So...You want to do a Phd?

I know some people are rather lazy to click on a link...So I will still give the link..and copy paste those texts..original sources are still acknowledged.. :))


Source: http://www.nigels.com/jokes/phd1.pdf

SO YOU WANT TO DO A PhD?

    

The first in a series of articles on postgraduate studies by 10,000 monkeys.

Before you embark on a PhD, you should consider your reasons for choosing this course. If you make a conscious decision now that this is what you really want, you will be able to look back and chuckle over your naivety with genuine irony in years to come. If, on the other hand, you drift into it because it is assumed you will do it, you will have no answer to the inevitable question, “What in Dante’s seven hells could possibly have possessed me to think that this was a good idea?!”

Here are some of the most common reasons for embarking on a PhD: which of them apply to you?


• “I have a diagnosable mental illness”
It is a popular misconception that you would have to be mad to start a PhD. As we will show below, there are a number of other possible reasons for postgraduate studies. Still, this is a good one. If you are stark raving bonkers, you will fit right in to the academic world. If insanity is your main reason for wanting to do a PhD, however, there are a few things you should consider first. Have you sought treatment? Many mental illnesses are now curable or at least controllable with a simple course of medication. Others may be resolved with appropriate counselling in less time than it takes to complete a PhD. If, however, you are certain that your insanity will last the distance, go right ahead and sign those scholarship forms.


• “I can’t get a job.”
Perhaps your undergraduate degree was a BA. Perhaps your grades are good, but you have the social skills of a discombobulated iguana and don’t do so well in interviews. Perhaps the state of the economy is such that only job available is as a trainee kitchen hand in your uncle’s fast-food joint, and you are too proud to take it. Any of these factors may mean that you are basically unemployable, and further education may be a wise choice. It won’t change anything, but at least it will keep you off the streets for the next few years.


• “I can’t face the real world.”
You’ve been in some form of educational institution for upwards of sixteen years – probably most of your life. You’ve heard rumours that there is something beyond this environment, but you don’t want to take any chances. Heading out into the ‘real world’ can be delayed for up to five more years if you start a PhD now, and if you do well, you may be able to delay it indefinitely by becoming an academic. If this is your main reason for embarking on a PhD, you may wish to consider doing a Masters degree first – that way, you can add an extra year or two to your total study time.


• “I think it would be cool to have ‘Dr’ before my name on my credit cards.”
Well yes, it is cool. But not everyone thinks so. Judges and most jurors are unlikely to have PhDs of their own, and may not be understanding after you are found strangling with your bare hands a clerk who nonetheless insists on calling you “Miss”. “But your honour, ‘Miss’ is a demeaning appellation symptomatic of over a century’s subjugation of women and besides, I lived on ramen noodles and relied for hydration on nothing but my own recycled sweat and tears for four years, all the while enslaved

to the whims of an arbitrary, inconsistent and uncaring supervisor, just to earn those two fucking letters” is unlikely to go down well at your hearing.


• "I seek to further my knowledge and contribute to the advancement of science in this, my chosen field."
Bwhahahaha! Good one! No, why really? If this is truly your reason, well, it's all very noble and self-sacrificing of you and all, but in general, it's rarely if ever enough to carry you through. Somewhere, in the morass of inaccurate and fudged journal articles that constitutes the full sum of knowledge on your chosen topic, the overbearing visiting academics with condescending attitudes and bad ties, the fumbled seminars, the perky, over-achieving colleagues, the whole ramen noodle thing, and so on, you'll find that all you really wanted was those two fucking letters, and that they don't make a blind bit of difference in the real world anyway. But in the meantime, good luck with the advancement of science and all, huh?


• "I'm too ugly to be a model or an actor or a prostitute."
Well, you've probably got a point. Still, there are other possible career options, and, if
you've been down Oxford St. recently, you might want to rethink the latter one.


• "I am impressed by the example set by my television role model, and wish to follow in his/her/its footsteps."
This would be, what, Dr. Smith from Lost in Space? You're aware that Felicity is an undergraduate? I suppose it really does take all kinds.


