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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tyroc7" data-source="post: 668505" data-attributes="member: 4899">I have been in academia for several years and now have tenure in an applied social science/professional field. I am at a major research university in a major city. So my experiences might not apply to everyone (e.g. adjunct in a small teaching college in rural Texas).I think the discipline you choose is important. Writing off the social sciences is too broad. For example, economics is a social science and a PhD in economics is very marketable. In general, fields that have employment options outside academia will have higher salaries and better working conditions. There will also be opportunities to consult.At research universities professors have a lot of autonomy. Your class hours (4-8 hours a week depending on your teaching load) and office hours (2-4 hours) are your only set times. If you are in the hard sciences you will probably have to spend a lot of time in the lab. But in most other fields all you need is a power outlet and a laptop and you are good to go. With rise of digital books/journals you don't even have to go to the library that much anymore.There are many opportunities to travel on other people's dime. Conferences, invited talks, etc. I have been to Europe, Canada, Hawaii, Japan and all over the US this way.It is true that many campuses are a hotbed of radical feminism. But this stuff is easy to ignore. If you are teaching something like statistics or programming there is not much reason for this to come up. Even if you are teaching a controversial topic like the history of racism you can and should present both sides of the debate and usually that suffices to keep people from getting too excited.Obviously you can't game women in your class. But on most campuses other students and graduate students are fair game. Plus there are opportunities to travel (see above).</blockquote>

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