magamo Wrote:4. Postdocs are rare in computer science. They're normal in math though,

Just realized you are talking about in Japan; not the same elsewhere.

People tell me that doing a PhD in Japan takes generally much longer than in North America, so even if you don't need a postdoc, it's still a huge lifetime investment.

kitakitsune Wrote:Not true.

my bad!

magamo Wrote:None of the foreign professors I know speaks Japanese like a native speaker.

this reminds me of how bad the accents and English of some of my professors were during my undergrad. >_<

While I teach at this juku I could take a MA at a local university, but do I need a student visa to do so?

kainzero Wrote:this reminds me of how bad the accents and English of some of my professors were during my undergrad. >_<

Language in science is more colorful than poetry.

@magamo They could at least make an effort to improve their prononciation.

magamo Wrote:

kainzero Wrote:this reminds me of how bad the accents and English of some of my professors were during my undergrad. >_<

Language in science is more colorful than poetry.

it wasn't really their language in science.
i just had no idea what he was talking about.

(i've also had good profs with foreign-accented english and bad profs with american-accented english so really, as long as you can be understood and you actually care about your students and not just your research you can be a good professor in my book.)

kainzero Wrote:it wasn't really their language in science.
i just had no idea what he was talking about.

Oh, so their English was like the incomprehensible kind of English coming from an international grad student who is magically allowed to teach class when they don't even sound like speaking the same language as yours... I've seen many TAs and lecturers with terrible English though. Maybe some of them become professors.

louisecha Wrote:Why just be a math/computer science professor at a lousy university? Work even harder and become the first foreign Japan Prime Minister!

Speaking of politicians, there is the example of Matutei Tsurunen, who moved to Japan at age 27. He learnt Japanese without the aid of computers, SRS, or even RTK, and is now serving as a diet member as a member of The Democratic Party of Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marutei_Tsurunen

It would be interesting to see where the people on this forum end up in years to come.

I think bcrAn would prefer to be a computer scientist though : )

magamo Wrote:Oh, so their English was like the incomprehensible kind of English coming from an international grad student who is magically allowed to teach class when they don't even sound like speaking the same language as yours... I've seen many TAs and lecturers with terrible English though. Maybe some of them become professors.

there were times when a majority of the students just went to the grad student TA's discussion section instead of both that and the lecture.

even the professors can be horribly bad at english. that's what happens when the criteria for ranking as a top university in the US is based more on research than on the undergraduate experience.

Magamo answered a lot of what I was going to say, but here are some relevant points that come to mind:

1. Much less pressure to publish. In the English-speaking world, you won't get tenure unless you publish a handful of articles in first or second tier journals. This means that you may have to compromise your research to match the currently popular debates. Furthermore, it means that you're going to have to do a ton of research, submit a ton of papers, and attend a ton of conferences.

2. Salary is based on a full year rather than just nine months.

3. Most academic jobs available to foreigners are part-time contracts that can be renewed up to a maximum of generally 5 years. (This is discussed in the Cartels of the Mind book that was mentioned earlier.)

4. The national universities were partially privatized in 2004. It is actually realistic for foreigners to land tenure-track jobs in them now.

5. Given the exodus after the Tohoku earthquake, there are probably several job openings right now.

Some further questions worth asking (we're counting on you magamo!):

1. Are you required to publish at all once you land a tenure-track job?

2. Since the salaries are based on a full year, must you teach and fulfill administrative duties during the summer?

3. If comparing a degree from a top Japanese university to an Ivy or Ivy-equivalent (i.e. Stanford, Oxbridge, etc.), which is more valuable (in Japan)?

4. What is most important for getting a job in Japanese universites compared to English-speaking universities, which value the CV and the interview lecture (generally, 2-4 remaining job candidates are required to give a 1-2hr lecture on a topic in their respective areas of specialization before a final decision is made)?

5. Are sabbaticals different?

6. Are teaching loads different? (The standard in American research universities is 2-2, i.e. 2 courses in the fall semester, 2 in the spring semester.)

7. Are expectations/requirements for service to the discipline different (i.e. sitting on committees, journal editing, etc.)?

