The Paper's reporter Xu Minghui
Working in a college is a proud job, but young teachers who are just starting their careers can also face great pressure and confusion about their future careers. How to take the development path of young teachers? How to deal with the difficulties along the way?
Recently, Professor Zhu Dajian, senior professor of liberal arts at Tongji University and director of the Institute of Sustainable Development and Management, published a new book, "From Green Pepper to Thinker: The Steps and Pleasures of Professors", which tells the development steps from green pepper (nickname for young university teachers) and professors to senior professors based on the experience and experience of teaching in Chinese research universities since the reform and opening up.
Zhu Dajian (center) at the scene of the new book launch
On April 17th, Professor Zhu Dajian, Professor Liu Liangjian of the Department of Philosophy of East China Normal University and Professor Ma Zhen of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering of Fudan University visited the Hong Kong Sanlian Bookstore in Shanghai to talk about the pleasures of university professors as a way of life.
Zhu Dajian has been in the university for more than 40 years, and the teachers who have stayed in the school have been accustomed to writing academic papers, if life is counted at the age of 80, he would like to write some semi-academic things in the fourth 20 years, so there is this book "From Green Pepper to Thinker - The Steps and Fun of Professors". "Now college students generally graduate in three directions, one is civil servants, one is to enter the enterprise, and the other is the academic industry. I would like to discuss with you, what is the difference between studying in a university or scientific research institution and other industries? Zhu Dajian threw out this question.
Zhu Dajian said that the most anxious thing in colleges and universities is probably green peppers. "It is difficult to enter the job search door of the university after graduating from the doctoral student, and there are two three-year difficulties after the successful job search, so 20 to 40 years old is an anxiety stage; after becoming a professor, you will have to think, and the two guests who talked to me today are in this anxiety stage."
Many people feel that it is very easy to be a professor, but Zhu Dajian said that it is not easy, "Now to be a professor is to be four habitats, the class is a perch; the paper is amphibious, similar to the KPI assessment in the enterprise; if you are a professor, you must have international academic exchanges, and make a theme report at an international conference, which is the third habitat; the fourth habitat is that after the professional is done well, the non-academic government and enterprises will ask scholars to give them advice, which is called social service, that is, the fourth habitat." Zhu Dajian hopes that through this book, more people can understand the profession of university professors.
If you live in college, what is a good form of life? Professor Liu Liangjian felt that this had to be a very important question raised by this book "From Green Pepper to Thinker". "The thinker from the green pepper all the way to the end, especially at the level of the thinker, is in fact asking such a question. Teaching and scientific research are the two most basic aspects of the life of university teachers, how to avoid the state of alienation in the university, return to the way of life of teaching and scientific research as a scholar, and find fun in it, find the meaning of life, may be a serious challenge facing the life of our university teachers. ”
Why is "alienation" mentioned? Liu Liangjian said: "'Green pepper' is a short name for young teachers, but when using this name, it is usually not the energetic or green and so on of young teachers, but more of the pressure and anxiety and busyness faced by young teachers. This anxiety includes, first of all, the pressure of how to go from lecturer to professor to such an ascending support and assessment. At the same time, young teachers have a lot of life pressure when they are just starting out, and they have to raise children, buy houses, etc. When the income is not high, such a pressure has become the normal life of young teachers. ”
Liu Liangjian mentioned going back to his hometown to communicate with friends, and everyone did not believe how busy the university teachers were. "For young teachers, even if there are not too many classes in normal times, it takes a lot of time to prepare for classes, and at the same time to write papers, and the time to invest in scientific research is bottomless." Our time is particularly free, but so free that you have to work every minute, which is the norm for university teachers, especially young teachers, and anxiety is inevitable. Returning to our original intention of scholarship is something that every university teacher needs to constantly re-examine. ”
Professor Ma Zhen praised Zhu Dajian's true disposition in "From Green Pepper to Thinker", not only telling the four steps of the growth of university teachers: green pepper, professor, school-level professor, thinker, and the four pleasures of being a professor himself: lecturing, going abroad, online literature, and career management; even reading this book, he can clearly understand how many houses Zhu Dajian has and how to increase income. The outstanding point of the "Great Builders" is that they have found the intersection of "wanting me to do (demand circle), I want to do (passion circle), and I can do (ability circle)", and found their own "small luck" and "ecological niche" of exerting their talents and serving the society in the torrent of the times. "I like to do academics, 'hide in a small building to become a unity', but I am not limited to it, and I have a bigger world in my heart, which is a bigger pattern and deeper feelings of the great construction." Ma Zhen commented.
Ma Zhen's advice to green pepper is to position itself reasonably and correctly, understanding that the development of green pepper and old pepper is very difficult, and gains and losses are entangled with each other.
"In China's rapid development now, the competitive pressure is very large, this anxiety is common is normal, this is not An individual problem in China, modern society has such a problem, I believe that after thirty or forty years, our society attaches more importance to quality, this situation will improve." Zhu Dajian said.
Editor-in-Charge: Liang Jia
Proofreader: Shi Gong