Academic Career: Insights from a Professor of Literature and Music

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Academic Career: Insights from a Professor of Literature and Music"

Podcast: How Much Can I Make? – Career Insights For Your Job Search
Host: Mirav Ozeri, Career Insights Journalist
Guest: Dr. Thomas Keats, Professor of English, St. John's University
Date: September 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the realities of an academic career in English literature and music, featuring Dr. Thomas Keats—a seasoned professor, biographer, and scholar. Host Mirav Ozeri uncovers what it’s really like to teach, publish, and thrive in academia, discussing everything from teaching methods and career pathways for English majors, to publishing challenges, salary expectations, and memorable career moments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction & Career Path (00:54–02:36)

• On Professional Identity:
  • Dr. Keats introduces himself as a professor and author, using "author" as a conversation starter at social events.
• From Literature to Popular Music Writing:
  • Undergraduate passion for literature, mentorship under Pulitzer Prize-winner Kenneth Silverman.
  • Dissertation focused on American playwrights and popular culture led to first book on George Henry Boker.
  • Interest transitioned to writing about rock musicians like Ray Davies, John Fogerty, and Richie Furay.
    • “When I look back, [my career] is a sort of neat movement into popular culture, because I really had been writing about popular culture by writing about the theater.” —Dr. Keats (01:38)

2. Choosing Artists & Integrity in Writing (02:44–04:11)

• Chooses artists based on musical taste and the lack of critical examination in existing literature.
• Close readings of songs distinguish his books from standard biographies.
• Tension with subjects (e.g., Richie Furay) when critical honesty replaces hagiography.
  • “A lot of these guys want you to write about them as if they're saints. And when you tell stories that maybe don't contribute to their sainthood, they don't like it.” —Dr. Keats (04:06)

3. The Art and Challenge of Interviewing Musicians (04:11–07:05)

• Each subject is different: Ray Davies was never available for a formal interview; John Fogerty avoided him; Richie Furay was generous (until the book’s publication).
• Highlights most memorable interviews:
  • Timothy B. Schmit of The Eagles: warm, appreciative, insightful.
  • Punk rocker Justin Sane: an interview-turned-long conversation, despite a fabricated time crunch.
  • “We’re both having a really good time. Became sort of fast friends. And the guy came in, he said, no, stop. Don't worry. And I said, there's no plane in Newark, is there? He said, no.” —Dr. Keats (06:44)

4. Life as a Professor: Teaching Experiences & Rewards (07:05–09:36)

• Recent student review praises Keats for setting high standards but grading fairly and providing free readings.
• Pushes against the stereotype that “students today don’t want to work.”
  • “All you gotta do is make them read. I give them a stupid quiz at the beginning of class and because I give them this dumb quiz, they read.” —Dr. Keats (07:54)
• Teaches both English literature and popular culture courses; received a certificate for 45 years of teaching.

5. English Majors: Skills, Versatility & Career Paths (08:41–09:36)

• English majors are valued for writing and critical thinking skills, opening doors beyond academia (e.g., law, banking).
  • “If you have those communication skills and you can think critically, you'll end up somewhere besides teaching, besides publishing. And you know what, law schools like English majors." —Dr. Keats (09:31)

6. International Teaching: India & Germany (09:36–11:57)

• In India, unexpectedly taught Shakespeare; experienced a highly respectful classroom culture.
• Debunked stereotypes about American students being unruly (“Animal House”).
• In Germany, taught graduate students about New York music and hip-hop; appreciated students’ engagement and unique traditions (table-banging as applause).
  • “What they do at the end of class is they bang on the table, like that's their way of clapping.” —Dr. Keats (11:57)

7. Advice for Aspiring Academics & The Tenure Process (12:04–14:27)

• New professors must:
  1. Teach (easier part)
  2. Do service (committee work)
  3. Publish (hardest and most competitive aspect)
• Conferences are vital for networking and publishing.
• Tenure typically achieved in 6–7 years; lack of publication is a major disqualifier.
  • “The old saying used to be, publish or perish.” —Dr. Keats (12:12)
• Peer-reviewed journals are the gold standard for publishing.