@yudanteiki
Maybe it's just in my discipline (philosophy). Philosophers pride themselves on being "rigorous," and often consider themselves, mathematicians, and physicists to be the elites of academia (and they will reference standardized tests like the GRE/LSAT to support this view while, at a different time, dismissing the idea that such tests have a strong correlation with intelligence). Anyway, this all results in a spartan academic environment. I'm not sure how the workload of philosophy grad students compares to other disciplines, but I wrote over 100 pages of technical philosophy last semester (over the course of 15 weeks).

@kainzero
Most professors care about their students... that is... their grad students. Many professors hate teaching undergrads because they're often immature or arrogant. When the immature ones show that they don't care for the subject, or worse, open disrespect for the subject, professors are more likely to not care about teaching them (pearls before swine mindset). On the other hand, there are the arrogant students who think they have all the solutions to every problem in the discipline even though they've just been initiated into the discipline. This is frustrating for obvious reasons.

In contrast to undergrads, grad students are there because they want to be and they generally don't assume know-it-all attitudes (at least directed towards professors. Other grad students is a different story). Not to mention, they usually have more developed and interesting ideas compared to undergrads, which are valuable when it comes to research.

On top of these issues, you also have the demands of research publications. Basically, if you don't publish enough journal articles by the time you're up for tenure review (5 years after you land a job), then you'll be given a year before you're jobless. It is very difficult to land another tenure track job once you fail a tenure review. Therefore, professors are under intense pressure to publish a lot. Otherwise, they'll have to accept a poorly paid, dead-end lecture job teaching four or more 100-level undergrad courses a semester with very little time to do any research.

Now, I'm not trying to justify such professors' views and actions towards undergrads. I think their views are wrong and arrogant. However, my purpose is just to explain why they don't care about teaching undergrads. I've been a teacher's assistant for undergrad courses in which the professor just read a powerpoint for two hours. I then later attended graduate seminars with the same professor (sometimes during the same day!) in which he or she suddenly becomes one of the best teachers in my life, leading some of the most dynamic and engaging discussions I've joined. So, most of the time they have the ability to be great teachers, they just save it for the grad students because they feel like it's a waste in other situations.

Also, a professor once told me that universities don't hire professors as teachers, but rather as experts in their fields. Hence why professors are not required to have teaching credentials (other than a PhD or Masters).

vileru Wrote:Also, a professor once told me that universities don't hire professors as teachers, but rather as experts in their fields. Hence why professors don't require teaching credentials (other than a PhD or Masters).

Which is why, in my experience, the vast majority of them don't know how to teach effectively. Off-topic, but this is a serious problem with university education. Just because someone is an expert in their field does not, in my opinion, qualify them to teach it to others.

As someone studying education, it's all too obvious which lecturers have undergone teacher training and had experience keeping secondary students engaged, as opposed to those who can't even keep a room of self-motivated adults interested in something they are paying to study...

I'm not saying one has to teach in a secondary school first to be a good lecturer. That's nonsense. But a greater nonsense is expecting academics which no education training to magically have the skills to effectively communicate their "expert knowledge", motivate and engage students, or inspire passion for their subject area.

It just seems counter-intuitive to me...

SammyB Wrote:

vileru Wrote:Also, a professor once told me that universities don't hire professors as teachers, but rather as experts in their fields. Hence why professors don't require teaching credentials (other than a PhD or Masters).

Which is why, in my experience, the vast majority of them don't know how to teach effectively. Off-topic, but this is a serious problem with university education. Just because someone is an expert in their field does not, in my opinion, qualify them to teach it to others.

This was actually the professor's point. It's not their job to teach their expert knowledge to others. Being an expert just entails conducting research only an expert can do, attending conferences that only other experts attend, etc. Teaching is just a necessary distraction that brings in enough money to make the research and conferences possible. The purpose of large research universities is not to give students an education, it's to conduct cutting edge research. Why do you think there are lecture halls that can fit 500 or more students? Education is not the priority at such places.

Liberal arts colleges are for an education. In terms of education, the only benefit a large research university has over a liberal arts college is that students may be exposed to the most cutting edge research, and they may attend talks and conferences featuring leading researchers from around the world. And while, yes, there are some large research universities that emphasize undergrad education (e.g. Oxford, Stanford, and Yale), they are in a very small minority.

