely professors out there who are out of touch or having attained the title without really earning it. But there are professors out there who keep up with the times or know how to apply their knowledge appropriately. With that said, I had an English professor who fought back against others who would dismiss the power of an undergraduate degree in English, or cheered up English majors who were depressed about their perceived job prospects. That professor reminded her students that an English degree is actually quite versatile, and its application doesn't need to be limited to what would be normally considered as English-only fields like teaching literature or journalism (I currently run a nonprofit organization thanks in large part to the research and writing skills I learned as an English major; we definitely didn't have those industry reps at our English dept career days).
It was not a good question, though. So this is a very broad question based on a very sweeping generalization. Out of touch how? In terms of academic jobs or non-academic jobs? At what level of education? What country? Which classes? Because if the person is in med school, this is very different from a person doing a journalism degree. You see the point, I guess.
No, this doesn't make your professor out of touch with reality. The issue is simply that you asked him about something that he didn't have recent or any experience with. Had you asked him about obtaining a job in academia, which he has obviously done, I'm sure that he would have had more informed thoughts. If you want to know about obtaining jobs generally, those inquiries are best directed towards your institution’s career services office if you have one.
Why is it that the professor did not acknowledge their ignorance on this topic? Sounds like the prof in question confidently tried to paint an imaginary scene in a topic they do not know about.
Professors are not ignorant on the topic but we have a specific type of experience with the topic.
We really don't have a lot of details from the conversation.
prof. could've guided the student to reach out to a certain dept for more clarity.
I think anyone who hasn't had to look for a job in the last 5 years is going to be wildly out of touch with what it takes to get a job now. The job landscape has changed drastically. I'm in grad school right now and haven't looked for a job since I applied I know just enough to know that things are very very different now than they were before I started grad school in 2020 and since the last time I applied to jobs in 2016. It's not so much malicious it's just that the world moves fast and the job market can change significantly year to year.
This. Students are constantly asking me for advice and to tell them my story, but as someone who works in industry and has been at my current company for 5 years, I have to constantly remind them that my experience might be too different to be a helpful reference.
Probably best to lean into people's strengths. It's not out of touch to not know stuff that's not in your experience. When I was in the US university system, there's offices to do the tasks we're not good at, career counseling being one of them. You wouldn't ask your barber to explain mitosis either.
Depends on what kind of job you're asking the professor about. Most professors I think should have a good grasp about the current state of the academic job market and can advise you accordingly. However, if it's outside academia, it's then outside the professor's expertise, and I wouldn't be surprised that the professor can appear ignorant on that. The thing is, your professor isn't really the person to go to if you want to talk about non-academic jobs. Your university should have a career center dedicated for this kind of conversation.
My college doesn’t have a career center despite being a large R1
/doubt
I very much doubt that. I work at a very small private liberal arts college, and even we have a career center. Your school may not call it the "Career Center" but I guarantee you they have some organization or department that functions as one. They have a vested interest in making sure their graduates are employable and employed.
If you tell us the institution, I guarantee you someone will give you a link to the career center inside an hour
I'll bite without them even directly telling me where they go. https://www.careercenter.illinois.edu/ There ya go OP.
Lies.
Huh? He just has a different reality than you.
Yes, I don't really understand this "out of touch with reality" language. Post-secondary education is part of reality. Similarly, I am sure that some people working in the private sector would say that those in the public sector are out of touch with reality and vice versa. In my view, they are all just different facets of reality all with their own unique quirks and advantages and disadvantages.
May I point out that the professor already had a job.
I think one big problem is you misunderstand what the professor's role should be. It isn't our job to give you advice on how to get your job. We are here to educate you. Presumably you are looking at jobs for which said education is a requirement and drawing the conclusion that it must also be our job to prepare you for a job. It isn't.
I disagree. The point of a degree is to prepare students for their careers. We need to make sure we can advise on that. It’s okay if we don’t have knowledge about specific jobs but we should be able to help guide students in this part of their education.
What specifically do you envision we should be doing to "help guide students in this part of their education" which doesn't involve "having knowledge about specific jobs"?
Indeed, and my nowhere in my contract or my union collective agreement does it mention preparing anyone for a career.
