Forbes has just published an article about professor’s career as the No. 1 of the least stressful jobs of 2013, and that has caused a huge uproar by many colleagues in the comments. Apparently, the article was written with misconceptions of what a professor’s life is like, based on innuendos and information from CareerCast. While the author has made an addendum after hearing a lot of angry comments in two days, the tone is disappointingly impersonal. Basically she only said I hear you, I am only relaying the message from CareerCast, thank you for your comments and I understand your life MAY be more stressful than portrayed. You can actually see how people are critical about that too, and I am not repeating that here.
For students who are fascinated about “doing research” as a career/becoming a professor, I encourage you to read through these discussions, as well as a followup article “Top 10 Reasons Being a University Professor is a Stressful Job” in Forbes by another contributor who has a science background to see the actual dedication that one has to put in to be in this profession.
Updated 2013-01-06.
I just received a link to another take of this discussion: “The Least Stressful Job for 2013? A Real Look at Being a Professor in the US“.