Salaries of Professors in SG

If salary (i.e. money) matters a lot to you, it's easier to build up a small consulting business WHILE working toward your PhD in that 4-6 years.

8-9k is not a lot, considering the amount of effort put in, the risk of NOT getting a job, and the risk of NOT getting tenure after serving as asst prof.

In CS algo, you have approximations, numerical solutions and suboptimal but fast workarounds. In IT, you have backups. Similarly, in your academic career, you need to have a backup plan.

Someone told me that most of the profs in Stanford actually have hugely successful businesses outside and they are there only because they are passionate in the research work and can network with super intelligent people / students.

>160K.

For a NUS grad to teach in NUS, you'll just have to teach elsewhere for a year first.

[ravonboy]

Thanks for the info, guys.

Btw, if an assistant prof didn't get tenure, will he be dismissed by the university? I know this happens in US/Canada. But what about Singapore?

In the first place - if you are that good... - the respective uni would wan to hold you down for their PHD program and or might even offer you scholarship so that they would tied you down for a couple of years in their uni.

No offences - if you do your studies in your school days - it might not be the case for your uni or beyond - why? - cause you are really competing with the eiltes in studies .

When you ask how well they paid - it is a relative word - you could see alot of people here boasting how well they earn and etc. but actual fact no one knows. it had to be in line with the living standard.

Example - 10 ~ 20 years back - earning 10K p/m would allow you to own a couple of houses and etc. but now?
Hope that would answer your question.
Follow your heart - Being a Prof - do not pay that bad as i can say. but the number of years spend to being a Prof while other peers of yours like in banking and etc. would not be able to compare.
teaching is a passion

anyone know how much adjunct faculty paid?
in
NUS
NTU
SMU
Polys
ITE
SIT

It's good to dream, but like others said, learn to walk first.

The outcome of a PhD should be a person who is capable of thinking for himself, independent and resourceful.

For your info, in the past, the university usually only take on the top students in each cohort the position of Asst. Prof upon completion of their PhD. This is about the only accelerated track to get a local academic position.

The normal track would means that you do your PhD overseas from a good supervisor, ensure that you produce research output of good quality that is referred to by other researchers. Statistically, if you are a Singaporean, the number of Singaporean PhD is typically 2 to 3 per cohort.

For those whom did their PhD but did not go on to become an academic, the typical starting pay is 1 grade above Bachelor's holder, i.e. 300 to 400 more starting pay. Not all PhD do well in corporation.

FYI, typical PhD holders are people whom have time and money to pursue what they like. Typically not too interested in social activities. Their first thought is never money. I have yet to hear any one whom said they pursue a PhD because they wanted to earn good salary. To them, money is just an necessity, not a motivation factor.

So, are you willing to make the sacrifice, without any guarantee of any returns?

[ravonboy]

Thank you for the cogent reply. My main priority to pursue a PhD is to become a tenured professor, I'm not too keen on working in the industry or else Master's would be my terminal degree.

As a professor, hopefully a tenured one, I can work on exciting problems in Computer Science with the bonus of having life-long job security and above average pay. I also have the passion for teaching, and would like to make use of computing technology to revolutionize our current pedagogy, be it in primary, secondary, and tertiary level. Above all, professors are one of those few that are best positioned to change the world. I know I'm only talking the talk, not walking it; I'm not even an undergrad.

There are a lot of adjuncts who teach solely for the pay, perhaps, it would be good to know that professors too, are not the equivalent of knowledgeable monks with scant regards to worldly desires. Money would not be the end and be all, like you said, it is just a necessity.

My thread here is started with the purpose for knowing the range of salaries a starting assistant professor can earn. Because, as a PhD student, you are slaving the years when you are at your strongest, in terms of physical and mental attributes. Those years will present a lot of windows of opportunity to find a spouse, gain promotion and craft a niche in your chosen industry. As a PhD student, you are cooped up in the academia, knee-deep in literature and research at the final lap of your youth. When you graduate, in all of your 30 odd years, this is the first time you will earn a respectable wage. I'm just curious about how much it entails.

If it's high enough, then good for me, I wouldn't worry about my finance. If it's too low, I would still choose the academe, with some moonlighting in consulting (like what someone advised) to pay off the housing loans, daily expenses etc.

An asst. professor job is not that glamorous as you make it out to be. When you are in Uni, take up a few research programme (UROP or whatever they are called these days). Gain an appreciation of what it entails to be a researcher.

One of the KPI of an asst prof is to publish journal papers. Teaching takes up about 20 to 30 percent of your time (excluding exam periods). I don't know what's the in-thing these days, but contribution to the industries, be it through R&D or collaborative work, is expected as well. Starting a few years back (or maybe even longer - it was like that during my time, I was told it was better in the past), research institutes no longer do research without an industry application in mind.

If your aim is to contribute to science (which was one of the more common reason to do PhD), then I urge you to consider becoming an academic is the best approach. The way I see it, there are better ways to contribute.

Having being in both academic and commercial, I did say that if you manage to join an appropriate RI, the challenges and rewards are more than what the Unis can give.

Pay-wise, it is decent. As stated, an Asst Prof should get about $100K annually.

National University of Singapore | Kay L. O'Halloran
HR: Terms & Conditions of Service: Faculty Positions

The above two links should give you a gauge of your questions.

Originally Posted by ravonboy

Yeah, well aware of that, thank you for the info anyway . Passion for research and recommendation letter by professors are the most important, but a first class honors wouldn't hurt. Lol. I did plenty of readings for the admission requirements. If you could excuse my being pedantic, you may want to know CMU, MIT, Stanford are not Ivies (they are better than most of the latter though).

Anyway back on topic, can someone shed some light on local professors' salaries? :P

assoc prof SMU about 12k p.m. my fren, not mi.

Originally Posted by Been-there-done-that, PhD

Pay-wise, it is decent. As stated, an Asst Prof should get about $100K annually.

I think should be more. i already earn almost 100k annually. And i'm teaching at poly.