Life in the Ivory Tower: Those who can, teach; Those who can

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Life in the Ivory TowerThose who can, teach
Those who cant, do.Behzad RazaviElectrical
Engineering DepartmentUniversity of California,
Los Angeles
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• "Those who can, do those who cant, teach."
• George Bernard Shaw

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What do profs do?

• Learn the fine art of juggling.
• Teach.
• Research Try new ideas, supervise grad students,
  write papers, write proposals, schmooz with
  companies and other funding agencies, serve on
  conferences and journals, network with peers,
  maintain lab facilities, maintain CAD tools.
• Write books.
• University service courses and curriculum,
  admissions and fellowships, prelims, quals,
  seminars, faculty candidates, school-level
  committees.

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But why?!
America believes in education the average
professor earns more money in a year than a
professional athlete earns in a whole week.

Evan Esar
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Why Go to Academia?

• Like the freedom of research that academia
• offers.
• Like teaching.
• Like the dynamic and rejuvenating nature
• of academic life.
• Like the flexible style of academia ? consulting,
  starting companies, etc.
• Can't find a job in industry.

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Research

• Crack a real, difficult problem by an elegant,
  novel solution.
• Need to pose these questions at the beginning and
  at the end
• - What is the problem? Why do we care?
• - What is our novelty?
• - Can others duplicate our results?
• - Will others duplicate our results?
• - How do we compare with prior art?
• Requires that we constantly identify or invent
  interesting topics.
• ? Both creativity and vision are important.

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Publish or Perish

• Conference papers give immediate visibility.
• Journal papers create long-term archival
• record that enables others to duplicate
  results.
• (Many universities count only journal
  papers.)
• Need to remain visible travel around the world
  and present new results ? 10 trips/year

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PhD Students

• Need to apply a great deal of scrutiny in
  selecting students.
• Look for intelligence, independent thinking,
  creativity, persistence, communication skills.
  (Will the student pass the prelims?)
• Need to understand the psychology of each student
  and treat him/her accordingly.
• Need to shield the student from pressures of
  sponsors.
• Professor often worries more about the work than
  the student does.

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Difference between PhD Student and Prof.

• PhD student knows everything about nothing.
• Professor knows nothing about everything.

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Funding

• Its tough.
• Writing proposals and managing contracts takes
  about 20 of professors time.

Professors Funding
Agencies
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Teaching

• Rewarding experience.
• First time, takes 10 hours of work for one hour
  of lecture.
• Teaching undergrads much tougher than teaching
  grads.
• Need to revise and update the material each time.
• A great deal of thought goes into designing
  homeworks, exams, and course projects.

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Financial Prospects

• Professors who are good at what they do are
• typically in high demand outside university
• as well
• - Teaching Short Courses
• - Consulting
• - Starting Companies
• - Expert Witness
• On the average, profs and engineers in industry
• are on roughly equal financial footings.
• 20 of profs start companies 1 out of 4 may
• become successful.

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Finding an Academic Job

• It is preferable to work in industry for a few
  years.
• There are certain windows for entering academia.
• Your CV and statement say a lot about you.
• Universities look for these components
• - Innovation
• - Vision
• - Publications
• - Teaching and Communication Skills

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Preparations Phase I

• Starting a couple of years before graduation,
  look through every issue of IEEE Spectrum and
  monitor which university is looking for what type
  of expertise.
• Work on your writing and presentation skills.
• Give seminars at different universities once you
  have presentable results. (But remember first
  impressions are important.)
• Talk to your advisor and seek additional
  activities that can enhance your qualifications.

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Preparations Phase II

• Target departments whose faculty do NOT have much
  overlap with you.
• Do your homework thoroughly
• - Learn about the research of every faculty
  at that
• department (in your area and related
  areas).
• - Present yourself as someone who can bring
  new
• exciting areas of research to the
  department, but also
• as someone whose expertise complements
  other
• facultys work.