8. Teaching Challenges & Classroom Dynamics (14:27–15:53)

• The biggest teaching challenge is building rapport and getting to know students.
  • “It's like the first round of the boxing match almost. You're trying to figure out what everyone has and what they're doing.” —Dr. Keats (14:48)
• Class sizes in humanities: typically 20–35 students, three-hour sessions weekly.

9. Artificial Intelligence in Academia (16:10–17:11)

• AI-generated essays are an increasing challenge; detection is difficult.
  • “These students are slick. They'll… say, give me a paper for a B student. It's really hard to detect.” —Dr. Keats (16:13)
• Considering more in-class writing to combat AI misuse.

10. Earnings: Professorship vs. Publishing (17:11–20:53)

• Academic writing generally pays little (“low thousands”).
  • “Books do not pay the rent. The kind of books I write, you're not going to make more than a low few thousands.” —Dr. Keats (17:16)
• Greatest financial security comes from a full professorship and tenure.
• Typical starting salaries (2025 estimates):
  • English PhD: $90,000
  • Economics PhD: $120,000+
  • Computer Science: $110,000–$120,000
• Disparity due to grant funding differences.
• Professors spend about 12 hours/week on campus.
• Royalties are typically 7%; negotiation skills vital for better advances.
  • “Never accept the first offer. Work with them and get the advance as high as possible.” (Michael Lyon’s advice, 19:17)

11. Most Rewarding Aspects of Teaching (20:55–21:46)

• Connecting with students, seeing their growth, and maintaining relationships years after graduation are the most fulfilling rewards.
  • “He actually said, that's because of you. He said, you made me write, you made me do things. He's now a successful lawyer.” —Dr. Keats (21:36)

12. Current & Future Projects (21:52–23:26)

• Writing essays on New York City Soundscapes and Bob Dylan.
• Discusses New York’s subway performer program and gives a nod to Joshua Bell’s famous “hidden in plain sight” moment.
  • “Writing is just flat out hard work. I don't enjoy writing, but I enjoy having written.” —Dr. Keats (23:14)

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Memorable Quotes

• On honesty in biography:
  “A lot of these guys want you to write about them as if they're saints...they don't like it.” —Dr. Keats (04:06)

• On building rapport with students:
  “When you get to know them, all of a sudden in class they start listening to you.” —Dr. Keats (15:04)

• On academic publishing:
  “The old saying used to be, publish or perish.” —Dr. Keats (12:12)

• On the financial side of writing:
  “Books do not pay the rent. The kind of books I write, you're not going to make more than a low few thousands.” —Dr. Keats (17:16)

• On the joy of student success:
  “He actually said, that's because of you. He said, you made me write, you made me do things. He's now a successful lawyer.” —Dr. Keats (21:36)

• On the creative struggle:
  “I don't enjoy writing, but I enjoy having written.” —Dr. Keats (23:14)

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Full Segment Timestamps

• 00:54–02:36: Introduction, career journey from literature to music writing.
• 02:44–04:11: Artist selection and writing integrity.
• 04:11–07:05: Interview techniques and memorable encounters.
• 07:05–09:36: Classroom experiences and the modern English major.
• 09:36–11:57: Teaching in India and Germany.
• 12:04–14:27: Academic career advice and tenure requirements.
• 14:27–15:53: Teaching challenges and classroom rapport.
• 16:10–17:11: Impact of AI on academic work.
• 17:11–20:53: Publishing income vs. academia, professor salaries, grant disparity.
• 20:55–21:46: Rewards of teaching.
• 21:52–23:26: Forthcoming writing and the realities of authorship.

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Tone & Style

The conversation is warm, honest, and practical with candid advice and personal anecdotes, giving listeners an accessible, real-world look into the highs and lows of academic and writing careers.

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For more career inside scoops or to submit your questions, visit howmuchcanimake.info

Transcript

[A]

You know, these students are slick. They'll put in like, AI and say, give me a paper for a B student. So, you know, it's not perfect. And so it's really hard to detect. We're getting better at it, but it's hard to detect that they use AI.