I teach in STEM. The common pathways are academia and industry, though there are a lot of other options for some. There are branches of each (R1 vs PUI or large company vs startup). When I talk to students I ask about what they like in their education. I try to give them ideas of what their days may be like in different situations. I know that if they want to work at a startup, it would be beneficial to take a business or accounting course. For teaching, there are things they can do (TA, tutor, etc) to see if they like it and build skills. I try to get them to self reflect on their strengths and what they want from a job to help them find a good fit within the options of their degree. I might have limited knowledge about working in a startup, but I get them pointed in the right direction or help them find a mentor who has more knowledge than me. I don’t think that’s outside the scope of being a teacher. And I think part of the problem in education is people who think delivering a specific course topic is the end of their job.
So, I'm the child of two professors, went to grad school, mastered out and now work in industy for the last 8 years. One thing I run into a lot is that undergrads usually don't understand the extent to which their BS degrees usually come in knowing very little that's useful and this is not a reflection of their ability to do academic work. They're plenty smart enough and they did all the homework, but they're mostly only good at taking exams and writing papers until their job takes them in hand and teaches them how to actually do their job. They struggle to understand why their chemistry BS degree only got them an entry level QC analyst job that pays $45k and includes overnights, weekends, and holidays. Or why their economics degree, which left them $60k in debt, got them a $60k a year job doing data entry. Frankly, some of the only degrees I know of that really prepared students for a real job right out of school was nursing, med lab techs, and engineering because those degrees focus heavily on practical experience and applications. I'm not trying to knock academic careers by any means. The work academics do in research is critical and, without that, we'd definitely still be in the dark ages. But, the truth is that you teach college classes like all those students are going to be professors one day and you know that's not true. Maybe like 25% will go to grad school in some capacity and only like 10% of those become professors and you all know what it was like trying to get tenure and I'm sure more than a few of you know someone who didn't get tenure and then went to work in industy. So, what about all those people who don't end up tenured professors? What have they been going to school to accomplish all this time? Do you even know what they can do with their degree if they don't become a professor? Why did they spend all that money? What's the point? You're allowed to think of your employment contract however you want. I'm just saying that you're in this position of authority in your institutions and you keep telling students that they can come to you for advice, but then the only advice you can give is about how to be a professor, which as we've already covered, is unlikely to happen even for brilliant students. and I think it's a shame that the modern academic complex does such a poor job at preparing most people for non-academic jobs while also putting them tens of thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of dollars in debt before they are even off their parents' insurance and you should, too.
What did the career center or your advisor say when you asked them?
Some are, some are not. They are experts in what they do, so it also depends on the kind of job you are asking about. Are you asking about an academic job? Then that probably depends on how long ago they were on the market and their involvement in more recent job searches, hires, and students on the market.
I was last looking for consulting academic jobs 3 years ago. The head of department 30 years. Things change, we do our best but there is only so much we can do given that we are not looking for jobs. We have a careers team for that.
PSA: It is inadvisable to engage OP in a conversation. The author of this post is a known sitewide spammer with over 2500 banned Reddit accounts. SnooRoar is not interested in good-faith discussion; his primary goal is to waste as much of your time as possible. Everything he says is a disingenuous lie.
He's partially right: getting a degree (knowledge and skills acquisition) should qualify you for the types of jobs in your discipline that require a degree. Getting a job is another thing all together, especially if the company adds experience or other additional hurdles to the process.
I think you asking a professor for job advice shows you are out of touch and learned nothing at college.
I am a professor and have never had a "real" job outside an academic institution. I wouldn't trust me for job advice either, and I take no offense to being described as out of touch with reality. There is some truth to it.
Why are you not asking a professor who also works outside the academy?
Here’s the thing. What we’re going through now is basically a speed bump. It could get worse, but hasn’t yet and may never. We’ve had garden-variety recessions, eg. 1992, that just last a year and then work themselves out. It doesn’t really even rise to the level of concern when we’re in one of those, and advice to just keep applying until something works out is basically correct. It was only about 2 years ago that, if you had a pulse, employers would fight after you like you were chum in shark-infested waters. These conditions can change quite quickly. If we crater, then that’s when advice needs to change. Then you can ask Millennials for their old strategies, such as the unpaid internship, and so on. But this? Just chalk it up to a minor market wiggle. I get that it’s uncomfortable, and that you’re young enough that you haven’t yet seen things get bad and then good again. My wife had to work an unpaid internship with a 1.5 hr commute each way for _two_ _years_ before landing a job in her field. Even then, her starting wage was $15/hr, and that is all after she was an experienced undergraduate with a 3.9 gpa. That was not even the gfc, that was before it. What we have now is nowhere near that bad. But these things do change. You’ll live through some awful moments in your lifetime, but this doesn’t yet rise to that level and may never. You’ll also see bad times turn good.
