My husband sent me this article this morning: the Globe and Mail summarizes some key points from a list of the most and least stressful jobs on earth. #1 least stressful job? University professor.
I’m not exactly a university professor, and some of the conditions I work under are quite different from theirs. My students, for example, don’t “generally want to be there,” at least not if by “there” you mean “English class;” in some cases, they don’t even want to be in college. There are also some university professors who are comfortable walking in, giving a lecture and then walking out and going off to do their own stuff while TAs grade their papers. I can agree that such a job sounds pretty low-anxiety, and it’s not how I operate (although if I could get someone else to do my grading I would be ALL OVER THAT.)
However, I don’t have to administer standardized tests, and I have tenure and a good salary. Do I have one of the least stressful jobs on earth?
Maybe. I can agree that military personnel, airline pilots and taxi drivers have it tougher than I do. That said, there are days when I think the belligerent students, sky-high piles of marking and standards of performance I set for myself are a bit too much for me to handle.
Post-secondary educators and those who know them: what do you think of this assertion? Do university professors have the least stressful job out there?
Image by Michal Zacharzewski