• "Smart chicks are hot."
There are two options here. Either you're a girl hoping to capitalise on the mystique of the intellectual woman, in which case I'm afraid to say that a pair of glasses and a library card will provide pretty much the same effect, or you're a guy, hoping to use that line to get some action with a lonely and undersexed bookish type, in which case, a better bet would be a six-pack of lemon ruskies and a sympathetic expression. A PhD will almost never help you pick up. And as long as I'm offering free advice, they don't really want to know about your research, they're just being polite. Make something up. You'll thank me.


• "It is a condition of late Uncle Fergus' will that his estate will only go to someone who can withstand severe psychological torture. My cousin is going to join Mossad for their training program."
I have it on good authority that the Israeli Secret Service prefers to recruit PhD graduates, possibly for this exact reason. Your cousin is out of luck.


• "PhD? I was just looking to put my application for the lab tech job, so that I can have a salary and job security and can still wear the funky white coat." 
Now you're talking.



Next week: Choosing a topic. 

Inside a mind of a desperate PhD

Okay, so this is my queue number for today: 4096
Well, I think I have to wait for around 20 to 30 minutes..

4096, quite a good number
Hey, it is 2 to the power of... 2,3,4,.. 12
2 to the power of 12; it means:
4 to the power of 6
8 to the power of 4
16 to the power of 3
64 to the power of 2
What a number..

Perhaps it can be good combinations for TOTO, right?

AYS
~atica~

John Davis - How to Avoid Herding in Research | Institute for New Economic Thinking

Easily extended to other fields outside economics.

John Davis - How to Avoid Herding in Research | Institute for New Economic Thinking

An individual fish reduces the danger to itself by swimming as close as possible to the center of the school. That is how schools hold together. John Davis says that researchers and fish are alike -- both engage in herd behavior. PhD production, the role of journals, the incestuous relationship between top universities -- Davis looks at it all with an eye to informing policy to promote diversity and alternative views in the profession -- this is new economic thinking.

Don't Become a Scientist!

Copied and pasted without alteration from: http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html
_________________________________________________________________________________

Don't Become a Scientist!
Jonathan I. Katz
Professor of Physics
Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.
[my last name]@wuphys.wustl.edu


Are you thinking of becoming a scientist? Do you want to uncover the mysteries of nature, perform experiments or carry out calculations to learn how the world works? Forget it!

Science is fun and exciting. The thrill of discovery is unique. If you are smart, ambitious and hard working you should major in science as an undergraduate. But that is as far as you should take it. After graduation, you will have to deal with the real world. That means that you should not even consider going to graduate school in science. Do something else instead: medical school, law school, computers or engineering, or something else which appeals to you.

Why am I (a tenured professor of physics) trying to discourage you from following a career path which was successful for me? Because times have changed (I received my Ph.D. in 1973, and tenure in 1976). American science no longer offers a reasonable career path. If you go to graduate school in science it is in the expectation of spending your working life doing scientific research, using your ingenuity and curiosity to solve important and interesting problems. You will almost certainly be disappointed, probably when it is too late to choose another career.

American universities train roughly twice as many Ph.D.s as there are jobs for them. When something, or someone, is a glut on the market, the price drops. In the case of Ph.D. scientists, the reduction in price takes the form of many years spent in ``holding pattern'' postdoctoral jobs. Permanent jobs don't pay much less than they used to, but instead of obtaining a real job two years after the Ph.D. (as was typical 25 years ago) most young scientists spend five, ten, or more years as postdocs. They have no prospect of permanent employment and often must obtain a new postdoctoral position and move every two years. For many more details consult the Young Scientists' Network or read the account in the May, 2001 issue of the Washington Monthly.
 
As examples, consider two of the leading candidates for a recent Assistant Professorship in my department. One was 37, ten years out of graduate school (he didn't get the job). The leading candidate, whom everyone thinks is brilliant, was 35, seven years out of graduate school. Only then was he offered his first permanent job (that's not tenure, just the possibility of it six years later, and a step off the treadmill of looking for a new job every two years). The latest example is a 39 year old candidate for another Assistant Professorship; he has published 35 papers. In contrast, a doctor typically enters private practice at 29, a lawyer at 25 and makes partner at 31, and a computer scientist with a Ph.D. has a very good job at 27 (computer science and engineering are the few fields in which industrial demand makes it sensible to get a Ph.D.). Anyone with the intelligence, ambition and willingness to work hard to succeed in science can also succeed in any of these other professions.

