
Things I did wrong as a professor (2016) - troydavis
http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2016/03/everything-i-did-wrong-as-professor.html
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basseq
This has parallels to professional life as well:

 _1\. Working on too many projects at once._

I joke with my team that "we're never short on problems". It's tempting to
hear about something interesting and want to be involved—or worse, feel like
you _should_ be involved. It's very hard to say no.

 _2\. Taking on high-risk projects with factors out of my control._

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's setting expectations. But combined with
#1, handling too many projects mean you never have time to properly think (and
mitigate) the risks.

 _3\. Taking on too many students._

You could flip this to "growing too fast," though that's not a problem I've
personally had. There was a culture of mentorship at my previous company,
which a pressure to take on mentees. Similar...

 _4\. Wasted too much time courting companies for money._

Probably an analog into the startup scene, but again, not a problem I've had.

 _5\. Way, way, way too much travel. / 6\. All the boondoggles._

Forget travel, the core message here is opportunities. The author says, "I
found it hard to avoid this trap because you think, well, saying no means
you're not going to get asked to do the more important thing next time."

Oh man, do I agree. And I agree that most of the time it's a moot point. But
there's something to be said for "visibility" and there's a 1-10% chance that
the one "boondoggle" you sign up for ends up yielding an opportunity you
wouldn't have had otherwise. This is my major personal and professional issue,
and I haven't solved it yet, either.

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purple-dragon
Anecdotally, I'd say these aren't just mistakes he made; these are systemic
problems I see with academia (I can only speak from my experience in the US).
Every professor I know under age 40-45 did or does these things. Among its
many causes are peer pressure, fear (of competition, of missing out), tenure
anxiety, hubris, and "tradition".

~~~
skosuri
It depends. I'm still under 40, and many of the things he considers mistakes I
don't (yet). That said, three of the things on the list I've been able to
avoid, and I think it's made the rest easier. 1. I was lucky to get a bunch of
money early, and stopped spending a lot of time writing grants after the first
year. 2. Made a conscious decision to not travel excessively, spend time at
home, and vacation for all sorts of family reasons. That said, I've used
twitter to supplement the backroom chatter I am missing and that's worked well
enough 3. I initially took a lot of committee work but have backed off a ton
in the last few years.

I do run a pretty big group, though I've downsized a bit (now 8 Phd, 3
postdocs, many undergrads). We work on too many things and most are pretty
ambitious, but that makes it fun. I wouldn't change that much honestly. Maybe
I need a few more years before I regret everything, but things are pretty good
IMO, but again, I think you need a few chips to fall your way before things
become manageable (e.g., like early grants).

~~~
bsder
Funny how "Get large amount of funding" solves most problems in most fields
...

Glad it worked out for you, but "hit the lottery" is, unfortunately, not a
viable strategy.

~~~
niyikiza
Getting a research grant is not "hitting the lottery", it's being recognized
for your previous work and having people believe that your new proposals make
sense and that you have what it takes to carry on your new ambitions.

~~~
thisrod
Those are the requirements to _enter_ the lottery.

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eli_gottlieb
Honestly, this sounds like a "reverse any advice you hear" sort of situation.
Welsh did too much. However, from many people's perspective, Too Much is
_exactly_ what you have to do to succeed in academia. You would really need a
retrospective survey from those granted tenure to actually calibrate how much
Too Much is _a healthy margin_ to move up in your job, versus how much is
_actually way too much_ and harms your prospects.

(I'm assuming that to some degree it will harm your health. This is
unfortunate but true in most competitive fields.)

~~~
bachmeier
> Too Much is exactly what you have to do to succeed in academia

I won't dispute that statement with respect to _his_ situation. Academia is
very broad, and the expectations at Harvard are rather different from most of
academia. At many academic institutions you can have a life and get tenure.

~~~
jimhefferon
I think that statement is getting less true every year.

Increasingly, for instance, we seem to only hire people who would be tenurable
today. So people are thinking they need to have a number of papers, etc.,
before they get a PhD.

It is an accelleration and a person wonders if it doesn't result in people
churning out stuff because it it publishable, rather than because it is
worthwhile. And when you reward that, that's what you get.

