What exactly are Academics??

[misskitten]

Im an academic, and im nice to support staff, and dont fall into any of the damning character categories so far! So there!

I am paid, not badly, by the university, but only a fraction of my wage comes from student fees. The other parts come through consultancy and research projects, so im pretty busy and also out in the 'real world' as much as im teaching.

I dont have my PhD yet but im halfway through.

I also do voluntary teaching and training abroad, funded by my extra consultancy, and my next project is in africa.

If you can avoid the excessive meetings, comittees and paperwork (im now an expert at avoidance!) it can be a great job!

 

[Pickman's model]

academix are tidier in libraries than students. which is good.

 

[WasGeri]

I only know one academic - a friend of mine is the director of the Townsend Centre of International Poverty Research. I think stuff like that is very important and worthwhile.

It's part of Bristol University so I imagine he gets paid by them.

 

[trashpony]

My friend is a non-academic member of staff at a redbrick university. She's been told recently that their focus is on funding research, rather than on funding teaching. So they've taken on loads of extra students but haven't got enough staff to teach them all. Because they're all doing research.

Seems a bit mad to me.

 

[equationgirl]

It may be because there's a big higher education assessment coming up, and anything that they want to be counted for the next assessment basically has to be published by the 31st December.

So there's a lot of people doing a huge amount of last minute research and frantically trying to get published

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

Very rare tho, these days. Competition for academic places in the UK is so high that most institutions can & do insist on a doctorate as a minimum qualification for entry to the academic body. Except in the a very few new/specialised subjects where the demand/pay/status in industry/real world is way above anything most unis can hope to offer.

In our uni its the favourites who are marked out from undergrad level as being 'in',one is a friend of mine who learned quicly how to play the staff and lick arse shes now been given an admin post while she does her masters so she is handy for when they need a seminar tutor at short notice.
They then rise rapidly through their masters ( one we know lectured straight after completing her degree and while she was doing her masters)
and then on and up into her Phd. She now swans around and speaks to people like absolute shite which frankly is a shame becuase when I was in the 1st year of my degree she had only just finished hers the previous summer and was still human it seems lecturing makes her treat everyone the same way the person shes closest to in the department does, again it revolves around favourites who get all the help and will be the next lecturers after we're long gone.

Its complete shite really but there you go, it just makes me realise how soon i want to be shot of the place, the genuine people ( and they do exist) have usually come to the uni from elsewhere

 

[nino_savatte]

I've been thinking about a move into academia but this thread has put me off.

 

[phildwyer]

I've been thinking about a move into academia but this thread has put me off.

Thank you God.

 

[nino_savatte]

Thank you God.

Then you came along: stalker and faux academic. Indeed if you are an *academic* then you fit the general profile outlined on this thread. What was it I was reading about "arselickers"?

Are you an arselicker, phil? Do you steal from junoir researchers...or are you good enough to do research? Just wondered like.

 

[tastebud]

I'm an academic working in a psychiatry and neurology field.
One thing that has astonished me in the last few weeks is the *huge* discrepancy between money available in academia: eg., for the fastest best computers, pleasant surroundings etc compared to that of those working for the nhs: eg., computers that are eight milllion five thousand years old and offices that are falling apart with no desk space for its employees.

It sounds like an obvious thing to mention but when you see the discrepancy on a day-to-day basis it does make you stop and think.

I am all for academic funding and research, of course but it makes me feel a little unhappy when I see how medical professionals have to struggle in comparison.

 

[jaded_youth]

I guess I'm an academic but I work at a weather centre now still doing research. Mine is currently concerned with trying to predict the effects of climate change on arctic ozone recovery .. I guess some would consider it "worthless" though considering the concrete answers that result. I wouldn't say they don't do anything ... all those press releases concerning technology, the environment and medicine are basically a summary of many individual contributions by academics. I know in the sciences that thatcher essentially forced a lot of subjects to become more applied thus removing some of the more pointless experiments. Having said that fundamental research gave birth to the microchip via quantumm mechanics thus something considered "pointless" may in fact be the key to developing unknown technologies.