Hello, I’m Thilo Hagen
I am a University Professor at the National University of Singapore, and as such, I probably have the greatest job that I could imagine. For the most part, I get to do what I want, and so the things I do on a daily basis are mostly fun. Ok, there are some very painful admin tasks, and constant worries about grant funding, too. And there is usually also quite a lot of work. But since it is mostly meaningful stuff, I don’t mind!
What does a University Professor do on a daily basis. I think this varies widely, and it depends a lot on what someone’s priorities are. For me it is mainly the following things:
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-reading research papers and thinking about new ideas for research projects (this is the fun part; the hard part is to actually get funding for your ideas)
-helping students in the lab to do their research projects (usually lots of fun)
-preparing lectures, tutorials, other teaching activities (this is actually very exciting because unlike a school teacher, we have almost total freedom over what and how we teach the students)
-writing research grants – this can be fun, depending on your mental approach
-evaluating, which means marking and assessing reports, theses, assignments, exams (this part is slightly less fun)
-helping students to write reports, to give presentations, to “develop” (it is great to see the students eventually doing a better job than myself!)
-trying to improve myself (I think you can only do these things well if you actually try to constantly improve yourself)
These things are all quite awesome. When I started out, I basically just liked doing research, but I realised there are many other exciting things about being a University Professor.