I think the salary quoted for pilots here is totally out of line.  Many pilots with the smaller airlines (the ones flying as "United Express," for example) make as little as $30,000/year.  When I heard this, I thought, "And we're trusting these people withour lives?"  They must really do it for the love of flying.  

Teaching is also a very stressful job. I won't agree with people saying that teaching is not a stressful job.

A research professor is rather like a small business owner, needing to wear several hats to succeed:

1. Creating a product/service: research and teaching
2. Selling it: getting grants
3. Marketing: publishing papers
4. Administration: many various tasks, from designing a new lab building to organizing international conferences
5. Personnel: admitting students, training postgraduate students and supervising their research

Entrepreneurs and professors need to teach themselves how to do these; they need to compete with others working and thinking equally hard in an unforgiving market; and they need to succeed at all of these or face bankruptcy/firing. If they succeed, they can then be their own bosses to some extent, although they must still compete with the market (other professors). Small business owners often work extremely long hours and take few vacations because time off is money lost. But some small business owners take it easy and are content to work moderate hours as long as they can have a modest income. In both categories, some will succeed and some will fail. Some business owners strive hard, making big sacrifices of time and money, to innovate and improve the world, while others are content to follow what they've always done. In both categories, some will succeed and some will fail. Generalizing the stress level to a single value is not very meaningful for jobs whose nature varies over such broad ranges. Many job types can vary tremendously in stress. A ticket clerk may have to handle 1000 customers a day in a theater, but only 30 customers a day at tennis courts in a park (I saw one last night!). Other jobs may vary less: such as librarians, roustabouts, and long-haul truckers, I guess. Such lists may include a standard deviation in the stress value to show how broadly the job nature may vary. My personal experience as a non-tenured professor is that this job involves a great deal of stress: long hours, a lot of troubleshooting, a lot of rejection (low grant approval rate, rejected papers, and failed experiments. Probably similar to salespeople in this respect.), and the constant threat of being fired and having to change careers. Of course, other jobs also have their own stresses. I thank Careercast for trying to come up with this list. It's hard to do when there are so many variables involved, but at least they gave it a shot. I would suggest improving the list next year by including working hours, in which case most or all self-employed and professional jobs, including professor, would rise in the stress ranking.

Clearly, no one involved in this article has any experience with working their way up the ladder at a real research university.  Let me just write about scientific positions, since that's what I'm familiar with.  After slaving away for 5-7 years as a graduate student, you then become a post-doc for another 3-5 years (also at way below market levels of pay for someone with a PhD).  After this, less than 1 in 5 people will actually get to hired as a professor (if you don't, then you suddenly find out that your extra-specialized knowledge of string-theory doesn't really land you a job in the real world).  Then, if you are one of the lucky few who makes it to the junior faculty level, you about 6 years to make an impact in a field where some of the smartest people in the world have been working for centuries.  If you fall short of this lofty goal, then you lose your job (for example, at a top school like Harvard or MIT, about half the junior faculty have to leave at this stage).  A common joke is that at MIT, the price of tenure is a divorce.So, sure, if you make it through all of these hurdles to get tenure, and somehow manage to have a family some-where along the way, the stress-level drops substantially. So, seriously, good work with this one guys at Careercast!

You'll want to add phone discussion call up support in your organization, be it an entire blown business which has been about and prosperous for some time as well as one that is merely how to get started along with off of the floor.

Are you kidding?   Don't kid yourself that there are some BOZO and lazy professors---how about a Chair of a Department at a Private University in California----who has enough time off for three more jobs?   New to the neighborhood and as observed by about 5-6 neighbors who shake their heads as we watch Professor Wonderful home 80% of the time doing gardening, carpentry and ???.    What a shame to the profession and to real professors who work hard.  A complete dishonest fraud-----oh, probably the TA doing the work while this one stays home.   Arrogant and unfriendly and most likely a legend in his own mind, parents should be furious to pay hefty tuition fees (spread the word) to fund this clown's salary at this major university.    A true RIP to the higher educational system.      Oh, maybe we should believe he is doing "research" or writing another illustrious best seller book?    This is a travesty-----observed by hard-working people--and if this fool every gets up out of bed at a decent time to even show up for a class.....this is the sad work ethic the students may be taught and the University delivers a paycheck to.   Shame on this administration for not putting a hidden camera on this guy.