@vileru

Different fields have different cultures, and I can't speak for non-math or non-computer science fields. Each subfield has its own unique culture too. So the following may not be true in your field or subfield.

vileru Wrote:Some further questions worth asking (we're counting on you magamo!):

1. Are you required to publish at all once you land a tenure-track job?

At least in science, yes as long as you're in a reputable research university and want to be promoted. The thing is that in competitive fields, your average posdoc has already published more papers in leading journals in their field than are required to get promoted to be a tenured associate professor. Things may be different in liberal arts. Also, teaching oriented universities don't care about your publication list much. I think this is true in other countries though.

vileru Wrote:2. Since the salaries are based on a full year, must you teach and fulfill administrative duties during the summer?

It seems, in general, you have more administrative duties in a Japanese university. Also, semesters work a bit differently than in the US so it's a little difficult to compare things that way. The summer semester doesn't exit in many universities in the first place.

vileru Wrote:3. If comparing a degree from a top Japanese university to an Ivy or Ivy-equivalent (i.e. Stanford, Oxbridge, etc.), which is more valuable (in Japan)?

Different people will give you different answers. "Valuable" is too vague a word, I think.

vileru Wrote:4. What is most important for getting a job in Japanese universites compared to English-speaking universities, which value the CV and the interview lecture (generally, 2-4 remaining job candidates are required to give a 1-2hr lecture on a topic in their respective areas of specialization before a final decision is made)?

Networking and luck. As is often said, you should be in the right place at the right time.

vileru Wrote:5. Are sabbaticals different?

I don't know the exact situation, but it seems many universities still don't grant you sabbaticals. And if your university does, it may not be as flexible or generous as the kind of sabbatical you get in the US.

vileru Wrote:6. Are teaching loads different? (The standard in American research universities is 2-2, i.e. 2 courses in the fall semester, 2 in the spring semester.)

Courses work differently. In Japan, if you teach one typical course in one semester, that usually means you teach one 90 minutes or so class once each week. A heavier course is twice a week. I think the kind of course that spreads out over more than two weekdays is rare or nonexistent.

Teaching duties are different from university to university. I have no idea what is the norm, but if I can choose either the usual 2-2 or the teaching loads one of my friends has in one of the prestigious Japanese research universities, I'd gladly pick the former.

vileru Wrote:7. Are expectations/requirements for service to the discipline different (i.e. sitting on committees, journal editing, etc.)?

I don't know how important it is in Japan or any other country. You might want to put everything you can in your resume though.

Thanks for the informative reply, magamo. I have a few follow-up questions and comments:

magamo Wrote:The thing is that in competitive fields, your average posdoc has already published more papers in leading journals in their field than are required to get promoted to be a tenured associate professor. Things may be different in liberal arts.

Philosophy seems to be different. Of all the CVs I've seen from major research universities (Tokyo U, Kyoto U, etc), I have seen few, if any, professors who have published in the leading, international philosophy journals. All of them had lengthy publication lists, but practically all of their publications were in Japanese.

magamo Wrote:Also, semesters work a bit differently than in the US so it's a little difficult to compare things that way. The summer semester doesn't exit in many universities in the first place.

How long is the typical semester in Japan (the typical U.S. semester is 15 weeks + 1 week of finals)? The beginning of the academic year is in April, yes? Generally, when does each semester begin and end?

magamo Wrote:

vileru Wrote:3. If comparing a degree from a top Japanese university to an Ivy or Ivy-equivalent (i.e. Stanford, Oxbridge, etc.), which is more valuable (in Japan)?

Different people will give you different answers. "Valuable" is too vague a word, I think.

Sorry for being unclear. By "valuable" I mean, which degree is more likely to get you a job? Likewise, which degree is generally considered more prestigious? In more concrete terms, let's say you're an aspiring Japanese grad student and you've received acceptance letters from a Japanese national university and an Ivy. Which would you choose?

magamo Wrote:

vileru Wrote:7. Are expectations/requirements for service to the discipline different (i.e. sitting on committees, journal editing, etc.)?

I don't know how important it is in Japan or any other country. You might want to put everything you can in your resume though.

In the U.S., service to the discipline is considered during tenure reviews. Although, I should add that tenure reviews are arbitrary to a large extent (department politics, etc.)

15 weeks is the standard semester.