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<blockquote data-quote="freyar" data-source="post: 6754375" data-attributes="member: 40227">Well, what you say is true in a number of cases (especially at &quot;research 1&quot; universities), but that's not actually what I was saying.&nbsp; For one thing, at very many universities --- certainly the large majority by numbers if not by reputation --- teaching takes primary importance over research at least in terms of job expectations.&nbsp; That is certainly true at my job.&nbsp; The issue, as I think you'd probably agree, is that there is little training for teaching at the university level (in science, anyway), and what exists is quite often so poor quality to be a total waste of time.&nbsp; That said, there are, in addition to the brilliant researchers but crappy lecturers, many brilliant researchers who are also gifted at teaching.What I actually meant was specifically that answering physics questions informally on an internet forum primarily devoted to RPGs isn't something I get paid for. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />&nbsp; My job description is officially 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% service.&nbsp; In practice, during the 8-month school year, I have 10-20% of my time for research (if I work nights/weekends) in a year when I've taught everything previously, so I need to put most of my summer work into research (though I also usually teach a good number of students through research project supervision, which is more time-consuming than it sounds).&nbsp; Service covers everything from university governance (ie, committee work), some professional service (like refereeing or conference organization, though some of that overlaps with research), and outreach to the public.&nbsp; In a sense, this thread would go into that last category, but because it's not easily verifiable (like a public lecture would be, say) due to (a) semi-anonymity and (b) the fact that no one in my university is going to search through EN World threads for physics topics, I can't practically claim it as an outreach activity.&nbsp; I do, however, generally take part in a number of outreach events each year, including lectures at libraries/retirement centers, short radio/TV spots, and even once speaking at an event for Neil deGrasse Tyson's visit to the other local university.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="freyar, post: 6754375, member: 40227"] Well, what you say is true in a number of cases (especially at "research 1" universities), but that's not actually what I was saying. For one thing, at very many universities --- certainly the large majority by numbers if not by reputation --- teaching takes primary importance over research at least in terms of job expectations. That is certainly true at my job. The issue, as I think you'd probably agree, is that there is little training for teaching at the university level (in science, anyway), and what exists is quite often so poor quality to be a total waste of time. That said, there are, in addition to the brilliant researchers but crappy lecturers, many brilliant researchers who are also gifted at teaching. What I actually meant was specifically that answering physics questions informally on an internet forum primarily devoted to RPGs isn't something I get paid for. ;) My job description is officially 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% service. In practice, during the 8-month school year, I have 10-20% of my time for research (if I work nights/weekends) in a year when I've taught everything previously, so I need to put most of my summer work into research (though I also usually teach a good number of students through research project supervision, which is more time-consuming than it sounds). Service covers everything from university governance (ie, committee work), some professional service (like refereeing or conference organization, though some of that overlaps with research), and outreach to the public. In a sense, this thread would go into that last category, but because it's not easily verifiable (like a public lecture would be, say) due to (a) semi-anonymity and (b) the fact that no one in my university is going to search through EN World threads for physics topics, I can't practically claim it as an outreach activity. I do, however, generally take part in a number of outreach events each year, including lectures at libraries/retirement centers, short radio/TV spots, and even once speaking at an event for Neil deGrasse Tyson's visit to the other local university. [/QUOTE]

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