Sunday, July 09, 2006

You are doing a PhD??? BUT WHY!!!!!!!!!

Someone recently uttered the title of this blog and it 'knocked' me into the real world where people give you strange looks if you are doing a PhD. The entire span of my doctoral study can be summed up chronologically by three nouns; idealism, realism, antagonism and, God forbid, for some people the list can be extended with alcoholism and zombiism!!

I can write pages and pages about my or anyone else's PhD experience but the apt lines were uttered by my advisor. He once said, "Finishing your doctoral study is like a sexual climax, when everything starts to happen at the same time", and I honorably add, "with the only difference being that you would love to go through a sexual climax time and again but never ever dare to 'finish another PhD' !!!!!!"

As a dedication to my doctoral 'climax', I am listing a few satirical as well as some good lines that I came across during these 5 years of graduate study;

1] First my favorite: "You are doing a PhD??? BUT WHY!!!!!!!!!"
2] PhD = Permanent Head Damage
3] BS => Bull S***; MS => More S***;PhD => Pile it Higher and Deeper
4] PhD = Poor Hungry Doctorate student
5] "Breach what you preach"
6] "Women make possible impossible"
7] "Either you should know the solution or know someone who knows the solution"
8] "The laws of physics do not stop working during the weekends" (there goes my weekend!)
9] Experiments work by Black Magic
10] Outcome of an experiment depends on the frequency of rotation of a pulsar in some distant galaxy
11] Lab equipments are distant cousins of Marvin (the severely depressed paranoid android with GPP in novel/movie 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. The picture in this blog post is that of Marvin taken from Wikipedia)
12] PhD = reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-search (search again n again n again ....)
13] An experiment is as good as its instrumentation and a simulation is as good as its assumptions
14] "Let us get to the hurdle then think about it" (very useful most of the times)
15] When I say,"Hi, I am doing a PhD", the replies........
"ooooooooohhh"
"OHHHHHHHHH"
"hooooooo ha ha ha, now I can say that I have a mad scientist as a friend"
"Oh you must be a genious, I wish I could do that" (OFCOURSEEEEEEEE nobody means it)
"Acknowledge me when you get a Nobel prize"
"Why don't you advice my son/daughter"
"Your life is set, you will have no problems" (yeah RIGHT !!!!!)

15 Comments:

At 3:06 PM, Blogger yasser said...

i was actually going to ask you number 1 but then finished the post. it is good you can mock what you did or how others see it at least....

 
At 9:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great post Arun:)

 
At 11:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Acknowledge me when you get a Nobel prize"

 
At 12:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"hooooooo ha ha ha, now I can say that I have a mad scientist as my ......."

 
At 12:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very interesting post. I felt like you were talking to me(Becos I have heared all this in this 2 yrs. heheheheheh!).
Everyone who is planning to do PhD must read this to get more encouraged. ahahahahahha.........

 
At 2:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

good one

 
At 2:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

dude....that was funny!!!!......and of course true question.."why wanna do PhD man"...lol.....i loved reading it.....keep posting :)

 
At 7:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Arun, I agree with most of the points u stated. The "black magic" one actually seems correct to me. One of the machine which i use (Flow cytometer) works fine only when i keep the door adjacent to it open. Otherwise its computer keeps on rebooting. Yaar, i really want my PhD to end! Hows urs going? R u writing?

 
At 1:11 PM, Blogger Flavin said...

That should drain the last drops of courage of any mortal who dreams to enroll for a doctorate. The article makes me feel "Thank you Lord a million times, I didn't have to go through this!"

On the other hand, a PhD is a Phd and thats that. Say what you want, a PhD is highly respected by anyone who knows its worth. I mean cmon, not everyone can get one. Only the bold, daring, courageous, skillful, dextrous, intelligent, smart, economic, efficient, never-ever-give-up type of person can dream of making it through a PhD. I am proud to say that my BEST friend is a PhD. And that too, he is the BEST of the BEST in whatever he is :~)

 
At 7:53 AM, Blogger Anu said...

You may be interested in this :)

http://ppcook.blogspot.com/2006/08/physics-more-damaging-than-drugs.html

 
At 7:55 AM, Blogger Anu said...

Here

 
At 4:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

he He Dr. ArunKumar!!

 
At 10:16 AM, Blogger Aparna said...

This is just the motivation i needed before i embark upon my 'PhD journey' in a couple of yrs

 
At 2:57 PM, Blogger Vallabh Chilakapati said...

That shows some talent there. Common... put some of it into our script and let us know.

I enjoyed a lot reading it.

 
At 5:26 AM, Anonymous Term Papers said...

I have been visiting various blogs for my term papers writing research. I have found your blog to be quite useful. Keep updating your blog with valuable information... Regards

 

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