If you've never been a college instructor, you have no business deciding if it's stressful or not.  Administrators have no idea what it's like to be an instructor if they've never done it full time before.  They don't see what we do outside of class or at home.  People have no clue how much work teachers do outside of the classroom and at home. 

I love hospitality.  It's one of the few industires that someone can start at the bottom and rise to the top in about 10 year.  The top earns about 100-200 thousand per year.  Anyone can rise to the top if they have a good attitude and good common sense..  ...as they say ....it is not rocket science.

What labs did the author visit, on which planet?  Docs make rounds, and demand results be ready on their schedule.  Patients come in, at their convenience and results must be turned around to allow treatment to happen expeditiously so that rankings are not affected by slow turnaround on "service delivery.  Blood born pathogens are encountered every day.  Nursing may have to collect the 72 hour stool collections, but guess who has to mix them up and test them.  As for decisions about peoples lives, last time I went to the doctor and a test was ordered, the outcome of testing determined, in part, if/what treatment was appropriate. 

Obviously, they are completely discarding adjuncts in this evaluation as many have already noted. Also, I don't see how wondering whether one of your failing students isn't going to decide to take out you and as many other students and faculty as he can make the environment "stress free." The other day after the incident in Kentucky I was telling my husband that I might as well be working the night shift in a convenience store. It would probably be safer and maybe pay better, too! 

I'm a tenured university professor and like many folks who have commented on this article, I'm a bit overworked.  But it's still a very rewarding job, at least the part of it that we get to spend in constructive activities like teaching and research.  We are our own bosses, so we know whom to blame for those long hours and that endless hot air in the faculty senate.  I showed the article to the students in both of my classes (with my face photoshopped into the picture) and they could understand why it is not such a stressful career.   After all, it's the next best thing to being a student!

Hello,  Yes, professors do well.  However,  Over 50% of the teaching in college and univesity today is Done be Adjunct teachers. That means that it is being done by part-time, contract teachers.  There are fewer and fewer professors each year in college and university.  That is the error of this study.    

This study lacks internal validity and is absolutely not generalizable. The experience of stress is completely context-dependent. I am a professor and have taught full-time at three major universities, all with varying levels of stress. I used to love academia, but my current institution has trampled that. It is by far the most stressful of all the places I've worked, but it not the *job* that is the culprit, it is the environment, which is toxic, as well as some of the people I work with, who (as a function of the leadership style of the institution) openly display pettiness, bitterness, hostility, and even cruelty in their interactions.Acadmia, by definition, attracts people with huge but fragile egos that must be constantly stoked, especially those who enter positions of leadership. I know several colleagues who have left their jobs at this institution due to stress-related illnesses, and I personally developed a serious heart condition that the cardiologist has diagnosed as stress-induced (every epidsode of occurred at work or on my way to work, months after going through a meat-grinder tenure experience that had me a nervous wreck for two years.) In my experience, the structure of academia leaves open the possibility (in many institutions) of less-noble administators and entrenched faculty to engage in systematic abuse of their junior colleagues (often in the form of "microaggressions"), with impunity and a layer of plausible deniability.It may be true that the physical stress is low for a university professor, but the psychological and emotional stress can be intolerable, especially for those of us who work at dysfunctional institutions with abusive leadership. I'm tenured but considering leaving academia for this very reason. 

Hmmm... so what is it to lecture to 300 students? (or 30 or 70, for that matter)?And they say public speaking is ranked among the most feared, stressful things persons can imagine, not even preferable to threat of death...Writing a lecture and then delivering it. Speaking in front of a crowd.  All part of the job. Sure, it IS a great job. Few are whining when they point out the efforts and hours. They just want it to be acknowledged. It's empirically determinable: we could follow them with stopwatches.(And just by the way, another stress reliever might be: could we please stop shooting in classrooms?)

