Career Paths

1. Career Paths Stephanie Weirich University of Pennsylvania

2. What I'm going to talk about… • What is like to be an assistant professor? • General and specific advice about the job • Research • Teaching • Service • Comments and advice about juggling the job with everything else

3. What does an academic career path look like? • Ph.D. • Postdoc (optional) • Assistant Professor • Reappointment review in 3rd year • Tenure review in 6th year <- coming up! • Associate Professor • Full Professor

4. My (short) career path • Finished Ph.D. at Cornell University, July 2002 • Internship at Bell Labs, Summer 1999 • Teaching, Fall 2001 • Started as an Assistant Professor at Penn, September 2002 • Husband started at same time, same dept., similar research area • Currently finishing 5th year

5. What is an academic job at a research university? • Three main components: • Research • Teaching • Service • Not evenly balanced. Research is queen. • Challenge: managing short-term Teaching and Service goals so you can achieve long term research goals.

6. Research advice • Actively look for collaborators • Too easy to get caught up with just you and your students • Can work with anyone: at your university, at another university, at a research lab. • Develop a good research environment • Reading groups, seminars • Practice talks • Advising Ph.D. students • No one teaches you how to do it • Each student is different in how much attention they need • Most important to develop a good working relationship • They have a strong influence on your work

7. Research flexibility • Research supported by funding • grad students, summer salary, conf. travel, equip. • Funding comes from • Start-up (first few years) • Govt. agencies (NSF, DoD) • Corporate gifts • Few limits on what to research • For tenure must be a recognized expert • Classified/proprietary research won’t help that

8. Teaching tricks • Active Lecturing • Ask questions - really easy ones at first • Get students to work on a problem in pairs • Go through code interactively (DrJava) • Exam preparation • Think about grading when you make your exam • No more than 15% of points for the top students • Length: how many minutes to work each problem?

9. Teaching and time management • Easy to let teaching take all of your time • Can be scary to lecture • Immediate feedback, lots of short-term tasks • Real people asking for your time as opposed to amorphous "research" • My strategy • Allocate research time first • Don't begin course prep too early • Students won't complain if you finish class early (and you won't) • Use your course staff • Set them up as guards for your time • Let them answer email/BB ?s

10. Service and time management • You can say no! • Must do some: prefer service with a technical component • Look for departments that protect junior faculty from too much university-level service • My controversial view: women are over-represented in service awards.

11. Work/Life balance • You can't work all the time • Set aside time for yourself and your family • Don't feel guilty when you aren't working • Take advantage of your flexibility and resources • Spend money for time • Take a vacation!

12. Can have children pre-tenure (so good so far…) • Look for policies -- At Penn: • Women: No teaching that semester • Both: 1 year extension on tenure clock, may or may not use • Also unofficial arrangements with your department • Steve had lighter teaching load Spring 2005 • Next Fall: "Junior Sabbatical" • Flexibility valuable • Control over your schedule, leave if you need to • Work from home sometimes • Dr. appts during the day • Hard parts • Travel • Monday deadlines for collaborative work

13. Where to look for more? • Informal and formal mentors • In your department, research community • People you meet here • MentorNet • Systers (esp. mailing list for pretenured women) • General resources • Tomorrow's Professor, Rick Reis • Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women In Academia, Emily Toth • Chronicle of Higher Education • Job Search resources on my homepage