<p>I’m talking about those professor, who when you speak to them you’ll feel like “Whoa, this person must is good” because they have the experience after doing lots of research. The way they speak is just different. </p>
<p>Can they become a consultant for other companies, and at the same time they are still professor at college?</p>
<p>I ask this question because I have met a professor who studied in US, getting his BS, MS and PhD there, then come back and got a job in oil and gas company. His position was consultant, the 3rd highest ranked person in the companies. He even said he could solve the problems that other engineers couldn’t solve, because he learnt lots through his research. But now, he quit the industry(because too stressful) and become a professor at my college. </p>
<p>Thank you</p>
<p>Yes, many professors can and do participate in a little bit of consulting on the side. You wouldn’t be able to do it as a full-time job like the guy you mentioned, though.</p>
<p>@boneh3ad, do you think it is possible to go straight to consultant after completing your PhD? </p>
<p>I didn’t know whether this guy was bluffing me, just trying to impress us/</p>
<p>Professors in most areas of engineering in US do consulting in order to keep tabs on their industry and also get research funding through the industry contracts. The amount of consulting they do depends on the rules and their contract with the university, i.e., how much money they get to keep from the consulting.</p>
<p>I have seen professors do a lot of consulting in business school also.</p>
<p>The consulting benefits students in 2 ways. It helps professors place students in jobs, and also provide reseach assistantships.</p>
<p>There are not enough faculty jobs out there. So most PhDs do become consultants or take up some other type of job.</p>
<p>@texaspg</p>
<p>thank you for replying</p>
<p>In your personal opinion, what makes more money, a consultant or a professor? </p>
<p>Also, if you want to become a consultant, do you need a PhD degree?</p>
<p>I work in the legal field, and many, many professors do consulting in the form of acting as expert witnesses. They get paid a high hourly rate. They are paid to review files, do independent opinions, and give both deposition and trial testimony.</p>
<p>In some cases, the payment is made to the university, and in some cases, it is made to the professor himself. I’m sure there is some sort of agreement made between the professor and his employer as to how this is handled.</p>
<p>My first job out of college was as a research assistant at a medical school. I worked in the pharmacology/toxicology department. Professors in my department taught classes, performed research, and gave expert legal testimony. They often told stories of how they were flown to locations, put up in hotels, all meals paid for, and they were paid an hourly rate for their time and testimony. It was a very lucrative business for them. They were not MDs, but Ph.Ds, and were full professors at the local medical school. Now, how their fees were divided between themselves and the university, I do not know, but they were allowed to take time away from their teaching and research to do such things.</p>
<p>@Montegut</p>
<p>thanks for the reply.</p>
<p>Yeah I agree, lots of professors taught me also told us about their past experience, especially those in the oil n gas industry. lol…they said they had all the money, but they got no life to spend their money away.</p>
<p>Pay is not really a matter of opinion; it is a matter of statistics. Consultants are usually paid more than professors, and whether or not you need a PhD depends on the type of consulting. Most consultants do not have PhDs.</p>
<p>@boneh3ad,</p>
<p>Do you think it is ethical for the professor doing consulting w/o letting the faculty know?</p>
<p>They do it, but they do not let it interfere with their teaching. So, that he can earn more money.</p>
<p>^ Are you in US?</p>
<p>There are no ethics requiring the professors to let faculty know.</p>
<p>The only ethics to be followed are the University’s. As Montegut states, they have specific rules about what happens to money they have earned - give it to the university, split it or keep all of it. Each University will have their own policy.</p>
<p>i’m not from the States</p>
<p>Indeed you do not have to have a Ph.D. I take many, many expert depositions. One very popular one is an civil engineer, but does not have his PE license. He works in a firm with his brother, who holds a PE, and that’s all that’s required in their firm, one partner has to hold a PE. This gentleman only holds a BS, in fact. He gets paid a lot of money for his work, and has plenty of it. Of course, he has years of experience, and lots of word of mouth, which is probably the way he gets his business.</p>
<p>I recently worked with a young engineer who just recently got his masters in engineering, and he now owns a very nice building in the CBD and has started his own consulting business. It will be interesting to watch his progress, as I’ve met him when he just started out, and I wonder if he will be one of the movers and shakers in the expert witness field in the next few years. I believe he teaches some classes at the local university, but is not a full time professor there, so they probably have no say so in what he earns as part of his consulting business.</p>
<p>In fact, there are many engineers who have retired from the oil and gas industry in my area who have now started their own consulting firms. Like any business where you are self employed, it all depends on not only how well you do your job, but if you can get clients. Sometimes, unfortunately, that is not based on how good you are, but on who you know.</p>
<p>What a professor does with their own time is their own business so long as it is not illegal. If a professor wants to consult on the side, unless it is specifically required by their university, they have no obligation to report it to their colleagues or department. Of course, if that professor lets it affect his job performance then he or she could miss tenure or be reprimanded.</p>
<p>Consulting isn’t always full time work. It could be an occasional project or a longer relationship. Can be as part of a firm or independent. (Or as a representative of the U.). Just saying “consultant” doesn’t offer enough detail.</p>
<p>But why are you asking? If you doubt him, you can check his background. Or is this about your own plans?</p>
<ul>
<li>the ethics, when you are a prof, can depend on whether your consulting work is exclusively based on your own work/knowledge or info that might be the property of the U. Each U generally has a policy.</li>
</ul>
<p>Fulltime consultants have specific salaries/hourly rates since their livelihood depends on it and they need to be competitive if they work for themselves. When they work for a big firm, the rates are based on what the company charges for someone with a specific experience level. A lot of engineers with a BS are in consulting but work for established firms, if they are in areas like Civil/Mechanical/Environmental/Electrical etc. As they get more experience they branch out on their own. I have several friends who have decided to go on their own after 5, 10, 15 or even 20 years. Some have bought existing practices, some are still on their own with one or two additional support employees, and some have found that it is too much work selling themselves and it just is not worth the extra 15-25k they make being on their own. So they just go join another company again.</p>
<p>Yes, and if you’re lucky he’ll spend half the class time telling the class how good he is and drop names like there’s no tomorrow. If you’re VERY lucky he can drop YOUR name to any of those places and things look very good for internships, references, and the like.</p>