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monksy
At what point of this does he comment on the quality of his ability to teach
students and lead them to become incredibly successful? This sounds more of a
professional researcher than a professor.

~~~
throwawayjava
This criticism is unfair for many reasons:

1\. Advising is teaching. In fact, _advising is the majority component_ of an
R1 teaching load! So, he DID discuss the teaching component of his job. A lot.

2\. In terms of _classroom_ teaching, he was probably teaching 1-2 courses per
year at Harvard. So _classroom_ teaching _really wasn 't_ the majority
component of his job. It's unsurprising that he didn't spend much time talking
about this minority component of his job, in the same way that it's
unsurprising when a developer talks primarily about writing/reading/testing
code rather than the ~20% of their workday activities that are something other
than writing/reading/testing code.

Of course, one hopes that developers introspect on their effectiveness in
various meetings, when talking to clients or internal stakeholders, and so on.
But you'd be unsurprised if a dev, discussing their biggest mistakes during
their first few years, focus on code-related mistakes.

3\. Maybe he felt good about his non-advising, classroom teaching? The title
of the post is "everything I did wrong", not "a summary of everything I did".

~~~
monksy
> classroom teaching really wasn't the majority component of his job.

It's the title of the job: Professor.

~~~
heymijo
I think monsky's comment and the exchange below hit on an important point:
different understandings of what a professor does.

I would venture that most people equate professor with teaching. While many of
the people that responded to monksy, understand that the position is much more
than that. Seeing this dichotomy is important to having a productive
discussion.

This happens a lot in life. Another example from higher education—University
President. Most people equate University President with something along the
lines of U.S. President and hold the requisite expectations for them. Reality
= fundraising figurehead.

~~~
monksy
My point of contention is that professors who do not teach or do so badly,
should be treated and considered differently.

There should be a title of Graduate Advisor, and Teaching Professor (those who
teach others to become a professor/teach in a classroom). There should be
specialization on being an effective teacher. There should be pathways to
success. Pushing all students into research and half heartedly force them to
learn how to teach only re-enforces this idea.

For those "graduate professors" who just consider advising and mentoring grad
students teaching, you have to apply that same logic that by mentoring anyone
in the field, you're now a teacher. (That's a dualism)

My big issue here: we're completely ignoring the issue that a student comes
into the university to learn. (Even if it's a research institution) By
assigning "professors" that don't actually teach you're doing a huge
disservice to everyone. In those cases students are left to their own devices,
they're not going to do well for research, community, or industry. Really
what's happening is people are paying for an apprentiship to become a
researcher.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> There should be a title of... Teaching Professor_

This is already a job title! An alternative, often equivalent title is
"Instructor". And these people _are_ primarily responsible for classroom
teaching! And they _are_ primarily evaluated upon that teaching! What you are
asking for already exists.

There are also colleges and universities where all people with the title
"professor" are dedicated to classroom teaching. Harvard isn't one of them.

 _> There should be a title of Graduate Advisor_

There is. For historical reasons, at Harvard, the "Graduate Advisor" is called
an "assistant/associate/full professor". But don't get confused by the name.
These professors don't do much classroom teaching, just like most software
engineers don't build engines. It's just a title, not a job description, and
getting angry about it is just as silly as getting angry that most software
engineers don't write software for engine control units!

 _> we're completely ignoring the issue that a student comes into the
university to learn_

And assisting in that learning is not the majority component of the jobs of
tenure-track professors at research institutions.

 _> Really what's happening is people are paying for an apprenticeship to
become a researcher._

Research grants, not undergraduate tuition, pay for tenure-track professors'
research at places like Harvard.

You seem to have a deeply flawed understanding about what a modern research
university is, how it operates, and what undergraduate tuition money is spent
on. That's perfectly fine, except that you're continually arguing with people
who try to explain to you your misconceptions.

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KKKKkkkk1
When I interview and they ask me "Tell us about your biggest flaw" or
something along those lines, I too always answer that it's that I'm too
ambitious and that I work too hard.

~~~
baxtr
If I get asked this question, I always stop intentionally as if I’ve never
been asked this before, look out of the window (if there is one), then look
back at the interviewer and say - with lots of pathos: well, I guess I’m too
much of a perfectionist

~~~
vog
Yes, that's the classic standard response to this question, because it makes a
kind-of positive outcome.

