What's your typical work week like?

There's an interesting discussion going on over at the Smoker (on what started out as a "hiring" thread) where people are sharing what their jobs are like: viz., how many courses they teach, how much time people spend working each week, etc. I think this is a useful discussion to have because, frankly -- and as that thread indicates -- there is so much variability in working conditions that, all too often, people are sometimes unaware of. Work in an R1 with a 2/2 load is way different than working in a SLAC with a 3/3 load, which is in turn way different than teaching a 4/4 or 5/5 load or adjuncting.

I think it is important to communicate these realities for a number of reasons. First, knowing the realities can be helpful to undergraduates thinking of pursuing graduate school, as well as for graduate students before they head out onto the market (it's good to know in advance what you may be "signing up for"!). Second, I think it may be important for our colleagues across the discipline -- including people on search committees -- to know what things are like in different positions. I've known some people in really difficult conditions -- people with high teaching loads -- who have published up a storm; and if I were on a search committee, I would think this would be relevant to evaluating the candidate. 

Finally, prior to the Smoker thread, I've had a number of people (grad students and some faculty) suggest to me that it might be intrinsically helpful to them to get an idea of how people in the profession spend their time. The general questions I've been asked here are these: "What is "normal"? How much time weekly do people spend on research, teaching, etc.?" Indeed, for those of us who are in academic jobs, discussing "what normal life is like" in different types of jobs may enable us to think about and discuss important work-life balance issues.

What I would like to do here, then, is ask you all to share what your typical work week looks like. Allow me to begin.

I have had two full-time academic jobs since grad school. I spent one year at the University of British Columbia, and then the past handful of years at the University of Tampa -- and my typical work week between them couldn't be more different. At UBC, I had a 2/2 teaching load, TA's to do grading, and no administrative duties. I taught one class for 50 minutes MWF and one class for 75 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Finally, both of my classes were in my AOS (Intro to Ethics and Intro to Political). 

Basically, I had a ton of time to do research. Because I knew the material I was teaching like the back of my hand, I spent most of my work days, almost every day, working on research. Monday through Friday, I would basically get to the office at 9am, teach one 50 or 75 minute course, spend maybe 6 hours a day doing research, hit the gym for an hour, and head home (I've long had a work-life balance rule for not doing work at night or on weekends; I break this rule only very occasionally). On average, I think I worked 40 hours a week: about 8 hours a day, mostly on research.

Strangely, through, despite having so much time for research, and despite spending so much time doing it, I was spectacularly unproductive. I spent the whole year working on a couple of papers, and published only one short reply that year. Partly, I think I was just struggling to learn how to publish. But, as I will now explain, I don't think it was just that. Somewhat paradoxically, my experience has been that having less time to do research has improved my research habits in unexpected ways.

After one year at UBC, I moved to Tampa. At Tampa, I teach a 3/3. Perhaps more interestingly, each of my classes meets for 2 hours apiece on Tuesdays and Thursdays (so, 6 hours in the classroom on both days). From my experience, this is really unusual. At most universities, MWF classes are 50 minutes long and T/Th classes are 70 minutes. At UT, MWF classes are 70 minutes per day and T/Th classes are 2 hours per day. I can't tell you how much more prep this requires. I also typically teach 2 new courses per semester, often in topics outside of my AOS (Ancient Philosophy, Etc.). Because 2 hours of philosophy with undergrad non-majors twice a week is pretty tough (it takes quite a bit to keep things interesting for two hours), I spend a lot of time prepping and grading -- anywhere from 5-6 hours a day on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Here, then, is my typical week now. I wake up at about 8am each weekday. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I spend between 5-6 hours a day on class prep and grading. I may get a couple of hours of research in during the afternoon, if I'm lucky. I then take the dog out for a run about 4pm (for my well-being and for him) and then spend the night hanging out with my wife. Tuesdays and Thursdays are six hours of teaching apiece (until 8pm), plus two hours of office hours -- so, no real research on those days. Fridays, then, are pretty much the only day of the week I get to do a substantial amount of research. So, on Fridays, I basically do research all day (from about 9am to 4pm), minus an hour at 10am for a freshman transition-to-college course I teach and 1 hour for an independent study. I also then coach a debate team on Friday afternoons, serve on two university committees which meet several times a semester, and have spent time organizing several campus events (which I will simply average to 2 hours per week). For work-life balance reasons, I still don't do research at night or on weekends. 

So, then, my average work week looks like this: about 8 hours per day MWF and 12 hour days on T/Th (so, about 50 hours per week). This is not an exaggeration, and no, I do not count things like blogging (I tend to draft up these things after work, sometimes to the chagrin of my wife). It is a lot of work. I also really enjoy it. I've gotten really, really efficient at grading, so it doesn't drive me nuts. All things considered, I truly love my job. I love teaching, I love research, I love working with students (committee work? not so much!). The only thing I don't love about it is the "rat race"  (viz. applying for jobs, worrying about my future, whether I'm publishing enough, or in the right places, etc.). 