In what world? I worked in the field for 12 years. Even in the hospital it's considered among the top 3 most stressful, right below ER Nurse. Every year people are cut, and the patient load increasses. Doctors, Er, ICU constantly calling for results, which cuts into the time the tech has to get the work done. No, someone is clueless....  I remember telling a doctor after I graduated. His comment was, oh - hope you got your rollerskates oiled!

I heard this list on the radio this morning on my way into school, and I just had to read the article for myself.  I've also read a number of the comments posted here, and some are decent, but many are hurtful.  I won't contribute to that line of commenting.  I am a full-time English instructor (the rank before the professor ranks), and I'm in my third year now.  Before that, I was an adjunct.  That is a situation I wouldn't wish on anyone as most of the time, I felt like a failure and loser who couldn't make ends meet at home.  At work, I felt like an invisible nobody.  I chose that for myself, though, and I believed it would pay off sometime.  I was right.  I knew that if I paid my dues as an adjunct, I'd get hired full-time, and I did.  While my job is quite stressful, I think the reward of teaching balances the stress.  It's true that when I'm trying to work my way through a stack of grading freshmen papers, sometimes I'd like to scream, but the writing does get better.  I find the end of the semester the most rewarding because the students' writing has improved, and I know that I've helped people.  I actually do have some students who are really thoughtful and write me thank you cards, too.  I save those cards in case I ever forget why I went into teaching.  It's all I've ever wanted to do, and I'm so thankful everyday that I get to do it, despite the stress.  I think that if we all were able to go into our dream field, the field we've always wanted to enter, we'd all be a little less stressed about it.  I wish that for everyone.  Finis Coronot Opus- The End Crowns the Work. 

I have had quite a few visits to the doctor for stress-related illnesses, due to my job as a college professor. First of all, getting tenure involved hazing and abuse. After tenure, the stress level does not drop completely. We are expected to perform miracles with students who have poor preparation in their previous schooling. The students wear me down with their needs. They don't understand how to succeeed, and many are not capable, but they need a degree so they don't end up living in poverty. In the last week of class, I hear all their sob stories, and even if half of them are true, it's overwhelming. The administration is hostile to the faculty and try to push cost-cutting and education-cutting measures on us, while eroding any academic freedom we have left. I'm burnt out, and I have 25 years to go before I can even think about retiring.

I work in a call center, and this is definitely high stress. constant phones, but at the end of the day, i know that i have provided excellent service and will continue to strive. regardless of the stress level , with any job, we need to be thankful that we are employed.  My husband just last week, his employer closed their doors, and he will find something soon, its ok...but i will continue to deliver awesome customer service to my callers, regardless of my situations!

I was a University Professor in Suburban New York as my "Mommy Track."  The most difficult situation I had to confront was being literally harassed and insulted by campus non-faculty employees who were who felt insecure because I was a youthful looking African-American who had a terminal [a Juris Doctorate: Ph.D. equivalent] degree. In my department I comprised less than 1% of faculty throughout the U.S. who taught in that field of study.Ironically, I discovered that in Florida, those with the most threatened with their inability to adapt were the under-educated privileged administrators. Fortunately, the students always appreciated my work, and the foreign students were clearly the most diligent students. At that level, diversity has been an intractible problem, which skews the student success rate, as well. But without a doubt, except for the inefficient administrators in higher education, college professors have the least stressful profession. 

I teach a lot of professors english and edit and translate for them....if this is the most stress free job, everyone else is going to die young. In the sciences the amount of scrounging for funding for their research and for students is immense and in the humanities the same is true (though to a lesser extent) and they have to deal with the stress of constant cuts and bloated admin that are trying to change universities into efficient corporations to justify their enormous salaries. Not to mention answering student emails non-stop and most starting their careers with a bucketful of debt from having to go to school for so long. The writer of this article is perhaps being influenced by Hollywood, where depictions often include a lot of free time for contemplation and philandering with students. Schools are run largely on the slave labour of part timers and the stress of making a low income should factor more heavily in these rankings.Plus stress is a subjective thing and reflects an individual's capacity to deal with it. And everyone has job stress. I bet an article about the most stressful jobs would be less contentious.    