But, really, isn't this the only kind-of positive response to this question?
Is there any other response that works this way? And hence, why are
interviewers asking this question in the first place? I pretty sure they know
they will always get some variant of "I'm a perfectionist" as response,
because that's the textbook answer to this textbook question.

~~~
baxtr
I had one guy who was serious about this and I learned a lot through that: he
sincerely asked this, but differently: “What are the things you are working on
to be better at?”

At first, I was kinda startled and couldn’t answer really, tried to bullshit
him like the answer I gave above. He called it though and said that he is
disappointed by such an answer and that he’d expect everybody to work on 2-3
things. Otherwise, he concluded, there is a lack of introspection to be
assumed. Fair point, I thought

~~~
wott
Introspection is analysing oneself, it does not mean taking actions about it,
IMO.

~~~
InitialLastName
The hiring filter in that case seems to be for people willing to take actions
based on their self-analysis.

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crescentfresh
> There were times when I felt that my airline status was more important to
> maintain than my marriage

Oh my, I hope the marriage still survived if it was meant to.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Read the lyrics to "American Dream" by Casting Crowns sometime. It's sobering.
You can lose your family for stuff like this, and it's not worth it.

------
danieka
The author mentioned not taking on too much risk and avoiding straying to far
from the lab.

When I studied CS I was never that excited with the pure, abstract CS-bits. I
was a lot more interested in how we could apply those bits in the real world
to affect change in peoples lives. Volcano sensors may be high risk, but may
also have a lot more impact than more theoretical/abstract work.

That being said, I'm grateful we have researchers interested in the
theoretical stuff, otherwise practical guys like me wouldn't have anything to
apply. So it's important to realise that while "minimise risk" might be good
advice for the author, for another researcher "maximise real-world impact"
might be sounder advice.

------
yitchelle
The funny thing about these type of thought exercise is whether you would be a
better person?

I am who I am because of all the mistakes I have made, because of all the
crisis I went though during my projects, because of the laughter and
satisfaction in my life so far.

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divbit
Unless you have like a beachfront university, no one should be spending more
than ~ 20-21 hours a week at actual working (commute included). Slight caveat
1. once decent VR gets here, and you can make it to a reasonably nice VR beach
from home, sort of like in that Valerian movie... but more MMO style. Slight
caveat 2. if your work is really fun or (reasonably) progresses the state of
humanity to where no one really needs to work / everyone is supermodels /
environmental and social problems are all solved etc.

(I say this with out considering it that deeply, but it's probably right.)

------
chrisseaton
Wow this guy seems so incredibly young to be a professor! Did he get a
professorship right after finishing his PhD?

~~~
dgacmu
Yes - at the time Matt graduated, this was still the norm in CS. Things are
changing and it's becoming more common to do a post-doc, but it's still not
unusual to go directly (in the US).

~~~
chrisseaton
Where do they go from there if they're already a professor from day one? Is
there no promotion?

In the UK you won't get to be a professor until your forties, and many people
never do.

~~~
sjg007
You start at assistant professor.

~~~
scott_s
To further clarify: The UK has the distinct titles "reader" and "lecturer"
before "professor." In the US, if you have a PhD and you're teaching a college
class, you're called a professor, even if you're an adjunct (not tenure
track). The tenure track titles are "assistant professor", "associate
professor" and then just "professor." Informally, we tend to use "professor"
to refer to all of them, and it's common for people to say "Professor Doe"
even if the person is an assistant professor.

~~~
tnecniv
The US still has lecturers (who normally have PhDs), but the title is
different from the UK one.

~~~
scott_s
I have never seen the title "lecturer" used in the US. Can you recall where
you saw it? The title "instructor" is quite common when the person does not
have a PhD.

~~~
wl
Lecturer is used at the University of California for instructors with a PhD
and no research responsibilities. Some of them even have a form of tenure,
"security of employment."

~~~
schoen
A prominent example in computer science was Brian Harvey

[https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/)

who designed and then taught the introductory computer science course (CS 61A)
for many years and is now retired.

