PhD Parodies

A Doctor, a Lawyer and a Mathematician about Mistresses.

2011-11-03T05:57:00.000-07:00

"There are three men in a bar, a doctor, a lawyer, and a mathematician ... and they are discussing whether it's better to have a wife or a ... mistress. The doctor says, "It's much better to have a wife because you work all day, you come home at the end of the day, you want to have a steady, settled family life." And the lawyer says, "No, no, no, no, no. It's much better to have a mistress because maybe for the first 5, 10, 20, 30 years you'd like to have a steady family life, but if you change your mind, it gets incredibly complicated, so it's much, much better to have a mistress." And they're going back and forth, they can't agree, so they turn to the mathematician. "What do you think?" And the mathematician says, "It's better to have a wife and a mistress. And the reason is, your wife will be afraid to ask if you are spending time with your mistress and your mistress will know that of course you have to spend some time with your wife. Which means you can spend your time doing mathematics!"

Source: Joel Cohen, http://bigthink.com/ideas/19346

Who needs all of this education, anyway?

2011-11-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

This is the big joke played upon you:

"Higher education is even more susceptible to the law of diminishing returns than most fields. Every extra year of higher education costs you more in terms of foregone income in return for less in terms of added value"

I know. It's not funny. For you! But...

"PhD programmes are life-enhancers for professors: they give them acolytes to massage their egos and relieve them of undergraduate teaching while also doing much of their research for them. But they teach you less than you could have learned on the job and a PhD may leave you unemployable. There are far better things to do with your 20s than acquiring yet more letters after your name."

Full text at: http://moreintelligentlife.com/node/3829

Scientific Process - Perceived vs Actual

2011-09-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

So true...

MAY 4, 2011 BY PAUL VALLETT

Good advice

2010-10-14T07:45:00.001-07:00

Advisers are there to remind you that a PhD is not easy.
"But all you need to do is to believe in yourself, make a plan, and go through with it."
See:
http://youtu.be/8rDgE9d3GXE

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

2010-08-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

By Matt Might

http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

Clash of the (Academic) Titans (2010)

2010-05-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

Spyros, department janitor speaks to undergrad students about the faculty - or, as he calls them, the gods.

Spyros: One day, somebody's got to make a stand. One day, somebody's got to say enough...

Cassiopeia, undergraduate student in the student government says:

Cassiopeia: The gods need *us*! They need our prayers! What do *we* need the gods for?

Hearing of the stirring riot, Zeus, the director of the research center conjures his faculty:

Zeus: They need to be reminded of the order of things...

And the faculty started requesting students to make slides, perform dead-end useless tedious experiments, and write grant proposals that would only bear the name of the faculty.

Perseus, research assistant phd student (a.k.a. demi-god) says to the gods:

Perseus: I'm not one of you! I'd rather die than stand alongside you!

And Perseus organizes the students, and starts a graduate student union to fight for student rights. Meanwhile, unexpected news come: Perseus' paper was accepted to the top journal of his field.

Zeus, responds:

Zeus: You may not wish to be a god, but after what you've done hundreds will worship you. Look after them. Treat them better than we could. And if you insist on continuing this mundane human existence, I'll not have you do it alone. You're the son of Zeus, after all!

Calibos, before quitting grad school, responds to Zeus' invite to Perseus to continue associated with the research center:

[last words]
Calibos: Perseus... don't become like them.
[falls down a chasm]

Will Perseus graduate and take his place in Olympus, or will he live as a mortal amongst the humans? Will he write the grant proposal?

Source: IMDB's memorable quotes

Work hour limit for grad students

2010-03-23T08:20:00.001-07:00

Graduate Research Assistants, PhD Students, Grad Students: International students who are graduate assistants are permitted by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to be employed for only twenty hours per week during a school term in the United States. The 20-hour limitation policy covers all duties required of a graduate assistant. I'm serious,
Google it!

hahahah This is the best joke I've posted here so far. I think they meant be paid for only twenty hours of the 60-hour work week.

Illegal Work

2010-03-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

The Italian government ran a campaign that said: "Illegal work: it is not worth it. Low pay, disrespect and insecurity."
My first reaction was: wow... they made doctorates illegal in Italy. Then, thinking more about it, I realized it was about immigrants taking sub-employment jobs. Then I got jealous. What?! They have all we have and don't even need to sign a contract?! "Bastardos!"

2010-03-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

“There is little success where there is little laughter.”
Andrew Carnegie

The Plantation Analogy

2010-02-21T07:45:00.000-08:00

"In the whole world, the official science has become an intricate administrative organism
...
On the one side of it – a landlord, a plantation/latifundium owner or something alike, who prefers to be addressed as “professor” or “scientific group leader”. On the other side – a number of volunteering plantation slaves (drudges/plodders/toilers), who are officially dubbed “doctoral students” or “postdocs”. These slaves are absolute volunteers, because nobody forces them at gunpoint to slog for the landlord. The latter ones consider and treat the former ones just as “chess pieces”, each of which has to obey a certain finite number of primitive game rules. Depending on the personality of the landlord, the analogy between the “scientific laboratory” and plantation slavery may be more or less sharp, but the basic features are practically the same in all the countries from USA – through Western Europe and Russia – till the Far East.
...
They definitely know that they are slaves and they are reminded about this fact every day several times a day, for the attitude of the respective landlords and their helpers towards the slaves is unequivocal.
...
The only master and profiteer in the whole plantation is the respective landlord – his/her direct profit is the social success exclusively for him/her – he/she will never share it with anybody. There is practically no scientific research in the plantations, no clear-cut programme, no knowledge mining, no sensible, useful results..."
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/blog/9293-globalization-and-scientific-research-trying-catch-black-cats-dark-rooms.html

2009-11-21T10:27:00.000-08:00

PhD degrees are Pyrrhic Victories.

