How do you become a professor?

How do you become a professor at a university?

• In order to teach a certain subject at a university, do you have to wait for the professor who's currently teaching there to retire? Or can you become a professor at any time? ...show more

• Answer:

  You need at least a masters degree in the field you want to teach to apply for a job at a community college, and a PhD in that field to teach at a 4-year college or university. Most schools will hire someone new when someone retires, and sometimes hire someone new to expand the department. Any given school might only hire a professor in one particular field every 10 years or so, but there are many schools hiring new professors at the start of the academic job cycle (typically runs Sept - March to start the following August). It's very difficult to get a job as a professor. Most people earning a PhD want to be a professor, but few of them will ever get hired as a full time faculty member. We produce far more PhDs than we need to teach college. Each job opening gets hundreds of qualified applicants. You can't count on getting a job as a professor at all, much less at any particular school.