Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3656-3660 (15th to 19th January 2018)
BenRG:
FWIW, I suspect that Melon and Arthur fit into the category of 'eccentric and well-off'.
dutchrvl:
--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 20 Jan 2018, 15:00 ---Any graduate student in the grips of their dissertation research, in any domain, lives that work. It's all that matters -- it is your life, at least if you actually want to get those extra three letters. Evie is just behaving naturally.
--- End quote ---
I know this is what many PhD students think, but this is really only true if you have a dictator as your advisor. There are plenty of those around, of course, but they're still by far a minority. With most 'normal' advisors (talking in the USA now), you can get your PhD perfectly fine by still working hard (e.g. 50-60 hr workweeks) but not having to be excessive or obsessive about it.
Personally, I was lucky enough (well, I did chose him I suppose) to have such a normal advisor, and while I probably could've graduated 1-1.5 yr sooner had I been excessive about it, I was much happier by taking a little longer but having a perfectly normal live and treating my PhD as a more or less normal job with only the occasional craziness. I was by no means an exception either, it's mostly about the right advisor.
It also doesn't help that many PhD students convince themselves that they HAVE to be excessive about their PhD in order to graduate, even when their advisor would not even expect it...
Skewbrow:
--- Quote from: Case on 21 Jan 2018, 12:06 ---
Thirded (and the relocation bit seems strictly optional)
--- End quote ---
Conceding the point about relocation being optional. But the experience is more intense if you also uproot yourself from your homestead.
--- Quote from: Case ---And that's before accounting for the "proneness for monomania" that comes with my particular brand of congenital non-standard neurology ...
I speak no psychobabble. Can some kind soul confirm my suspicion that this is a generalization of graduate students' creed: "We are proud to be a math nerds! We are proud to work 80+hours per week." (implying that we look down on the peers who don't)
--- Quote from: dutchrvl on 22 Jan 2018, 06:55 ---
I know this is what many PhD students think, but this is really only true if you have a dictator as your advisor. There are plenty of those around, of course, but they're still by far a minority. With most 'normal' advisors (talking in the USA now), you can get your PhD perfectly fine by still working hard (e.g. 50-60 hr workweeks) but not having to be excessive or obsessive about it.
Personally, I was lucky enough (well, I did chose him I suppose) to have such a normal advisor, and while I probably could've graduated 1-1.5 yr sooner had I been excessive about it, I was much happier by taking a little longer but having a perfectly normal live and treating my PhD as a more or less normal job with only the occasional craziness. I was by no means an exception either, it's mostly about the right advisor.
It also doesn't help that many PhD students convince themselves that they HAVE to be excessive about their PhD in order to graduate, even when their advisor would not even expect it...
--- End quote ---
Since I have supervised/advised 4 PhD students to graduation I feel like commenting. I didn't insist that they would be doing math 24/7, but they did tell me that I half expected them to. Two of them did work "hard enough" for me. Even though one of those (quitter!) once excused themself for family reasons just when the team was close to completing the proof of a result.
But, my only female PhD student also wanted to spend time on things like yoga, travelling, and teaching outside the Uni on the side. Causing me to frown. So I don't think very highly of her math, but she is very successful. The only one of us who has advanced to the position of a professor! Among other things she is very skilled in getting funding for herself, the rest of the team as well her students, so there's that :-) (may be my sour grapes talking?)
--- End quote ---
traroth:
--- Quote from: Shjade on 19 Jan 2018, 12:54 ---
--- Quote from: traroth on 19 Jan 2018, 08:22 ---Now you are stretching things a bit. If you go that road, "bitch" is also an insult, but it's not the same word and not the same meaning. Ok, I confess I didn't knew the word "catty". I'm always happy to enrich my english vocabulary... :-)
--- End quote ---
Being called a "tomcat" isn't exactly a compliment in most cases either. Maybe not overtly insulting, but...
On topic: my concern at the moment is Amanda and Evie (especially Evie) potentially setting back any relationship development between Faye and Bubbles with not only unsolicited encouragement/enthusiasm, but Evie finding the relationship fascinating and wanting to intellectually dissect it, to their detriment.
--- End quote ---
Let put me it that way: take the exact phrase said by Faye : "it's like makin' friends with a dog that got kicked. If you go right in for belly rubs, you're gonna get bit". Let's simply change the word "dog" for the word "cat". To me, it somehow sounds far less insulting. Does it make any sense?
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 20 Jan 2018, 15:00 ---Any graduate student in the grips of their dissertation research, in any domain, lives that work. It's all that matters -- it is your life, at least if you actually want to get those extra three letters.
--- End quote ---
I've not been there; but as a counter-example I offer my wife, who got her PhD in the usual three years, part time while having a full-time job. It involved some seasonal field work (the grass concerned needed to be in flower), and she fitted in travel to Scandinavia for some of that.
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