[B]

Welcome back to How Much Can I Make? The Podcast About Jobs. Be sure to follow us, and if you like what you hear, leave a review. To help others find our content today, I'm joined by Dr. Thomas Keats, professor of English at St. John's University in New York. Tom is not only a dedicated teacher, but also an author of several acclaimed books on music legends like Richard Foret, John Fogarty, and Ray Davis. He also wrote about theatre and literature. So let's jump right in and hear it from Tom. Tom, first of all, thank you very much for agreeing to do that.

[A]

It was a pleasure.

[B]

You've been a professor, an editor, a writer. Author, I should say. When you go to a party and people ask you, what do you do? What do you answer?

[A]

I usually say professor, and then I'll add author. Author helps get a conversation going if I want to engage with someone.

[B]

Right. What got you into English literature, and how did you get from English literature to write about rock and roll?

[A]

Oh, that's interesting. I guess when I was an undergraduate, I got really involved in literature I really liked, especially American literature. And then I got my PhD at N, and I worked with a professor, Kenneth Silverman, very influential on me. Silverman had won a Pulitzer Prize for one of his books on an old Puritan cotton Mather, and he worked very closely with me on my dissertation. And while I didn't know it at the time I was writing about popular culture, I was writing about American playwright in the 1800s. And I think from that things kind of evolved. My dissertation ended up being my first book on a guy named George Henry Boker that nobody's ever heard of. But anyway, and from that, I was starting to write a second book on American theater in the 1800s, and I saw an advertisement for Ray Davies of the Kinks, who was performing a solo show. And I said to myself, that's who I should write a book about. I've been talking about this guy all my life, what a great songwriter he is, what a great performer he is. And that's when that started. It was kind of, when I look back, a sort of neat kind of movement into popular culture, because I really had been writing about popular culture by writing about the theater. So I started to write about Ray Davies and everything just kind of snowballed.

[B]

So you wrote about John Fogarty, and actually, I found the Richie Foray really interesting story.

[A]

He's an interesting guy.

[B]

Very interesting guy that went from rock and roll to Christian. But how do you choose your artist?

[A]

I have to like the music first.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

If I like the music and I feel enough has not been written about them, do that. With Ray Davies, I noticed that nobody was really examining his songwriting. So books tend to be a little more academic than a standard biography on a performer. You know, I really go into some close readings of the songs. So I felt that way about Ray John Fogerty, the same way a guy just has not been, I think, appreciated enough as a songwriter. And Richie gets very little appreciation. He's one of the founders of the country rock scene, and he's just a fascinating guy. And we got to, I think, be friends until the book came out.

[B]

And then he hated you.

[A]

That may be strong. Maybe he didn't like. As an evangelical, he became very supportive of Trump, very supportive on everything he said. And I kind of objected to the fact that he never called Trump out on any of his lies.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I put that in the book because Richie has a very active Facebook following in which he can be very political. And I sort of went into that for only three pages. And then I also told a few stories that maybe he didn't appreciate. You know, a lot of these guys want you to write about them as if they're saints. And when you tell stories that maybe don't contribute to their sainthood, they don't like it.

[B]

So do you interview the musician?

[A]

I try to. It's funny, with all three of them, it's very different. Ray Davies, you would think he was my friend if you were to walk in here now. And I tried to sit down with a formal interview form, and he would never give me one. He kept saying, next time I'm in New York. He has a place in New York. I will call you. We'll arrange an interview. Next time you're in London, call me. I'll arrange an interview. Never happened. We would talk backstage. Sometimes he'd give me some quotations, but I never had the formal interview I want. He's an unusual guy, though. He also never signed off on giving the rights to publish his lyrics. John Fogarty would not meet with me. He also stopped anybody around him from talking to me.

[B]

What was he afraid of, do you know?

[A]

I have no idea. Some of these guys are just peculiar. I think they've been burnt by the Press over the years with Fogerty, though, I got a really. A lot of help from his former bandmates in Creedon's Clearwater Revival. They were great. They were really good. And then with Fiore, we talked a lot. Just the opposite. Every month. We talked for about an hour, an hour and a half. We both enjoyed the conversations, and as I said, we kind of became friends until the book came out and he didn't like some of things I said.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is there any moment or any interview that these stuck with you more than others?