We are sorry to inform you...

2009-10-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

http://imechanica.org/node/3353
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1106736.1106763

MJ, abused grad

2009-10-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

Heal The Lab
Michael Jackson

There's A Place In
Your Heart
And I Know That It Is Love
And This Place Could
Be Much
Brighter Than Tomorrow
And If You Really Try
You'll Find There's No Need
To Cry
In This Place You'll Feel
There's No Hurt Or Sorrow

There Are Ways
To Get There
If You Care Enough
For The Research
Make A Little Space
Make A Better Place...

Heal The Lab
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Student Race
There Are Ideas Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Research
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

If You Want To Know Why
There's A Boss That
Can only lie
He Is Strong
He Only Cares For
His own living
If We Try
We Shall See
In This Bliss
We Cannot Feel
Fear Or Dread
We Stop Existing And
Start Researching

Then It Feels That Always
Research's Enough For
Us Growing
So Make A Better Lab
Make A Better World...

Advisors...

2009-10-15T11:00:00.001-07:00

...a plethora of advice and a paucity of assistance.

2008-01-17T15:01:00.001-08:00

"Edison says, 'Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.' He may have been exaggerating, but the idea is that solid work, steadily applied, gets you surprisingly far. The steady application of effort with a little bit more work, 'intelligently applied is what does it. That's the trouble; drive, misapplied, doesn't get you anywhere. I've often wondered why so many of my good friends at Bell Labs who worked as hard or harder than I did, didn't have so much to show for it. The misapplication of effort is a very serious matter. Just hard work is not enough - it must be applied sensibly."
From: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.pdf

Oh... so thaaaaat's what advisors were supposed to do? Help to guide the application of effort? Sincerely, just avoiding to misguide would be already a good thing.

2007-10-28T00:08:00.000-07:00

Aerials
System of a Down
"Life is a waterfall
We're one in the river
And one again after the fall
Swimming through the void
We hear the word
We lose ourselves
But we find it all
(...)
And we are the ones that want to choose
Always want to play
But you never want to lose
Aerials, in the sky
When you lose small mind
You free your life
(...)
Aerials, so up high
When you free your eyes eternal prize"

Bring it on

2007-10-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

Rocky Balboa talks about his grad school experience...

Eye Of The Tiger
Survivor
"So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
(...)
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive"

Acknowledgments to my friend TT, who says "no more whining, time to fight!".

1984 for Prospective Students

2007-10-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

In the book 1984, O'Brien briefs Winston about grad school...

Nineteen Eighty Four, Part III, Chapter III
George Orwell
"
The advisors seek power entirely for their own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.
Power is not a means, it is an end.
(...)
'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'
(...)
By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
(...)
In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman.
(...)
If you want a picture of grad school, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.'
(...)
"

Source: George-Orwell.org keeping the texts online.

Was Job a PhD student?

2007-10-15T13:27:00.001-07:00

Below commented fragments of The World English Bible that indicate that Job was a PhD student.

2:11 Now when Job's three friends (...)

THREE friends?! What a social life!

7:3 so am I made to possess months of misery,
wearisome nights are appointed to me.

Classwork, conference deadlines, ppt presentation for the adviser...

19:20 My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

Not a lot of sleep, huh? Lotta ramen noodles?

7:19 How long will you not look away from me,
nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?

Let the kid do research, will ya?

19:14 My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

Yes... they can't stand hearing about your thesis anymore!

3:13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet.
I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,

Yes. You should have taken a real job.

9:29 I shall be condemned.
Why then do I labor in vain?

He knew nobody would read his thesis.

11:5. And I wish that God would speak with thee, and would open his lips to thee,
11:6. That he might show thee the secrets of wisdom,(...)

God was his advisor.

15:9 What do you know, that we don’t know?
What do you understand, which is not in us?

The thesis defense.

20:22. When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall upon him.

And then he graduates. But no jobs were there for him. Oh sorrow...

Tick tick...

2007-10-15T11:15:00.000-07:00

Time is probably the most meaningful word during grad school. And how ironic is it that "tick" can denote a sound like a clock/timer as well as a parasitic arachnid that feeds on blood of warm-blooded animals (i.e. adviser)?
Pink Floyd's "Time" didn't need a parody. It just is.

Time
Pink Floyd
"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time has gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells."

Dedicated to my friend CR.

Dr. Marley, B.

2007-10-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Bob was the first to suggest unionizing grad students.

Redemption Song
Bob Marley
"
(...)
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for senior faculty,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they keep our profits,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill the book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?"