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A comment on The Nigerian professor who makes more money welding. Parent comment

Re:The Nigerian professor who makes more money welding by jojobas on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @10:49PM (#39199625)
There is no stigma. A professor is someone who's supposed to define your country's future by helping people grasp knowledge. Having or not having the right set of professors today makes a lot of difference to your country 50 years down the track. Only a small percentage of people can ever build themselves up to do that kind of work.

Welders make steel constructions that are used today. More than half of all people can be trained to weld well.

Having people move from university teaching to trades indicates a strategic misalignment with long-term growth.

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Re:The Nigerian professor who makes more money welding by keiferski on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @11:43PM (#39200027)
That’s not how it works in real life. Professors have PhDs in a narrow speciality in their field. They aren’t trained to be excellent teachers and teaching is often an unpleasant afterthought to them, as the main focus is doing research.
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Re:The Nigerian professor who makes more money welding by jojobas on Wednesday January 31, 2024 @12:02AM (#39200154)
Professors aren't "trained". If you're not an excellent teacher you have no business being a professor. You're thinking "researcher".
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Re:The Nigerian professor who makes more money welding by keiferski on Wednesday January 31, 2024 @12:15AM (#39200235)
Again, that’s not how academia actually works. Professors are hired based on research output and potential, not teaching ability.
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Re:The Nigerian professor who makes more money welding by hilux on Wednesday January 31, 2024 @01:04AM (#39200524)
"Professor" and "researcher" are synonymous at American research universities.

I've worked for two world-famous research universities. Getting tenure is insanely difficult, and has approximately zero to do with teaching ability.

(It's different for adjuncts, lecturers, others who are hired to teach. But they have different titles.)

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