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Your numbers are in line with what I see from my advisor.

The original also failed to break down paper writing. For a top-tier conference, you're going to spend several weeks worth of full days working on a paper, and you're probably going to do it twice per paper because, as they say, even Simon Peyton-Jones has papers rejected occasionally. This time is on top of work you already did to get your system working! (well, unless the paper is the result, as in some areas of theory)

You really, really have to want to live it. I enjoy it, and as a PhD student I don't mind spending all my waking hours that aren't devoted to my wife or a little bit of exercise doing research. But just to be competitive, that's sort of the baseline. I'm not sure, though, whether it's truly a demand of the job or just the default because academic research attracts people who work like that (I also worked like that when I was a developer at MSFT).



The thing is you can kinda coast if you want to. But in the UK at least you have to churn out at least 4 high quality papers every 6 years to be included in the "Research Excellence Framework", the assessment of the research quality of the university. Although you don't have to be included in the REF, it was used as a weeding point for redundancies at one of my previous universities (i.e. those who had been in the previous REF were exempt from being included in the redundancy pool; everyone else had to reapply for their jobs). So it does tend to hang over you, even if it's not a direct reason you might get fired.

My university is an ex-polytechnic, so it focuses a lot on teaching as well. You can quite easily get by just teaching - we have a few "just teachers", though they tend to be the older employees. New fulltime employees are expected to do a bit of everything, which is actually a lot better, IMO. If teachers are doing research and contributing to their field, they're reading current stuff and can incorporate that into their teaching. etc. etc. Lots of good reasons for it to happen.

Interdisciplinarians are also rewarded - one of the reasons I got my job in a tough environment (I do computer ethics) was because I had a strong background in computer science vs. most comp ethicists who come from philosophy. So it helps to be able to cover a few different things rather than just one very niche specialty subject as well.

Ultimately though I love my job. It's highly flexible, stimulating, varied work, I have great benefits, especially holidays, and the university is very supportive of family life.




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