Guest wrote:I agree with the OP too. Take the case of professors and 'lecturers'.
I think we've seen you on here before... and last time you hid behind your anonymity as well.
Professors are self-proclaimed intellectuals who are failures in the professional world.
Most professors I know do not proclaim their own intellect - most of them are far from egocentric. They get there because they have the skills needed to run departments, and organise and manage research, as well as conducting their own. They got where they are because of a lifestyle choice - the persuit of knowledge. You know - knowledge, that thing that LP was referring to that brought us out of the stone age.
Furthermore, they are hardly failures in any sense. Most professors are, in fact, shrewd businessmen. Those working in scientific fields (physics, chemistry, biology, ...) have inseparable links with business. I presume this is the so-called 'professional' world you're talking about. These are the ones that are creating your USB sticks, your DVD players, your widescreen TVs, your solar panels (and indeed anything else that is going to stop "
business" from screwing up the planet). They're the ones that are developing and testing the drugs that keep you healthy, understanding the diseases that may kill you. Who else do you think does those things? "Business"? That's a very generic concept. Business *IS* the main task of a professor.
Even in "blue-skies" research, like my own field, you get payback. True, you may not fully appreciate the micro-gravity science that goes on in the space station today, or the research into the life cycles of stars, but you can't always think of immediate payback. Who are you going to turn to in 20 years' time when you want your latest carbon nanotube devices, laser propulsion systems, or nuclear fusion reactions? Who is going to save you from the killer asteroids? In fact, who is going to build you your newer, better digital camera? Speaking of which, who invented the very internet you're writing your rubbish on? That's right - the very people you're lambasting. Go live in a cave again, if you don't want to support research.
While the supposed job description of a professor entails teaching, in actuality most professors know absolutely nothing about teaching. However, many professors will not hesitate to take a student's tuition money, not teach him anything, and then test him on what he was never taught.
Ah, teaching. You have a poor view of university teaching if you think this is all it entails. Most tutors (note that all tutors are not lecturers and all lecturers are not professors in this country) do start off knowing nothing about teaching - they don't have to. That's not their main job and some of them don't even want to do it. But they do it, because otherwise they don't get paid. Most of us, however, like it and are good at our jobs. If you can think of a way of improving the system, stop complaining about it and tell us what would be better.
Next up: tuition fees. Tuition fees only go to paying somewhere between (very roughly) 30% and 80% of the student's tuition costs. Academics don't even see a whiff of tuition fees, so don't start on that line.
Finally, teaching and testing. Well, without testing, there wouldn't be any proof you'd learnt anything, so I shan't discuss that. Teaching in university is something you appear to have grasped the wrong end of the stick of. We don't teach, we tutor. We provide information in a form that you should be able to understand. It is then
your job as a student to go away and make sure you understand that material, and read up around it. Don't expect to be spoon-fed - you may have got around it at school, but don't expect to get away with it at university, because that's not how the real world works. We give you what you need to do it yourself.
The other main activity of a professor is embezzling money (that could have been spent on useful things) for their own "research". Usually, this "research" involves topics that nobody outside of academia will ever care about or find a practical application for.
See above. Define what you mean by useful. Will it give someone chemotherapy to cure their cancer? No. Will it provide the drugs and technology needed so that they don't need to have chemotherapy in the first place? Maybe. Or will it make your life easier and more pleasurable in other ways? Certainly.
Artistic subjects may not have the cure for cancer. They may not make your life more secure or your home more habitable. The reason they continue to get money, however, is because people
are interested. Maybe not in a 200-page thesis on gender perception in ancient Greece, but some people will be interested in a summary, which can only really be obtained after a lot of research. To understand our culture, our past, is to be a part of it. If you don't understand your culture, you're not part of society. To wit, go and live in a cave.
Take solace in the fact that your professors earn a miserable salary in proportion to the level of education they have attained.
They do, but by the sounds of things, they have a much happier life than yourself. A miserable salary is all relative. I have a very comfortable salary. I have a job I enjoy and that is, despite your claims, useful and which a lot of people find interesting. The fact that academics may not get paid as much as their counterparts in industry is surely only testament to the fact that what you get is true value for money.
If you don't like what we do, tell us how we should improve. However, if you think that by removing the teaching and research that goes on in universities you're going to get a better society, you'll find you are sorely mistaken.
...then again, that is only my opinion.
