hi

--

What are the main work and responsibilities of a Professor?

I am confused and i am looking for help to sort this out


by --
3 answers
| Share :
Take The Ideal Career test Here

Ideal Career Test Inlcudes:

  60 minutes of Duration

  180 Questions

  Instant Report

  500+ Career Options

  1M+ Test Taken

3 answers

RE: What are the main work and responsibilities of a Professor?

Dr Aparna
Dr Aparna
Verified Career Expert
PhD Organizational Psychology
  • Hosur

Professors have enormous and a variety of roles these days than only teaching. In the previous decade a professor only dealt with teaching and student record maintenance. But in the recent times professors have a lot more to do and I shall explain them in detail on here.


1. Regular lecturing:
As mentioned, in the past almost every professoring dealt only with tutoring their students in class. And this practice has been still there even now. So a professor they will conduct regular teaching probably for 3-6 hours a day.

2. Conduct research:
Apart from the regular teaching, a professor needs to engage with research activities be it any subject. The professor needs to create protocols for their research and work either alone or in groups that may constitute their colleagues or some research students from the school.

3. Student record maintenance:
The professor also needs to maintain a database that contains records of students attendance, marks through the semesters, their achievements and notes on extra curricular activities. Maintaining records in hard copies was there long time back but in the recent times it has been replaced by maintaining through computers in soft copies format. Well established professors with more than 10 years of work experience are made free from maintaining such records as the administration team takes over such work relieving the professor from these admin work load, to enable him/her concentrate only his/ her academic duties.

4. Supervise/ guide PhD students:
A professor does need to recruit PhD candidates in their area of research and has to guide them for a minimum of 3-5 years until the candidate completes their PhD. They will have to guide the candidate right from the research proposal, plan, direction of research, obtaining funding, publishing research papers to submitting their PhD thesis. Supervising PhD candidates have become an integral part of a professor's career.

5. Work with the industry sector:
The prof also needs to work with industries in his subject. If there is a professor in management, they will have to work with managemnet divisions of corporate companies. They need to often work as an external advisor or consultant to look into the practical problems the companies face.

6. Establish private research centre or lab:
Professors have the power to establish a research centre or lab at the university site to engage in their academic research. they need to create proposals, obtain funding and make use of the funding for their research development at the uni site.

7. Organize research events:
Professors also have the role in organizing national and international academic events like the seminars, workshops, conference and symposium. This is a networking place where they could present their papers to a large audience.

Hope this helps. Good luck.
Take The Ideal Career test Here

Ideal Career Test Inlcudes:

  60 minutes of Duration

  180 Questions

  Instant Report

  500+ Career Options

  1M+ Test Taken

In order to post replies to the question: "What are the main work and responsibilities of a Professor?"

Post Reply

Caching Date: 3/20/2026 4:33:24 PM