Life Course of Academic Professionals: Substantive Tasks, False Assumptions, Institutional Accommodations, and Personal Adjustments

This paper conceptualizes a general academic career pathway on the basis of common knowledge and collective experiences among academic professionals. Five major stages, including initiation, routinization, secularization, solidification, and graduation, are proposed and described with respect to their false assumptions and substantive tasks. Recognizing the importance of institution and professional context, the chapter proposes ways in which academic institutions may reform their existing evaluation and reward systems to the benefit of career-making academicians. Emphasizing the indispensability of human agency, it offers suggestions for individual scholars to frame and structure their academic endeavors in the perspective of success and goal attainment.