[A]

Yeah, I'll give you. I'll give you two.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Both, maybe, because they're the most recent one with the Richie Fury book. One of the best interviews I ever did, or maybe when I enjoyed the most, was with Timothy B. Schmidt. He was in Poco, a band that Richie had started back in the early 70s, 69, I think. And he was the. A bass player in that band. But he went on to form the Eagles, and he's been the bass player in the eagles for whatever, 40, 50 years now. He was just such a friendly, warm person, and he's. He talked about how Richie had influenced him, how he got him started. If it wasn't for Richie, he would never ended up in the Eagles. Just a really. A wonderful guy. Another one I did that published interview, not apart from the books, was with a punk rocker named Justin Sane, who's been a lot of trouble over the last few. He's been kind of canceled, sexual abuse or whatever. Yeah. But this is before any of that. Years ago, I was interviewing him on his tour bus. He was in a band called Anti Flag that I really liked. And he said to me, this is the first time I met him. We sort of became friends after that, and we're careful of that. Right. But he said, I only got a half hour talking. A half hour. His manager walks on the bus, Justin, we got that plane at Newark. He said, don't worry. This is going okay. We're fine. Talked another 20 minutes, half hour, came back on and told me, we got that plane again. No, it's okay. Things going all right. Came back 15 minutes later, and we're still talking. We're both having a really good time. Became sort of fast friends. And the guy came in, he said, no, stop. Don't worry. And I said, there's no plane in Newark, is there? He said, no. So I went on stage with him, watching from the side of the stage a couple times after that.

[B]

So you're in academia.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And that's what you said. You love being a professor more than anything else. So one of your students in the review said, oh, no, great professor.

[A]

Oh, that's good.

[B]

The class is really heavy, but very manageable. He sets high expectations early on, but if you put in real effort, he grades fairly. All readings are provided as PDFs, so no textbook needed. It was a five star review.

[A]

That's pretty good. And you know, when I wrote that. No, no, that's. I didn't see that. I always check the reviews. But that's, that's, that's really nice. So I do make them work. I really do. And you know, I really dislike. And I've been hearing this, by the way, for like 40 years. Oh, students today don't want to work. It seems like they've always said that forever. All you gotta do is make them, make them read. I give them a stupid quiz at the beginning of class and because I give them this dumb quiz, they read.

[B]

You teach English literature?

[A]

I teach a couple of things. I teach English literature and I also teach popular culture courses since that's what I've been really working in the last 30 years.

[B]

I guess for 30 years you've been.

[A]

I guess I've been. Actually, I got something in my mailbox at St. John's this past summer and there was a certificate in there congratulating me on 45 years.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

I didn't know if I liked that, to be honest with you. I'm not hanging it up anywhere.

[B]

Where do you teach now?

[A]

What's called St. John's University in Queens. We're large. We got a beautiful campus and we have approximately 15,000 students on our Queens campus. Yeah, it's a big university.

[B]

What kind of person goes to study English literature? I mean, and what can they do with it?

[A]

The good thing about English being an English major is it's very applicable to many other, many other industries. People like English majors because they could write.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Hopefully they can think critically. And one thing I like to do that sometimes bore students is read passages very closely. Like, what does that word imply? Why does he use that word? What other word could he have used? So you get to analyze things. I do a lot of critical thinking in my classes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So you can go into a lot of different places with. My brother was a history major and ended up being a senior VP at the bank of New York before he retired.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

So you can move into different areas. If you have basic skills like that and you can communicate, you know, if you have those communication skills and you can think critically, you'll end up somewhere besides teaching, besides publishing. And you know what law schools like English majors.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah, they do. Because those reasons.

[B]

Because of the writing.

[A]

Those reasons. Yeah.

[B]

You also taught in India and in Germany.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

What did you teach there? And. And what was it like?

[A]

India, I think I was there in 2017. I was invited to teach there, and I thought I was going to teach about popular culture and American literature. And I actually taught there twice. The first time, they asked me to teach Shakespeare. Oh, so why would you ask me to teach Shakespeare? I mean, I love Shakespeare. I have taught him before. So it was a great, you know, it was great opportunity for me, but it was a little unusual for me to do that. What was it like? Students are very respectful. Here's an interesting story about that. It's. First of all, you walk into classroom and they stand up. Wow. And they don't sit down till you tell them to, which I didn't know.