Anyway, I've had some people tell me I spend way too much time on teaching. The rather bizarre thing, though, is that all the time I spend teaching has made me a far more productive (and, I think, better) researcher than I ever was when I had more time on my hands. The reasons for this seem to me to be two-fold. First, when I was at UBC (and had a lot of time on my hands), I was incredibly inefficient. I would "overthink" everything, spend way too much time polishing sentences or paragraphs, and finally, get stuck on problems for days (or even weeks) on end. Now that I have so little time for research on my hands, I find myself forced to be efficient. I have to get stuff out of my head quickly or I'll never get anywhere -- and, if I run into a problem I'm having trouble solving, I immediately set it aside and move onto something else (e.g. another paper). In short, having far less research time seems to me to have dramatically improved my research habits. Secondly, I've been incredibly surprised by just how much teaching can contribute to generating good reseach ideas. When I was at UBC, I used to spend so much time reading the literature that, at some points, I felt like I had "lost the forest for the trees." Nowadays, most of my research ideas -- including the book I'm working on, and several published papers -- have come from just trying to put together good undergraduate lectures on course material. Basically, I've found that teaching forces me to cut to the heart of the problems/arguments, and actually get far clearer on things than I think I did when I had more time for research. Strange!

Anyway, this is partly why I thought it might be helpful for us to share our work patterns and experiences. My own experience has been that (A) what I might like (e.g. tons of free time to do research), and (B) what seems to be good for me as a researcher (e.g. teaching more, not less!), have been very different things. 

What have other people's experiences been? What is your typical work week like?

Comments

[Eugene]

Thanks for sharing, Marcus (if I may).

One thing that I'd really like to hear more about, though, is how a typical post-graduate school work week _feels_ relative to a typical work week in graduate school. I'm interested because the one thing that I was sure would be different after graduate school is that there would no longer be a pervasive sense of _pressure_ and a corresponding sense of anxiety, because there would no longer be any reason to worry about job stuff.

But after reading a few descriptions of the first six years of post-graduate school life from threads over at the smoker, I'm getting the impression that things might actually get worse in this regard after graduate school, because the bar for tenure is usually set exceedingly high, if tenure is even in the cards at all.

My time spent in the so-called real world before graduate school didn't come with a deep and omnipresent sense of dread. If my impression is right that things do indeed get worse as a junior faculty member in this way, I find it shocking that anyone is willing to be vexed with so much anxiety for a good 10-15 year chunk of their lives.

[Rachel]

I have things really cushy right now because I deferred the start of my TT job to take up a postdoc for the year.

I'm only teaching one course this year (this term), an undergrad-grad split course on my AOS (in fact, most of the readings are chapters from my book manuscript). So there's *maybe* 1-2hrs of prep each week, in addition to the 3hrs of class time.

I don't work weekends, usually, nor nights.

Most days I'm in the office from 10am-4pm. I work on research Mon, Wed, Thurs. Usually from 10am-noon, a 1hr lunch with colleagues, then 1pm-4pm more research. Fridays without colloquia it's the same thing; with colloquia, I may go to lunch with the speaker if they're a friend, and I won't do any research.

I've done some service work in my time here (all voluntary, mostly having to do with diversity issues). I've put in about 20hrs or more of service work. But there are no service expectations or requirements for me.

This will certainly change in the Fall when I start my 2-3 TT job. I'll have 1-2 preps per semester, but all of my teaching is in my various AOS, which reduces prep loads. I'll be protected from service work until closer to my tenure evaluation, even though I know that I'll be in demand for some service requirements given what I partially work on. I may have a couple students to advise or do a directed studies with (since I'm the department's epistemologist).

I really believe in the 'work smarter' not 'work harder' model. I doubt I'll work >35hrs/week, on average.

On a MWF teaching schedule, I'll do some research on non-teaching days in the morning (10-noon), then prep (1pm-4pm); on teaching days I'll do a bit of research after teaching. That's the plan. We'll see how things actually work out.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Eugene: thanks for your comment and excellent question. I can't speak for everyone, but my experience -- and the experiences of others I've talked to -- is that the anxieties post grad school are *far* worse than in grad school.

Indeed, this is -- again in my experience -- one of the biggest misconceptions grad students have: that things somehow get easier once you get the PhD. Nope! Now you are completely on your own. You have to publish several articles a year in good journals while teaching anywhere from 2-5 courses a term while needing high student reviews in all of them while doing countless other things (advising, etc.). It is HARD. Look, I didn't have an easy time in grad school -- but after grad school? That is when the real anxiety set in. You're on your own, doing 10x as many things as you did before, and you hav to do them all at a very high level.