As an adjunct faculty member, I would absolutely make more money working other fields.  I tried to pick up a retail job but they wouldn't hire me due to no experience and they told me my advanced degree was not applicable. Making about $2000/class per semester (or less depending at the school) leaves me broke 24/7.  I had to pick up an extra class at a school strictly to pay for the fuel to travel between the institutions I teach at. I only do the job because I love it, I love my students, and wish to continue gaining experience while searching for a full time position with benefits.  The stress of being in debt and having to count every penny to buy groceries and essentials all year long is awful.  The fact that I'm only hired one semester at a time, have no health benefits, and have to try and find classes at other institutions to make ends meet (if available and if scheduling allows) is stressful.  The fact that I could be fired on a whim because enrollment drops or a student complains is stressful.  The fact that adjuncts are treated as the lowest lifeforms at instutions is problematic.  The grade a student has on a transcript from a part-time faculty member is exactly the same as the ones given from classes taken by full time faculty...there's no notation that the class was taught by an adjunct.  We are doing good work but are never recognized.  I would love to see a study done on the stress levels of just adjuncts/part-time faculty. Sadly I don't think it would make instutions wake up and change their hiring practices.

I work as support staff at a private University. I can empathize with all of the faculty here who are a bit irate or annoyed that the perception is they have a cushy job. You need to take into consideration the methodology of how these results were determined.

• Travel, amount of 0-10
• Growth Potential (income divided by 100)
• Deadlines 0-9
• Working in the public eye 0-5
• Competitiveness 0-15
• Physical demands (stoop, climb, etc.) 0-14
• Environmental conditions 0-13
• Hazards encountered 0-5
• Own life at risk 0-8
• Life of another at risk 0-10
• Meeting the public 0-8

Out of those 11 categories, your job does not even register on at least 6 of them. I believe the method involves stress inherent to the job. Every job has stress, and the amount of stress some jobs have does not vary. In Higher Ed. jobs, much of that stress is self induced. The ambition to make tenure and to be at the top of your field and to truly reach your students is something not every faculty member has. Granted, the good ones do, but there are enough of the other kind where it can be said that the level of stress inherent to the job is significantly less than many other career paths.I started with saying that I am support staff and a private university. If I were to do the same job in a corporate setting, my stress level would triple. I'm not saying I have a stress free job by anymeans, but I can tell you I have a lot less heartburn than my counterparts who work outside of Higher Ed. All I'm saying is try not to take offense to these results, and try to be thankful that you are doing something wonderful that makes a difference in the lives of your students, and possibly to the world as a whole depending on how much research you have taken on as well.

The majority of the "least stressful jobs" are jobs where you dont have to deal with people?

Maybe they should ask the professors' spouses before they completed the report. I know most professors in the hard sciences would heartily disagree with this. Of course, if I was a professor at a private institution pulling down 6 figures with a student to faculty ratio of 6:1 (instead of 40:1), I could see my stress melting away too.

I am one of the lucky (and grateful) few who have tenure, at a research-oriented university. I won't compare my lot with soldiers or police, but a good comparison is with other professionals with many years of education. I have friends who are doctors, lawyers, and research scientists, many of whom envy the intellectual freedom I have (which I do love). But they would agree that with the constant pressure to get maintain grants and generally be competitive, my job is more stressful than theirs. I work at least 60 hours/week (and at least a little bit almost every day including vacation) and my work is never far from my mind. I could slack off and keep my job, but if I were the kind of person who would do that I would not have gotten tenure in the first place. As for getting tenure, be prepared for the 5 or 6 most stressful years possible outside the world of life-and-death situations.

If being a professor is such a stressful, time-consuming job, how do you all find the time to come on here and whine and complain about it?

Look at me! Me!! ME!!! I'm a University Professor and I'm so stressed! Me! Me!