本期由知名医疗影像专家AAAS 和 IEEE Fellow, Ge Wang教授谈论他对教授这个职业的看法。
I am glad to see that some young remembers in my lab become interested in the faculty career and keep asking me about it. I recognize that this is a big topic. Before we dig it deeply, it may be helpful to first comment on advantages and disadvantages of the faculty career. Hopefully, this type of information is also interesting in various ways to many others.
我很高兴看到我实验室的一些年轻成员对大学教授这个职业产生了兴趣并不断向我咨询有关问题。我知道这是一个很大的话题。在我们深入挖掘之前，先评论一下教授职业生涯的优缺点可能会有所帮助。希望这种类型的信息以各种方式也可以令其他许多人感兴趣。
As an established profession, the pros and cons of a faculty career have been extensively discussed, and it would not be easy to add new points. Naturally, we want to hear what others said about this career option. A quick Google search reveals a good number of relevant items. For example, this link came on the top of my search: https://www.phdstudies.com/article/Pros-and-Cons-of-Continuing-into-an-Academic-Career/. After a quick reading, I got the following positive aspects of the faculty career: (1) Your freedom, (2) interest, (3) association with young students, (4) an international network, and (5) job stability and decent compensation; and the negative points are: (1) less money, (2) strong competition, (3) unstable transition, (4) chance to fail tenure, and (5) your work not into practice.
作为一个既定的职业，教授职业生涯的利弊已经得到了广泛的讨论，增加新的观点并不容易。自然地，我们希望听听别人对这个职业选择的看法。谷歌能够搜索到大量相关的内容。例如我搜索到的第一条的链接：https://www.phdstudies.com/article/Pros-and-Cons-of-Continuing-into-an-Academic-Career/。快速阅读后，我得到了教职的以下积极方面：（1）自由，（2）兴趣，（3）能和年轻学生接触，（4）国际社交网络，（5）工作稳定性和体面; 以及负面因素：（1）较少的工资，（2）激烈的竞争，（3）不稳定的过渡期，（4）拿不到长聘教职的可能性，（5）你的工作无法实用。
To make this blog more relevant, let us focus on an academic faculty career, and see if I could give you some new points worth your reading time. My immediate comments would be on the above-listed negative points which I tend to view positively.
为了使这篇博客更具相关性，让我们专注于学术职业生涯，看看我是否能给你一些值得你阅读时间的新观点。我的评论是根据上面列出的负面观点给出我的积极看法。
(1) Less money. Not necessarily. According to https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Physician-Salary-by-State, the average salary of a physician varies with the state, roughly in a range of 200K. By https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=High-Tech/Salary, the average salaries for Senior IT Project Manager, Chief Marketing Officer, and Chief Executive Officer are
175K, and $220K respectively. I would say that these salaries are not higher or not significantly higher than a good professor makes.
(1) 钱少？未必！根据 https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Physician-Salary-by-State, 临床医生的平均工资因州而异，大致范围在15万到20万美元之间。而根据 https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=High-Tech/Salary, 高级IT项目经理，首席营销官和首席执行官的平均薪水分别为10万美元，17.5万美元和22万美元。我会说这些薪水并不比一位不错的教授的薪水高或高很多。
(2) Strong competition. I don’t think so. I have a surgeon friend who is an international authority in liver transplantation. He earns much more than a physician. He is a perfectionism, every hit must drive the golf ball directly to the hole, because he doesn’t tolerate any imperfect move that can be fatal in the surgical suite. As a former software engineer, I used to make a lot of mistakes, and I would be really happy when most bugs were removed by the end of the day. Hence, I consider my pressure is much less than my friend’s. Because a professor pursues a real interest, he/she enjoys the work and associated pressure if handled well. As a faculty member, one does not need to be perfect or successful all the time. Persistence is rewarding, which is my former mentor Dr. Michael Vannier told me.
(2) 竞争激烈？我不这么认为！我有一位外科医生的朋友，他是肝移植方面的国际权威。他的收入远远超过内科医生。他是一个完美主义者，每次击球都必须将高尔夫球直接送到球洞，因为他不能容忍任何不完美的动作，这在外科手术室中是致命的。作为一名前软件工程师，我曾经写过很多bug，当一天结束时改完大多数bug时，我会非常高兴。因此，我认为我的压力比我朋友的压力要小得多。因为教授追求真正的兴趣，如果能处理好的话，他/她喜欢工作和相关的压力。作为一名教员，人们不需要一直保持完美或成功。坚持是有回报的，这是我的导师Michael Vannier博士告诉我的。
(3) Unstable transition. It is good. Before one becomes a tenured professor, he/she is relatively young. The journey from a postdoctoral position and a tenure-track job toward a tenured professorship can be an exciting, joyful, eye-opening, and invaluable experience. The threshold for tenure is not easy but is not ridiculously high either. Hence, a majority of tenure-track faculty members eventually make it. In one’s lifetime, when the tenure decision is made it is a finest moment of memory.