Sound like a miserable experience? Truth be told, many times it has been. But I still love what I do. It's a lot like marriage in fact. Marriage is far more difficult that merely dating -- but it is so much more worthwhile. As hard as being a professional is, I would never want to go back to grad school. :)

[Marcus Arvan]

A quick addendum: I learned several years that there is a choice I had to make. I could approach all of the difficulties and anxieties with dread, or approach them optimistically, as opportunities to be seized and to never give up. It, and my love for philosophy, are what keep me going.

[Marcus Arvan]

Rachel: I prefer the work smarter *and* harder approach. But to each their own! ;)

[Anthony Carreras]

I'm in a permanent position at a community college. (I can't call my position tenure-track, because we technically do not have "tenure" as it is known in four year colleges and universities. But I have the kind of position that would be the equivalent of that in my school.) I teach a 5/5/2. Here's what my week looks like:

MWF: Get to office at 8:30, read or write until 9:30. Go over notes for class. Teach Intro to Philosophy at 10, 11, and 12. I eat lunch, and then from roughly 2-4 I'm taking care of teaching related stuff - grading assignments, meeting with students, returning emails, prepping for the next day, etc. Then I go home and hang out with my wife and daughter. Sometimes on MWF afternoons I will have committee meetings.

TTH. I get to the office at 8:30 and read or write until 10:30. Then I look over my notes for class. Then I teach Intro to Ethics from 11-12:20. I get an hour for lunch and then teach Intro to Ethics again from 1:30-2:50. Then from 3-4 I'm taking care of teaching related stuff - grading assignments, meeting with students, returning emails, prepping for the next day, etc. Then I go home and hang out with my wife and daughter. Sometimes on TTH I will have committee meetings or other service related duties during the lunch hour.

I bring a fair amount of work home, usually prep work, that I'll do for an hour or two at night. Also - when I am grading not just any assignment but *papers*, the whole schedule becomes devoted to that. The mornings, the afternoons, my evenings - all of it is taken up by grading papers. This takes up about 5 weeks of the semester. I don't make my students write as much as I would like, but I don't think I could grade papers around the clock all semester and keep my sanity.

My summer schedule is different. I teach Summer I, which is roughly 5 and a half weeks long, Monday - Thursday, four hours per day in the classroom. Having Friday's off is a plus, and I hope to be able to use that time this summer for more reading and writing. (This is my second year in this job.)

It is a grind, but the fact that I am not required to publish makes things a lot less stressful. The heavy teaching load has taken getting used to, though I was able to make the transition from graduate school fairly smoothly I think.

One thing I've been struck by as of late: Academic life as a faculty member (unless you have some super cushy position) requires you to deal with certain practical realities (like enrollments, administration, service, etc) that graduate school may never have required you to deal with. Speaking for myself anyway, my life in graduate school pretty much revolved around ideas. I don't think I realized how awesome that was and how privileged I was for that time. I realize it now. If you're still in graduate school, enjoy it.

[Carrie]

I am a third-year graduate student, and what strikes me about all the replies here is how much work-life balance is being stressed. This is something I've talked about with my fellow students, since our observation of our professors at our university is how little work-balance many of them have, whether they are are pre- or post-tenure and whether they have partners and/or children or not (e.g., never taking weekends off, feeling like they don't have enough time for daily tasks like cooking and cleaning, etc.). Perhaps this is a generational phenomenon (although some of them are pre-tenure, so not too much further along the the posters here), or part of being at a research school? Either way, it's encouraging to hear stories from people who are getting a lot of research work done and still spend time with family, friends, and things outside philosophy.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Carrie: Thanks for your comment! I suspect it may have to do with working at an R1. If one must publish several articles a year in top-20 journals in order to get tenure (as one must do at an R1), then I can imagine that fear of failure might drive one to sacrifice any semblance of work-life balance. Then I imagine that if one gets tenure, one might be so accustomed to lacking work-life -- internalizing a single-minded devotion to work -- that one might just continue doing the same. This is of course just speculation on my part, but my feeling (having been a grad student at an R1) is that there may be some truth to it.

[Elisa Freschi]

Marcus, I have a lateral question, namely: why do you exclude blog-hours from your working hours? Don't you understand your blog posts (especially the most research-oriented ones, like the one on P2P) as part of your work? Or at least as part of your "service to the profession"?

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Elisa: thanks for the question. I don't consider blogging "work" for a couple of reasons.

First, I don't think it counts as that in the eyes of people who judge my "work" (i.e. getting a job, getting tenure, etc.).

Second, as I've explained on the blog before, I find it psychologically important to define work *very* narrowly: in terms of teaching, research, and mandatory university and professional service. I find this important because my past experience is that it is easy to "make excuses" for unproductive behavior by calling it "work." As a grad student, I comforted myself not writing because I was reading, and I considered reading "work." That was very bad. I set myself back philosophically and professionally. So, I define work narrowly, and ensure that I dedicate a specific amount of time to *that* each day and each week.

[Rachel]

I kinda want to snarkily note that a "typical" week for me may now include being publicly defamed by the most prominent blogger in philosophy.