Some (real?) stories
One sunny day a rabbit came out of her hole in the
ground to enjoy the weather. The day was so nice that the
rabbit became careless, so a fox sneaked up to her and
caught her.
"I am going to eat you for lunch!", said the
fox.
"Wait!", replied the rabbit, "You should
at least wait a few days."
"Oh yeah? Why should I wait?"
"Well, I am just finishing my Ph.D. thesis."
"Hah, that's a stupid excuse. What is the title of
your thesis anyway?"
"I am writing my thesis on "The Superiority of
Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves."
"Are you crazy? I should eat you right now!
Everybody knows that a fox will always win over a rabbit."
"Not really, not according to my research. If you
like, you can come to my hole and read it for yourself.
If you are not convinced, you can go ahead and have me
for lunch."
"You are really crazy!" But since the fox was
curious and had nothing to lose, it went with the rabbit
into its hole. The fox never came back out.
A few days later, the rabbit was again taking a break
from writing and sure enough, a wolf came out of the
bushes and was ready to eat her.
"Wait!", yelled the rabbit,"You can't eat
me right now."
"And why might that be, you fuzzy appetizer?"
"I am almost finished writing my Ph.D. thesis on 'The
Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'"
The wolf laughed so heard that it almost lost its hold on
the rabbit. "Maybe I shouldn't eat you; you really
are sick in the head, you might have something contagious,"
the wolf opined.
"Come read for yourself; you can eat me after that
if you disagree with my conclusions." So the wolf
went to the rabbit's hole and never came out.
The rabbit finished her thesis and was out celebrating in
the lettuce fields. Another rabbit came by and asked,
"What's up? You seem to be very happy.."
"Yup, I just finished my dissertation."
"Congratulations! What is it about?"
"It's titled 'The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes
and Wolves'"
"Are you sure? That doesn't sound right."
"Oh yes, you should come over and read it for
yourself."
So they went together to the rabbit's hole. As they went
in, the friend saw a typical graduate student's abode,
albeit a rather messy one after writing a thesis. The
computer with the the controversial dissertation was in
one corner, on the right there was a pile of fox bones,
on the left was a pile of wolf bones, and in the middle
was a large, lip-licking lion.
The moral of the story:
The title of your dissertation doesn't matter. All that
matters is who your thesis advisor is.
A second Ph.D. student short
story
A Ph.D. student, a post-doc, and a professor are
walking through a city park and they find and antique oil
lamp. They rub it and a genie comes out in a puff of
smoke.
The genie says, "I usually only grant three wishes,
so I'll give each of you just one."
"Me first! Me first!" says the Ph.D. student.
"I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat
with a gorgeous supermodel."
Poof! He's gone.
"Me next! Me next!" says the post-doc. "I
want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with a
beautiful celebrity."
Poof! He's gone.
"You're next," the genie says to the professor.
The professor says, "I want those guys back in the
lab after lunch."
Ten reasons to do a Ph.D.
- It feels so good when it's over. Like a prisoner
set free after five to ten years of hard labor,
pushed out of the gates with one set of clothes
and $10 in his pocket, a newly minted Ph.D. is
given a new life. Never before, and never again,
will you need to work so hard, for so long, for
so little.
- You want to please your third-grade teacher. I
can finally face it: I was Mrs. Larson's love
slave. I was ever attentive to the gentle curve
of the chalk as it followed her graceful hand
across the blackboard, and a lump formed in my
throat each time I strained to bark the answer to
her next puzzler. I hoped to marry her, until I
realized that she would be 53 when I turned 18.
Feeling spurned by this thought alone, I had only
one alternative: I could earn her love by adding
to her glory. I joined that legacy of forlorn
little boys who live only to reflect her radiance.
Shine on, Mrs. Larson, shine on!
- You don't have to get a real job. What better
excuse can you have to avoid making a living?
When your friends talk to you about junk bonds or
how they persuade more people to drink Coca-Cola,
you can gush about how you are wresting the keys
of life from nature's grubby little hands. You
can tell them about the future that you and other
scientist-geniuses are creating for them to live
in. Remind them of the millions of lives that
will be saved by your teasing of molecules, cells,
and tissues. Sure, you're dirt poor, but you don't
have to pay back your college loans as long as
you stay in grad school!
- You want to study the effects of prolonged stress
upon aging. It's tough to find a better way to
force the body and mind to decay so quickly.
Federal guidelines prohibit treating volunteers
like this for medical experiments. What better
way is there to offer your body for science?
- It's not a program of study, it's a lifestyle
choice. Think about the freedom. No boring nine-to-five
hours. You're on all the time! Where else can you
get such a good deal on subsidized housing? You
don't have to apologize about your furniture
because, hey, you're a student! And how about
that lab ambience that you enjoy during the day?
The decor is so positively minimalist: so clean,
so functional. If you're a medical researcher,
don't forget those little cookouts behind the lab.
Bring your own hibachi, but don't ask where the
meat came from.
- It will help you to save the world. This is a
very good reason to get a Ph.D. in a biomedical
field. If you just entered grad school or are
about to enter for this reason, your timing
couldn't be better. By December of 1999, when you
receive letters explaining that you won't be
getting your stipend checks because of the Y2K
problem, wild-eyed men will be screaming and
dragging wooden crosses across intersections in
every major city. Students will be breaking into
the observatory to get a good first glimpse of
the mother ship. Your Internet connection will
creep to a stop, since everyone will be shopping
online for bomb shelters and guns. How will you
save the world? Soon it will all be revealed. . .
.
- You meet the nicest people. Yes, going for a Ph.D.
is one great party. You are constantly surrounded
by jolly, relaxed people your age who frolic in
the library, the classrooms, the labs. Kindly,
parental professors gently guide you through the
process, keeping their minds and hearts on your
best interests. Department administrators, like
wise admirals, chart your future and the future
of your field with a keen eye on your own North
Star. Wasn't it this way at your school?
- It's a great way to pick up dates. It's so
romantic. A moonlit night at the lab. Only you
and your darling, your faces glowing in front of
the hissing Bunsen burners. You nibble sushi
together from a petri dish and sip wine from an
Erlenmeyer flask. You whisper your latest
readouts in each other's ears. The quiet hum of a
centrifuge in the background is so scintillating!
He touches your arm and you jump. It's ok, he
assures you. We're in a P-3 containment facility.
Before long, it's just you and the night. The
rustle of clothing. The donning of latex gloves .
. .
- Your biochemistry professor is way cool. One of
the best reasons to get a Ph.D.: you know so
little about your professor that you think you
can achieve all her imagined qualities by
following in her footsteps. In this case, you can
best enjoy your doctoral journey by never meeting
with this person. Above all else, don't ask her
to be your adviser. She should lie in the
background of your unconscious, quietly smiling
upon each tiny victory of your career. Just let
her shake your hand at graduation.
- You don't know what else to do. This is one of
the best reasons to do a Ph.D., and it's the most
popular one. Imagine your future as a deep, dark
tunnel about 60 years long. How on earth are you
going to fill all that time? Well, one way is to
reduce the number of decisions you have to make
by making one commitment that is so long that you
can't even imagine what the end will be like. By
the time you finish your Ph.D., new technologies
will have sprouted, creating unimagined new
civilizations, and millions upon millions of
babies will have been born. Don't have to worry
about planning for that future now, do you? See
what a relief a Ph.D. program can be?
This home page is still under
construction. If you have any problems or any comments,
feel free to contact : jerome.helie@ifp.fr