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Indeed this is a lovely route. Maybe I don't want to be in the cutting edge. But I want to be a great teacher. Someone that disseminates knowledge in a way th
by elviejo 16y ago
Indeed this is a lovely route.
Maybe I don't want to be in the cutting edge.
But I want to be a great teacher.
Someone that disseminates knowledge in a way that makes sense for the students.
Someone that is influential en students lives and maybe those students will go and become great researchers.
So yes being "just" a great teacher is a worthy goal on its own.
Even if you don't discover anything new.
- dkarl 16y agoI completely agree and am thankful for the professors who take their teaching job seriously. To look at it from the opposite perspective, I dropped out of (a very good, top five in my field) grad school because I realized I wasn't brilliant and realized if I entered an academic career I would basically be a teacher. And I suck at teaching. And I had little interest in getting better. I had other reasons for dropping out and have sometimes considered the above to be just a bad justification for a bad decision, but more and more I think that whatever my true reasons, it was a valid reason and a good decision. It would have weighed me down knowing that I was actually pretty bad at my primary productive role in society.