Professors at universities should spend more time doing research than educating students.

Professors at universities should spend more time doing research than educating students.

Nowadays, taking research has become one predominant part of professors’ responsibilities. Despite this fact, whether professors should focus more on researching or delivering classes is under debate. Personally, I prefer the latter point, especially when the cultivation of students and the individual development of a professor are taken into consideration as follows.

Firstly, professors attaching paramount importance to classes benefits students enormously. This is because when professors spent time devising the lessons considerately, the classes generally become easier to understand. According to the recent research published by SRCP (Social Research Center of Peking University), every time a professor uses 1 more hour to get prepared for classes, there will be 26% extra boost on students’ grasp of relevant knowledge. Consequently, it’s meaningful to the students when professors can take lecturing seriously.

Secondly, educating students may guarantee a professor a gorgeous career. The primary reason for that is a professor may get exhilarating inspiration during his/her communication with students. For example, when I approached my tutor to seek suggestions for my thesis, he happened to conduct a rather similar project. And he said my thesis is somewhat conducive to his project because a distinguished angle it provided—an interdisciplinary one combined with law and economy. Accordingly, educating students is also conducive to the individual achievement of the professors.

Some people may argue that making professors research more contributes to the construction of subjects, while it is not true. Admittedly, there exists a direct causal link between the time invested in researching and the scholarly outcomes, however, that’s not in the big picture. To elaborate, the next generations of scholars generate from the students under the guidance of the professors. If the students are not offered a chance to lay a solid foundation for their fields, the risk of seeing a shrinkage in the future academic contributions is evoked. Thus, it is obvious the drawbacks outweigh the benefits on this point.