[B]

So they say.

[A]

So I said, okay, I'm starting. I'm starting. Okay. I'm waiting for him to sit. And I think one of the students said, you got to tell us. Oh, okay, sit down. But the funny thing I got over there a lot was other professors kept asking me, how do you find our students? They're very nice. Good. Very respectful, aren't they? Yeah, very respectful. And finally one day, some to said somebody, one of the press said to me, they're not like American students, are they? I said, what do you mean? Well, they're very respectful. I said, so my students, they actually had the image of Animal House, the John Belushi movie. They thought that was like a typical college classroom. I swear, I couldn't believe it. I said, no. I says, my students come in, say hello. They don't stand. I don't need them to. They sit down, they listen. I said, maybe every couple of years you got to tell two of them to stop talking. And cell phones now, you know, I try to get them not to use those, but. But no, they're very respectful. But they didn't realize that. They thought it was like Animal House.

[B]

Interesting. That's the big. The bed market of Hollywood.

[A]

There it is, Right?

[B]

Unbelievable. Wow.

[A]

Yeah. I was surprised.

[B]

And what about Germany? Like, what was Germany?

[A]

Very respectful. I like them a lot. I'm not sure they were graduate students.

[B]

What year did you teach there?

[A]

A graduate school?

[B]

No, Germany.

[A]

I was there last summer. I thought there twice, too.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I forget the first time. Maybe 2020. I'm not even sure 2020. And then last summer, and they Were good students, Very good, very talkative, talkative, cooperative. I talked about sound. I talked about music in New York City. I talked about hip hop beginning in the. In the. And how that kind of now became a world music. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. What they do at the end of class is they bang on the table, like that's their way of clapping.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

With something else again the first time it happened. So what is that about? It's not. So we do at the end of class. It's like clapping.

[B]

What is the one thing you wish you had known before you started your travels in academia?

[A]

Gee, I found them all pretty fast. Can I tell you what I tell young professors? Yeah, maybe that'll help. First thing you have to do is a college professor, besides teach your classes, which is, to be honest, probably for me, at least the easiest part of the job. Okay. And I like the preparations and all that. You got to get publications. The old saying used to be publish or perish. You got to get publications to get tenure. You got to do three things to get tenure. You got to teach. That's relatively easy. You got to do service to the university. Relatively easy.

[B]

What do you mean by service to the university?

[A]

You get on a committee. Young professors will get on committees like, oh, I don't know, the library science committee, in which you interact with the library on different things. You meet maybe once or twice a year. Not very difficult. Or you get a committee that, you know, you overlook the budget for your college and you don't have much to say, really. Just yes. Okay, Maybe try this, a recommendation. And there are tons of standing committees like that. That's easy for a young professor. The hard thing is getting published. How do you do it? You take from your dissertation and you got to try to get some chapters published, maybe publishers book. But you have to go to conferences. You have to network. I always tell them, network.

[B]

What kind of conferences?

[A]

Well, right now I go regularly to the Popular Culture Associations conference.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Tell their it's international, it's held in April, and there you present the paper. And then I tell them, you got to stick around and you got to meet people, talk to them, find future collaborators, go to see people who are editors of journals, see if they'll be interested. You really have to network. And I always tell them the same thing. You have to go to the bar in the hotel at night and just sit there and look for people you saw. If they did a good paper, go up and introduce yourself and even just say, I loved your paper or whatever. And just start talking.

[B]

But if somebody gets into academia and doesn't publish and unable to get a deal, so they're not going to last too long, right?

[A]

Not going to get tenure. Typical of most universities, you have about six, seven years before you're awarded tenure. I happen to be on the committee that awards tenure to professors. There's like 19 of us. And every, every spring semester we meet and the applications and we'll often after two, three years, if someone hasn't published, we'll give them a bit of a warning. Then after four years, maybe it'll be dismissed.

[B]

So they have to publish in academia papers.

[A]

Oh yes. It has to be in what's called a refereed journal primarily.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Peer reviewed referee journal. That's the hard part.

[B]

And to be a professor you have to have a PhD. You mentioned in both disciplines.

[A]

Yes. Not necessarily, but I think it's. We have like 89% of our faculty.

