We all talk about the problems and difficulties in the lives of students, but we always forget to mention the difficulties that professors face.
The job of a teacher is considered as a fixed-time job by many. A lot of students talk about how a professor just has to come, speak for an hour, deliver lectures, and go back and enjoy the rest of the day. But the real question is that, is their job as easy as it is thought to be? The answer to this question comes in many forms.
Becoming a professor is not just a day-job that can be turned off after working hours. It changes the way of life, as it changes the way one acts, and you cannot truly turn your academic brain off. Their job is not just restricted to the classroom. It is taken to their home as well. For instance, writing assignments is the work of students, but correcting them and offering ways for becoming better is the work of the teacher. Correcting assignments of 50 students is not done in a single day. If a student takes an hour to write a test, the professor will also need some time to read and correct it. It is a result of hours of hard work.
The work of a professor is also not limited to delivering lectures. It forms a much wider perspective. Once you become a teacher and are responsible for a bunch of students, you are not responsible just for their academics, but also their overall growth. Where the right or a positive professor can lead to the rise of a student, the negative one can lead to their fall. Everything a teacher does has the power to influence the students.
Bharati Jagannathan, a permanent faculty at Miranda House said, “The job of a professor is easier in comparison to other private corporate jobs as they have to work for longer shifts. However, there are other difficulties in our lives. It depends on what we are looking at. For instance, teaching the same paper over years is not difficult as we just need to brush up our knowledge. But taking a new paper increases the difficulty. We need to spend hours in college where we do not even have our personal space. The people in the administrative department have their cubicles, but we are required to share the same room with other professors. The work is also not confined to just college, as we need to prepare for our lectures, read and check assignments every day.”
Mridul Megha, an ad-hoc professor said, “Being a teacher is not easy, but it is exciting. Moreover, being an ad-hoc professor is a little difficult because the fear that we will have to sit for interviews again in the next semester and we might or might not get the job is always there at the back of our mind. As a result of this, we are also not able to associate ourselves with a single college.”
She further adds, “The notion that teaching is time-constrained is not very true. Teaching is a profession that is not restricted to just college. We need to prepare daily for our lectures and if we have 4 lectures then it is like preparing for 4 tests every day. We need to keep updating ourselves and that is not easy. In most of the other professions, the work stays confined to the workplace itself but as a teacher, we have to dedicate around 2-3 hours at home every day to reading.”
Balancing work, family, life, and self is demanding at times. Professional life is time-consuming and challenging. Thus, it can be said that the life of a professor is not easy. Just like every other professional, they have a hundred things to deal with, and they have a bigger responsibility of building the character of a student as well.
Feature Image Credits: DUB Archives
Priya Chauhan