7 Things Making A Professor’s Job Incredibly Stressful
A professor is perceived to be involved in a standard, nine-to-five job with structured work responsibilities that have the least problems. It is considered the most relaxing job with minimum stress levels. However, most people fail to recognize the fact that there is a high degree of accountability associated, as professors are the experts responsible for shaping up the career of future generations.
The world is encountering major transformations due to technological advancements that highly influences the teaching sectors, expanding its horizon and opening newer avenues. As a result, professors are required to keep up-to-date teaching techniques, in order to conserve their expert characteristics. It might seem an easy task, but in reality there are many challenges associated and a constant pressure involved in this profession, and it is not as sweet as it appears.
In this context, let us discuss the various reasons that cause stress for professors in an educational institute:
Customer service acceptance model by universities
In a bid to fill up seats, universities nowadays follow the customer service model and accept students not prepared to bear the pressure of college-level curriculum. They do not even give much importance to the educational background and area of expertise of these students.
Consequently, many youngsters fail to properly run the rat race that gets reflected in their grades. The professor is then held responsible for the poor grades of the students.
Growth, performance, and development of a professor depend on incognito peer review
Applying for a grant, wanting to publish results of your research work or submit your portfolio for the tenure to get the college promotion – everything is based on anonymous peer reviews. Hence, maintaining a good interpersonal relationship with your fellow colleagues is essential.
Increasing faith on supplementary teaching
A great way to cut costs of educational institutions is to rope in the temporary faculty. Although this offers great opportunities for the assistant professors, especially part-time professors, it degrades the importance of the full-time faculties. The professor with long tenure can be threatened and refuse the payment he deserves, replacing him with the part-time faculty. Hence, extra pressure builds up on him to perform well and work more to stand out among the rest.
Faculty needs to upgrade himself along with the changing times
Technology and the web evolution have applied the pressure of need to evolve with change. He is then required to acquire new knowledge regarding this sector in order to teach education in an efficient and organized manner. Technological innovation introduces various tools that help in advanced research work as well. The educator should be aware of all of them. This demands extra time for self-learning and training.
Faculty has to manage data accurately
Lecturers take part in data management. They have to look after the most confidential data which includes a student’s credentials and scores. They also need to take care of various research assistants, fellow lecturer and assistant professors and allocate salaries accordingly. They are also entitled some research grants thus they should be given these. Data must be maintained secured and organized and should be used effectively in case of discrepancies.
The administrators overlook their efforts
It frequently happens that a teacher does not get the due recognition for the number of working hours. Either the working hours are too rigid, or the hard work that the subject matter expert puts in is underestimated. Within the working hours an educator is attending a seminar or workshop, no recognition is given to this and it is not even counted as part of self-initiated learning.
The administrators underestimate the virtual classroom concept
Universities are switching to online teaching platforms as they generate greater revenue without incurring any infrastructure costs. Professors are not given credit due to online teachings despite the fact that they claim to have put in more effort in a virtual classroom than in a real-time set up. Their endeavor is highly underrated in this regard.
Conclusion
No matter how stressful the job might be, it is not difficult to shine in this job. You just need to be patient and have a strong knowledge base to sail through the career.