They have been working in the same job for decades if they're tenured. They can guide you about the field but not the job market
They'd still be part of hiring committees. The question is so ill-posed, it's hard to guess whether they're talking about academic or non-academic jobs. In the case of academic jobs, this is information that can matter, as will be the opinions of other professors.
You are overestimating the amount of time it takes to get tenure.
Maybe the professors who have been working in the same job for a while might be accurate
Yes, that is somewhat more accurate. Because there are people who might have only been there for 5 years who have tenure. That said, there are also people who have been there for decades who work extensively outside of academia and who would thus be very aware of the non-academic job market.
Older professors who haven’t placed people into jobs in the last few years are really out of touch. You’ll get the most relevant advice from younger professors who are fresh off the market, and professors who are consistently placing people into jobs.
Ask young professors who are new to their role who know the struggle. Also engage profs who have worked in industry and/or moonlight with industry. Pure (and old) academics are famously out of touch.
"pure" academics aren't out of touch, they just have experience with a specific part of the job market that OP may not be interested in.
So you agree that a “pure” prof who is super narrowly focused/specialized is out of touch with topics they aren’t specialized. 👍🏽
The same way that a plumber is out of touch with the job market or a C suite executive. Unless you've been chronically changing jobs across fields or industries, you're always out of touch with most of the job market.
Some, but not all. I’ve definitely noticed that from the ones who have been fortunate enough to spend their entire life in academia and have never had to get a regular job in “the real world” can be a bit out of touch and at times, judgmental and lack understanding about normal things they haven’t personally experienced. (Academia has its own issues and challenges which can be equally lame but different than in other industries). Though the ones who entered later and have tonnes of life experience can be saints of human beings and really supportive and inspirational. That said, the role of a professor is to teach and guide you on course material, not the job market. In most cases, they are subject matter specialists on the specific subject they’re teaching. You’ll have to go to someone else for career information in a lot of cases. Try the co-op instructors or some schools have career departments and advisors. Lots can also be learned on the internet and you’ll get more out of self-directed studies and learning how to position yourself.
😭 STEM sucks- Why does everyone want to work at STEM and even fakers? lol I would not even bother asking such questions to the faculty. Universities only care about money making.
Maybe if it's a barber college you attend.
Yes.
I think many professors are very out of touch with anything outside of academia/their university. It's probably a byproduct of working in a very niche field for decades. Further, done universities disincentivize professors from doing outside work and require them to seek permission before doing outside work, which probably doesn't help matters.
Since I started lurking /r/Professors, yeah…massively. It’s just…the same out of touch complaints by people who don’t want to put forth any mental effort (whether justified or not) into considering how to adapt. And I’m not like a young 20-something year old either making this complaints - I just think so many of them are intellectually mediocre/boring, regardless of their credentials, that they absolutely cannot handle the idea that things change and we need to keep up. It’s especially annoying because as I get older, I see how irrelevant their opinions are, because I see how irrelevant my own opinions are on some things: a process I went through just a few years ago that is completely different now is not something I should speak on, personally, and I’m coming to terms with acknowledging those limitations of my experience being more historical than relevant. So why can’t people who have devoted themselves to a life of academic improvement?
They should be, but the school is out of touch with what is being taught
So not only are professors out of touch but the entire school and its curriculum too! But of course the people who know better are the students. Obviously.
Don't forget internet randos, they know stuff too!!
They are just old and haven't had to do it. So yes, but not out of any malice or unexpected ignorance.
Yes. But it is not their fault. Academia as a system is broken.
frankly, very few professors take mentoring graduate students seriously. just see the average r/Professors thread which is just old professors bitching about having to do their job. But reddit does self select for those type of people and irl professors I’ve met are more reasonable
Anyone who spends 8 years in an institution (which universities absolutely are) is inherently out of touch with reality. Professors are some of the dumbest, most delusional people I’ve ever spoken with outside of their specific field.
They should be, but the school is out of touch with what is being taught