[phreeza]

I wish some of my professors would have read this as grad students. Become a professor because you love teaching, not because you want to do research.

Which also raises the question whether there should be a similarly venerable(and compensated) position reserved for researchers who don't teach?

[hugh3]

Which also raises the question whether there should be a similarly venerable(and compensated) position reserved for researchers who don't teach?

Being a staff scientist at a national lab is about as close as you can get to this in the US. Compared to being a professor you'll get similar money (sometimes more), less prestige, more time for research and slightly more annoying bureaucracy. There's upsides and downsides of each.

[pgbovine]

Which also raises the question whether there should be a similarly venerable(and compensated) position reserved for researchers who don't teach?

an academic research lab sponsored by a big company (note that this is not the same as a corporate R&D division) ... in the 1970's, this was epitomized by Xerox PARC and AT&T Bell Labs. today, Microsoft Research is currently the leader in this category.

[pwhelan]

MSFT Research also sends the nicest rejection letters you can imagine.

[ciupicri]

Do you have some examples?

[_delirium]

A handful of universities have Research Professor positions. At Carnegie Mellon, it's basically the same as a normal Professor (tenured, similar prestige, etc.), except that you don't normally teach, and in return, you're expected to fund a portion of your own salary out of the grants you bring in. (If you don't bring in grants some year, you can fall back on teaching to earn your keep, so research profs do occasionally teach.)

[pwhelan]

Some of these profs will offer special classes that might otherwise not really get offered or have enough students to warrant forcing someone to teach.

I loved these classes because the profs were usually really passionate about the subject and that showed in their efforts. There was less droning on and emphasis on arcane, irrelevant minutiae and more "basic principles... now we build stuff and talk about the fun problems there". Those classes were so enjoyable that they almost made me pursue a PhD even though I am not right for that -- at least for now.