Korean Job Discussion Forums

[I'm With You]

[cdninkorea]

I want to second what "Im With You" said: Nice post, tob55.

[Weigookin74]

REal professors have tenure. I know of a handful of foriegners who have tenure and have the Korean prof pay to go with it. Makes a few million won a month. But, they're specialized in their fields and don't teach English. Their non English subjects were high in demand and they were in the right place at the right time. Seoul unis wouldn't give him tenure and he gave them the finger. Went outside of Seoul and got his tenure job, great pay, and low teaching schedule. But, I don't need to go to an Ivy league school and be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt like them.

[PRagic]

tob55 wrote: "My K-citizenship is the one thing that may have raised the bar enough for me to actually obtain a tenure track position in a University once my PhD is completed this year. It is no guarantee, but it allows me to actually compete for tenure track jobs."

The key word in this description is 'MAY', but in reality K citizenship doesn't always impact whether or not you get a tenure track gig. Now, if you're at a smaller university and they specifically want someone who will lecture in Korean, then, sure, it's an in. But in that case, you'll STILL be competing with a butt load of Korean Ph.D.s, many of whom have post-doc teaching experience (the only kind of experience that really matters).

The larger universities, though, are increasingly advertising internationally across the diciplines, and are seeking to expand the number of content courses taught in English (foreign language courses, of course, not included).

You'll have a decision to make. If you're first offer isn't for a tenure track gig, think long and hard about taking it. It might be better to do a post-doc at a big name university if you can get one, especially if the non-tenure track job is at a low ranking university that will load up your teaching hours to the point where you won't be able to publish. Besides, for most decent tenure track jobs, it's best to have at least one or two SCI/SSCI publications to be even considered.

Also remember that even as a 'tenure TRACK' professor, there is no promise of continual renewal. Assistant Professors are hired usually on an initial one or two year contract. If you make it to Associate Professor, you then usually get a 4 or 5 year contract. IF you make the final cut to full tenure and Full Professor (generally reviewed at the same time in Korea), then you'll get the uber contract. Not too much different from the way things are run in N. America aside from the fact that most people go for tenure with fewer pubs at the Associate level in the US and the jump to Full Prof is an even bigger process.

Good luck wrapping up the dissertation.

[tob55]

[qcat79]

[PRagic]

@weigookin74

Getting a Ph.D. doesn't have to mean taking on a huge amount of debt. Many competitive Ph.D. programs provide funding. That funding includes a tuition waiver and a monthly stipend for TA or RA duties, or even teaching full classes at later stages of the degree. You won't get rich, and you do forgoe potential income, but you won't necessarily go into gobs of debt.

Personally, the only debt I ever took on was at the beginning of my undergraduate studies. That slate got wiped clean when I served full time in the Army for 4 years. Then I worked my way through my MBA and paid it off as I went, and my Ph.D. was fully funded from the get-go. I even had additional external funding for my research.

During semester breaks over the course of my grad studies, I worked as
much as I could, too, and was even teaching full time by the time imwas ABD. In the end, we made it through my MBA and Ph.D. years with money in the bank and no debt. Granted, I wouldn't wish that schedule on anyone, and looking back I've been given to wonder as to just how I juggled that much, but if you're highly motivated, it can get done.

My major allows for employment across a few in demand disciplines, so I was fortunate to land a tenure track gig right away. I turned down two visiting prof offers at good schools and one tenure track job at a big name university right before I got that job, so it was a risky time. The visiting prof jobs would have meant working at least two years in a position that wouldn't count toward tenure. So if I had then rolled into a tenure track gig, I would have started at year 1 as far as experience goes. The tenure track offer I turned down wanted to really load up new hires with teaching hours, so I knew my research would suffer.

tob55 will be weighing the same scenarios soon enough. The point here is that the Ph.D. is just a base qualification. You then need to generate post-doc, tenure track experience, and above all publish, in order to make a go at a career.

So it's interesting in a way to watch non-Ph.D. holders discuss whether or not they can or should be refered to as 'professor'. Nobody I work with gives it much thought because everybody has a Ph.D., everybody conducts research and publishes, everybody teaches grad classes and has MA/MS and Ph.D. students studying under them, and everybody is active in international conferences. We all participate in departmental, college, and university level policy decisions and have responsibilities that go beyond just teaching and research/publishing. We know what it takes to make it from the assistant to associate to full professor ranks, and there is a quiet acknowledgement given to those who meet the standards. There is no lauding the rank over one's peers, but there is none-the-less a quiet distinction drawn between those who should be called 'professor', those who have earned the degree and title and participate professionally to maintain it, and those who are not
qualified and who should, at least in good taste, not be called, nor request to be called, such. So would an adjunct with a Ph.D. be called professor? Absolutely, as that term is considered a salutation, not a rank, and that person has earned the right to be addressed as such. At least that's the way it works in N. America, and for the most part here in Korea (and China, and Japan, and Hong Hon, and Singapore...).

[Otus]

If you check your university ID card or certification of employment, it will most likely state your position as 'full-time lecturer - chon im kyung sa'. At many universities, you need to have been employed full-time for over two years before you get the 'full-time' status ... (many foreign teachers don't know they're still only officially ranked as part-timers for the first 2 years despite having a full-time contract). At least that's the way it used to be.

Without tenure track, I seriously doubt any official documentation is going to grant you 'professor' or 'assistant professor' status. However, the terms are freely used as job titles.

This is only based on what I have seen, working at 3 different unis each for a period of no less than 4 years. No doubt, someone is going to contradict all the above.

[Jodami]

[Otus]

[anamika]