(3) 过渡不稳定？这挺好！在成为终身教授之前，他/她相对年轻。从博士后职位到获得进入终身教轨的工作再到终身教授的这段过程可以说是令人兴奋，快乐，大开眼界的宝贵经历。终身教职的门槛并不容易，但没有高得那么离谱。因此，大多数选择这条路的人最终都成功拿到了终身教职。在一个人的一生中，获得终身教职的时刻是记忆中最好的时刻之一。
(4) Chance to fail tenure. Not the end of the world. A chance of not getting tenured is not zero; otherwise, the tenure system will lose a good part of its meaning. The fact that one has been put on the tenure track shows his/her quite intellectual merits, since many other candidates even cannot get a chance to be tried out. By any measure, the period on the tenure track is unique, and can help develop into other career options, as long as you do not take the failure personally. Interestingly, all those I know who failed tenure are actually not below the average quality of the faculty, and do have alternative decent career paths. It seems to me that the main reason for failure in the tenure system is lack of senior mentorship and/or academic network, instead of insufficient IQ. This can be the topic of another article.
(4) 没能获得终身教职？不是世界末日！没有获得终身职位的可能性不是零; 否则，终身教轨制度将失去很大一部分意义。事实上，一个人能进入终身教轨，这就已经表明他/她具有很大的智力优势，因为许多其他候选人甚至没有这样的机会。无论如何，进入终身教轨这段时期是独一无二的，即便失败，这期间的积累都能帮助你进一步发展。有趣的是，所有我知道的失败的人实际上都并不比获得终身教职的人的平均水平差，而且都有其他不错的职业道路。在我看来，他们失败的主要原因是缺乏高层次的指导和/或学术网络，而不是智商不足。这可能是另一篇文章的主题了。
(5) Work not into practice. Generally untrue. For example, we are now performing AI/ML-based imaging research in collaboration with leading companies. Such academic-industrial partnerships are ideal to translate cutting-edge research results into the medical imaging marketplace. It is widely known that scientists figure out why, and engineers work out how. We are “scieneers” who are interested in both why and how in a highly interdisciplinary field called biomedical engineering. There are many chances to make differences and have impact on communities and lives. The boundaries are increasingly blurry between academic institutes and startup companies. For example, Google is a spin-off from Stanford University. Generally speaking, academic value is more fundamental than daily utility. Purest mathematics and theoretical physics do meet our high level needs, and can be viewed as critically useful.
(5) 工作不能进入实用？一般不是这样！例如，我们现在正在与领先的公司合作进行基于AI / ML的成像研究。这种学术—工业合作伙伴关系对将尖端研究成果转化为医学成像市场是很理想的。众所周知，科学家们弄明白为什么，工程师们则研究如何解决问题，而我们是“scieneers”，要两者兼得，并且对生物医学工程这一高度跨学科领域中的“为什么”和“怎样做”同时有好奇心。教授有很多机会可以做出改变并对社会和生活产生影响的成果。学术机构和创业公司之间的界限越来越模糊。例如，谷歌就是衍生于斯坦福大学的。一般来说，学术价值比日常实用更具基础重要性。最纯粹的数学和理论物理确实满足了我们的高层次需求，因此可以被视为非常有用。
Having examined the so-called negative aspects of the faculty career, we can further argue for it. As mentioned in https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-of-being-a-professor, the faculty career has the flexibility in schedule, the vibrant intellectual atmosphere, rewarding engagement with students, tuition benefits to family members, and especially “very few professions command the respect of the general (and especially educated) public as faculty do.” “This influence can have a tremendous impact both at the individual level (career advancement, consulting jobs) and the societal level (e.g., Manhattan Project). Faculty members, along with doctors, enjoy a level of social prestige that hardly any others can compete with.”
在审视了教师职业的所谓消极方面之后，我们可以进一步推荐教授职业。如https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-of-being-a-professor所述，教师职业生涯具有灵活的时间安排，充满活力的知识氛围，有收获地与学生共事，为家庭成员带来学费优惠等等。尤其是“很少有职业能够像教职一样受到（特别是受过教育的）公众的尊重。”，“这种影响在个人层面（职业发展，咨询工作）和社会方面（例如，曼哈顿计划）产生巨大影响。 教授和医生一起享有相当程度的社会声望，几乎没有其他人可以与之竞争。”
While I acknowledge that all professions can be outstanding for matching individuals, generally speaking I believe that the academic faculty position is not only a good job but actually the best job. Intellectually, a professor keeps learning and studying new things. At some times on certain topics he/she can be the best in the world, from which intellectual satisfaction and sense of achievement is beyond worldly things. Learning from others and mentoring the next generation makes you an integral part of civilization. One’s students are his/her academic children. The theory, technology, papers and books can be perpetual monuments. The AI and other high-techs may reduce or replace many professions but will not substitute professors.
虽然我承认在匹配个人的前提下其实所有职业都是最佳职业，但总的来说，我相信学术职位不仅是一份好工作，而且实际上是最好的工作。教授一直在学习和研究新事物不断增进智慧。在他/她的领域，他/她可能是世界上最好的，从中获得的满足感和成就感是超越世俗的。向他人学习同时也指导下一代使你成为文明不可分割的一部分。一个人的学生就是他/她学术上的孩子。理论，技术，论文和书籍可以是永恒的纪念碑。AI和其他高科技可能会减少或取代许多职业，但不会替代教授。
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