So next week is spring break and I don’t have much planned. On Wednesday, I am going to SUNY Geneseo to give a talk to the undergraduates about life as a grad student in math. I must say life is pretty good as a grad student. Even though our stipend doesn’t pay much, it’s still a livable wage, and you’re mostly free of stress (in comparison to ‘real jobs’). After passing the qualifying exams, you start doing research and even though it can be a little frustrating at times, it is still enjoyable and rewarding. I would recommend to anyone seriously studying math as an undergrad to go to grad school. In fact, I would recommend to anyone starting university to seriously consider doing some math. Even though it’s not surprising to mathematicians, the 10 best jobs in this country all involve doing math. A mathematician will not, on average, make as much money annually as, say, a medical doctor. However, when you consider how much they are getting paid per hour of work, it’s probably one of the highest paid profession. A mathematician at a liberal arts college usually works, and gets paid for, 9 out of 12 months per year. For a typical semester of teaching three courses, the total amount of time spend in the classroom is about 8 hours a week (roughly 2.5 hours per course per week). Considering office hours, time it takes to prepare lecture notes (which is next to nothing if the course was previously taught), and grading responsibilities, let’s say this add another 8 hours to the work week. Since mathematicians don’t consider doing research work – because it’s fun to do, and it can be done anywhere, like in a pub – we may conclude the average work week is 16 hours for a mathematician. So, they work 3/4 of a year, and during that time, they work 2/5 of the average work week. This means a mathematician’s salary of $60,000 scaled to the a full time salary, would be about $200,000. Now add in the low level of stress and being your own boss, and compare to any high paying job, like say a neurosurgeon, where they work most of the year, for more than the expected 40 hours a week under higher stress and constant management. To make the argument even more convincing, consider that the median annual salary for a full-time mathematician is $87,000 (according to Bureau of Labor Statistics )
I also decided to give a colloquium talk on April 1st (April Fools Day) at SUNY Geneseo. The talk will be a version of the p-adic talk I gave to the high school students. I plan on doing a slide talk, and when available, I’ll post the slides on this blog for anyone interested in them.
I am only teaching two courses this semester and I am in my office or on campus at least 40 hours per week (and often times a lot more than that). If you are at a school without teaching assistants (like I am), teaching a course can be very time consuming. Also, it can sometimes take me more than four hours to prepare a lecture for the number theory course I am teaching. I imagine when teaching graduate courses, even more time is involved in preparing lectures. If, on top of all that, you are supervising students who are writing honors/matster’s/ph.d. theses, you will have even more work to do. There are number of mathematicians here at Ole Miss who probably work close to 60 hours per week during the semester. But, on the plus side, we only teach for 30 weeks each year.
I agree that working at a research school like Ol’ Miss or U of R requires more work (I was referring to liberal arts schools), but I still find it hard to believe that the average is more than 40 hours a week. Of course, a new professor has a lot more work and responsibility. Course prep (grad or undergrad) will take some time, but when you have to re-teach the course, it will take a lot less. Advising students can be time consuming, but I don’t think it take more than 2 hours per week per student (unless the student really needs help, and this is usually not the case). Unless you have a lot of students most years in your career, then you’ll probably have a lot more work, but I don’t think this is usually the case. I think after 5 years, after tenure, math professors on average (including those from liberal arts and research institution) don’t work 40 hours a week.
Agreed. But the first five years can be stressful and time consuming. All the tenure-track professors are here long hours and sometimes late into the evening (often past 8 pm), but almost none of the tenured faculty are on campus past dinner time.
I also think you have to teach a course at least two and probably three times before the prep time is reduced drastically. There is a very long list things I want to do differently the next time I teach the courses I am teaching this semester. As far as mentoring students, I think it takes much more than two hours a week. Don’t forget, you have to spend time thinking about their research, making sure the projects that you give them are doable, reading (and re-reading) their proofs and theses, and meeting the face-to-face. Maybe as mathematician gets older and wiser, he gets more efficient. But everything this year seems to take me 50% more time than I anticipated.