2 years of being an assistant professor

What did I learn?

As of September 1st, I am officially an assistant professor for two years. In these two years, I have learned a lot about academia, and to be honest, I sometimes felt frustrated. Don’t get me wrong—I am super grateful for all the opportunities that my position provides, and I already knew that academia is not perfect overall. However, I am still trying to get used to a few things.

Before unpacking those issues, let me first explain what I have enjoyed the most in the last two years.

Freedom to choose to work on whatever excites you with whoever inspires you.

I think this is the most significant difference between being a PhD student and being an assistant professor. As a PhD student, especially early in my PhD, I felt like I didn’t have the option to say no to the projects that I didn’t want to work on or the people I didn’t want to collaborate with.

But, as soon as I started my position, I began to say no to the projects that I didn’t find interesting, people I didn’t want to work with for some reason, and PhD students who were not ambitious enough for me.

I don't know whether this is the right strategy to get tenured; we shall see in a few years, but I decided that I am done with being strategic. Ultimately, what is the point of being an academic if you don’t work on projects you are really excited about with people who inspire you?

Although this level of freedom is a privilege, I didn't know that I would have a manager when I would be an academician.

Was I too naive? I don’t know.

I hate the word “manager,” “being managed,” and “managing someone.” Indeed, this was one of the reasons why I chose to be an academician. To me, the path in academia is clear: You need to teach well enough, publish enough, and provide service to the community enough. Otherwise, you won’t get tenured and will be fired. Crystal clear. Given this is the case and we are adults to take responsibility for our choices, why do we need a manager?

I am extremely lucky to have someone as a manager who is not trying to “manage” but to support me. But this wouldn’t have been the case, and I might have had to explain every decision I made in a yearly review.

Given that academia, as a profession, is not a sprint but a marathon, I don’t get the logic behind the annual performance review. Am I a salesperson trying to reach a yearly target?

Anyway, maybe it is just me. In the end, I just spend a few hours updating my CV, remembering what I have done in the last year regarding teaching, research, and service, and reporting it. It is not a big deal, but ideologically, it doesn't feel right.

Bureaucracy.

Please read this post by Dan Ariely and watch his video on the post. I don’t think I need to say anything more. It is just frustrating to experience bureaucracy firsthand.

Cheers,

Sidika