[B]

Have Ph.D. and what's the biggest challenge of teaching?

[A]

I think it's always about getting to know the students. I always say this. I hate the beginning of the semester because I don't know them, they don't know me. And it's like, it's like the first round of the boxing match almost. You're trying to figure out what everyone has and what they're doing. And I like when we get to, after about three or four weeks, I know them. I know all the names. I always call them by first name. By then I've struck up several private conversations with them. I'll sometimes see a kid's baseball hat and say, so you're a Yankee fan and I'm a Met fan. So I'll always. We'll start a conversation by that. But once you get to know them, all of a sudden in class they start listening to you. Oh, it really is something. If you don't make an effort to reach them, you're just some guy up there talking, talking, blah, blah, blah, you know. But when you get to know them, it's amazing how they listen. They'll feel more at ease and keep them fool around a little in class.

[B]

How many students usually in the class.

[A]

We are very good with our class size. We in the humanities we don't have generally not more than 35 and usually 20 to 25.

[B]

That's good. And how many times a week do you see them?

[A]

Well, in the fall I'm always doing my classes on Wednesday. They're three hour classes, which is tough for them more than me. I mean, I always say, is there anybody really want to listen to for three hours. So I do a lot of different kind of works. I'll mix films in there and all that. But we Generally each Class 3 credit class meets three hours a week.

[B]

Do you find your students using AI a lot?

[A]

That's a problem that's become a problem.

[B]

Tell me about it.

[A]

We're trying to find a solution to it because you give an essay and all of a sudden, you know, these students are slick. They'll put in like AI and say, give me a paper for a B student. So, you know, it's not perfect. And so it's really hard to detect with getting better at it. But it's hard to detect that they use AI. I'm telling you, even with the journal I edit, we're getting submissions that have used AI, which is horrible and we just reject them. If you use AI, use it for research, you gotta tell how you use it. But with students, when they're handing in papers written by AI, it's hard to detect. And I think a lot of us are thinking about doing more writing in class. Oh. Which that detracts from all the stuff you got to cover and you want to cover. I know one professor told me that's all I'm doing just in class, writing, but takes so much time. So it's a problem. It's a problem that we're trying to figure out a solution. I. I find it very disturbing.

[B]

And it's only going to get bigger.

[A]

It's only going to get bigger. It really is.

[B]

Wow. Writing books doesn't really pay the rent.

[A]

No, that's why. No, that's not why I teach. But it helps to be a professor where you get a very nice salary and you can do things you want to do with a merit increase that stick to your salary year after year. So you put your right. Books do not pay the rent. The kind of books I write, you're not going to make more than a low few thousands. You're just not. And it's going to take time because it's an academia academic book. It doesn't tell. While there are stories in there and it's about their lives, I focus on their music. And if people see things like published by Penn State University Press. Oh, stay away from that one. Yeah. They think it's too academic and it's going to be dry, you know. So you can make in the low thousands. I would say so.

[B]

Which project made you the most money?

[A]

I think Ray Davies Kings book.

[B]

More than John Fogerty.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. Honestly, I was Surprised? I never do it for the money. No, because it's like, it's not gonna be substantial up. It's not gonna change my life for anybody. But I think the Ray Davies. Yeah, I think it did. I was surprised because somebody I know who had written a book on Creedence Clearwater Revival told me that book made him the most money. And I said, well, geez, maybe I'll get lucky here. Maybe I'll make. But. But it hasn't really. Who knows?

[B]

But teaching, you have tenure?

[A]

Yes, I have tenure, tenure, full professor salary is very good, very happy with it. So it allows me to do more or less what I want. I guess the average professor spends about 12 hours a week on campus, and that's where you disseminate knowledge, where you teach. You know, I always say every professor must have a project, and they got to be working on something because you're only there 12 hours a week. And so I started doing these. These books and things, and it's really been good for me, hopefully for my university. Hopefully, people read them.

[B]

So you get royalties?

[A]

Yes, you get royalties. The percentage is generally at 7%. I'm a terrible negotiator in everything I do. Michael Lyon, he's on my mind because he just passed away the last couple of weeks and create obituaries in the Times and Rolling Stone on him. But he told me how to negotiate.

