KEY POINTS:
Fancy a job that could see you teaching one day, consulting government departments, talking to community and business groups, then editing articles the following day and researching social, business or scientific problems the next?
Not to mention writing research grant applications, addressing conferences, playing an active part in university administration and being a specialist contact for media wanting to explain the complexities of life to the general public.
Oh, and constant reading.
If that sounds like the sort of mix you'd like, an academic life beckons.
New Zealand tertiary education institutions are staffed by people who, after many years of study, now spend their time learning even more through research, while imparting what they know to the next generation of graduate and post-graduate students.
In universities, all teachers from lecturer up have PhDs as a minimum qualification, while in some polytechs lecturers may have simply a master's degree. In new universities such as AUT, many were hired with master's degrees but are now working towards PhDs.
But, says Brad Jackson - professor of leadership at Auckland University's department of management and employment relations, there is one very important qualification that all academics must have: "The trick to being a successful academic is to be a lifelong student."
Jackson says the general rule to an academic's life is that one third is devoted to teaching, one third to research and one third to service.
A significant part of Jackson's working week (which he says can be 70-80 hours - "But if you love what you are doing, it doesn't matter") can be devoted to peer reviewing articles submitted to journals by other academics.
He is on the editorial board of 10 journals and does it, he says "because it's important to do".
Not only does it help to maintain the academic system under which research thrives, it also helps to keep him up-to-date with advances in his field.
Constantly wanting to learn is vital. Another key factor is to absolutely love what you do. Take Rachel Fewster , a lecturer in Auckland University's statistics department: "I started off studying mathematics but I always had a lifelong interest in nature and wildlife as a hobby," says Fewster. "I found out I could combine the two by specialising in the statistics of wildlife populations."
Now she does things such as count the number of whales in the ocean, or work in a multi-disciplinary team researching how to eradicate rats from New Zealand's offshore islands.
This part of her research led to the service element of her work when Fewster's rat eradication team became involved with communities in the Bay of Islands, which now regularly ask the group to talk to community meetings about progress in the research and its application.
"When scientists get involved in the community, I think it's really rewarding for both parties.'
All academics agree that it's the quality of the research that counts - not the quantity. Fewster says there is also an expectation that lecturers will publish a couple of articles a year, but there is flexibility.
"If you are going to produce a really excellent piece of work, you couldn't rattle that off in three or four months," she says. "I partition my year - I'm a researcher for eight months and a teacher for four months, so I focus on one thing at a time."
The career path of an academic within a university or polytechnic depends on the institution and also on their own personal strengths and preferences.
When Rhoda Scherman (43) - acting head of psychology at AUT - was first hired by that university, she was still completing her PhD and was hired mainly to teach. Having already been a tutor, she knew she loved teaching and jumped at the chance.
"Before I knew it, I was an academic," says Scherman.
In changing from being a polytech to a university, AUT now places more emphasis on research and Scherman has completed her PhD and changed roles.
"Within the school of psychology, we have a standard of one day a week for research."
Another 12-16 hours a week of Scherman's time is spent teaching and student contact, with much of the rest spent on course administration.
But, as one of the few people in New Zealand specialising in the psychology of adoption, she also gets called upon to talk to conferences and consult on the topic.
Another rewarding aspect of academic life is seeing the change they can make in students' lives.
"Most of my teaching is to undergraduates," Scherman says, "and sometimes they don't understand the value of knowledge and what they are pursuing.
"But it's very rewarding when they do, when you can see that they get it."
Add to that, the reward of knowing you're making a difference, and are adding to the sum total of human knowledge, and it's obvious an academic's life can be a very satisfying one.
