Professor Shooter

Once I dreamed to become a professor. Now I am preparing for different career though. Teaching must be one of the most rewarding job. But working condition in academia is very frustrating. In particular, in so called "research" college and university. Research university is a place where extremely smart people gather together to prove that he/she is smarter and better than his/her colleagues. One source of frustration is that they don't share common goal of their organization. Each member has own goal and compete each other. Of course, there is collaboration among faculty members, but pretty limited. That is my observation. I would rather go to an organization where all member work together for common goal and share team spirit.

Sometimes frustration in academia bursts in extreme form. An assistant professor of University Alabama shot three faculty members to death over her failure in getting tenure. Very sad and unfortunate incident. Here is a related New York Times article. There must be some behind stories that we do not know. But under any condition, it should not have happened. The assistant professor should have lived a real life, not a life in academic wonderland.