[B]

What did he say?

[A]

He says, first of all, never accept the first offer. Right, of course. Right. He said, then work with them and get the advance as high as possible and take it. I was no good at either one of those things. But Michael made his living as a writer, you know, so it was a little different.

[B]

What is the going salary for a PhD professor?

[A]

It depends. It depends on your discipline. I'm gonna guess, because I don't really know if you get a PhD in, let's say, economics.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You're gonna be paid more than a PhD in English. I would say if we were hiring a new PhD in English, no experience, just got out of the program. I. My guess is that person probably started about 90,000. Okay. In economics, my guess again, about 120,000. Oh, there's a great disparity.

[B]

And in computers, do you have any idea?

[A]

You know, I don't know. Computers are doing so well. No, I don't know. But, you know, with all AI and the job market wasn't good for new college graduates and computers, probably around 110, 120, maybe about the same. Humanities is always low. Even in publishing, you don't Start very well, because we don't bring in grants. Grant money. We bring. We apply for a grant, we can jump through hoops and we'll get a $3,000 grant or 5,000 grant. Scientists come in with a million dollar grant over three years education, doing research, get grants for $750,000 to study things. And it comes a guy in English. Well, I got a $3,000 grant. Financial stability definitely is what the professorship gives me and what I really enjoy. You know, I can tell you, I enjoy my colleagues, I enjoy going to work. I get very lucky, especially I only have to go in a couple days a week. So that's really kind of nice.

[B]

What is the biggest reward in teaching?

[A]

You know, I'll tell you, it's. Look at my cell phone over there, because I just got an email from a student of mine that I probably had five, six years ago. Now, this is a guy who came here from his family came, I believe, from Ecuador.

[B]

Okay, okay.

[A]

And his parents do not speak English. They might by now, but. And he came to St. John's and I had him in the class I teach called Writing about music. And he wasn't interested in music, but someone had told him, take my class so he could know how to write. He was a really good student, and his writing really improved. He goes to law school, and we meet for lunch one day and he's telling me, you know, my professor made me the guy to tutor other students in the first year writing class in law school. Wow, this is really. And he said. He actually said, that's because of you. He said, you made me write, you made me do things. He's now a successful lawyer, and he texted me over the summer, says we got to get together for lunch. So, I mean, I get things like that all the time. It's just great to hear.

[B]

Okay, so. So before we go, I want to know what's next for you. What are you working on now?

[A]

I'm working on two essays now about what one is on Soundscapes. It's for a book called Soundscapes, and it's gonna be on New York City and the sounds of New York City, which does include music. And I get into a little bit about the music on the subway platforms, which is really good.

[B]

It is very good.

[A]

I know, right?

[B]

And you know, great musician.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

You know, Joshua Bell once played in the subway and made like $3. People didn't know it was him.

[A]

Is that amazing? They're so good. And now the city, I guess now last 10 years, I guess they've had an organization where these guys actually audition.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And then they give them certain spots on the subway to perform.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Music underground, something like that, it's called. So the quality is better than ever. Wow. It's a great place for them to hone their skills and everything else.

[B]

A place to rehearse.

[A]

A place to rehearse, work out different things. Yeah, it's been great. And some of them can make a living doing it. A modest living, you know, maybe pay their rent, a shared apartment, you know, that kind of thing. And the other thing I'm writing about is Bob Dylan. I just did a presentation at the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I think it went pretty well. So I'm going to turn it into an article that hopefully will be out with next year or so. Writing is just flat out hard work. I often would say I'm quoting somebody. Many people have said this. I don't enjoy writing, but I enjoy having written.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Relate to that. You know what I mean? So that's. That's the thing. And it's a great feeling when you see an article or a book published. It still is.

[B]

Yeah. That's a big reward of writing.

[A]

Exactly. But the writing part of it'd be nice to just go right to the end, you know?

[B]

All right, well, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your expertise.

[A]

Thank you. I did enjoy it.

[B]

Excellent. Okay, that's a wrap for today. If you have a comment or question or would like us to cover a certain job, please let us know, visit our [e-mail] we would love to hear from you. And on your way out, don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with anyone who is curious about their next video job. See you next time.