Typical postdoctoral salaries begin at $27,000 annually in the biological sciences and about $35,000 in the physical sciences (graduate student stipends are less than half these figures). Can you support a family on that income? It suffices for a young couple in a small apartment, though I know of one physicist whose wife left him because she was tired of repeatedly moving with little prospect of settling down. When you are in your thirties you will need more: a house in a good school district and all the other necessities of ordinary middle class life. Science is a profession, not a religious vocation, and does not justify an oath of poverty or celibacy.

Of course, you don't go into science to get rich. So you choose not to go to medical or law school, even though a doctor or lawyer typically earns two to three times as much as a scientist (one lucky enough to have a good senior-level job). I made that choice too. I became a scientist in order to have the freedom to work on problems which interest me. But you probably won't get that freedom. As a postdoc you will work on someone else's ideas, and may be treated as a technician rather than as an independent collaborator. Eventually, you will probably be squeezed out of science entirely. You can get a fine job as a computer programmer, but why not do this at 22, rather than putting up with a decade of misery in the scientific job market first? The longer you spend in science the harder you will find it to leave, and the less attractive you will be to prospective employers in other fields.

Perhaps you are so talented that you can beat the postdoc trap; some university (there are hardly any industrial jobs in the physical sciences) will be so impressed with you that you will be hired into a tenure track position two years out of graduate school. Maybe. But the general cheapening of scientific labor means that even the most talented stay on the postdoctoral treadmill for a very long time; consider the job candidates described above. And many who appear to be very talented, with grades and recommendations to match, later find that the competition of research is more difficult, or at least different, and that they must struggle with the rest.

Suppose you do eventually obtain a permanent job, perhaps a tenured professorship. The struggle for a job is now replaced by a struggle for grant support, and again there is a glut of scientists. Now you spend your time writing proposals rather than doing research. Worse, because your proposals are judged by your competitors you cannot follow your curiosity, but must spend your effort and talents on anticipating and deflecting criticism rather than on solving the important scientific problems. They're not the same thing: you cannot put your past successes in a proposal, because they are finished work, and your new ideas, however original and clever, are still unproven. It is proverbial that original ideas are the kiss of death for a proposal; because they have not yet been proved to work (after all, that is what you are proposing to do) they can be, and will be, rated poorly. Having achieved the promised land, you find that it is not what you wanted after all.

What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyone who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue another career. This will spare you the misery of disappointed expectations. Young Americans have generally woken up to the bad prospects and absence of a reasonable middle class career path in science and are deserting it. If you haven't yet, then join them. Leave graduate school to people from India and China, for whom the prospects at home are even worse. I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs.

If you are in a position of leadership in science then you should try to persuade the funding agencies to train fewer Ph.D.s. The glut of scientists is entirely the consequence of funding policies (almost all graduate education is paid for by federal grants). The funding agencies are bemoaning the scarcity of young people interested in science when they themselves caused this scarcity by destroying science as a career. They could reverse this situation by matching the number trained to the demand, but they refuse to do so, or even to discuss the problem seriously (for many years the NSF propagated a dishonest prediction of a coming shortage of scientists, and most funding agencies still act as if this were true). The result is that the best young people, who should go into science, sensibly refuse to do so, and the graduate schools are filled with weak American students and with foreigners lured by the American student visa.

This doesn't sound so good

http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/08/13/renown-biomed-couple-leaving-s%E2%80%99pore-for-the-us/

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7325/full/468731a.html

Doctor

I still prefer my colleague and my students calling me Mr rather than Doctor. Actually I don't need to be called Doctor or Professor. I just need to be accepted the way I am... :-)

But then, some of my colleagues have introduced me to students with a title Doctor in front of my name.

Actually I don't really care nor bother whether they want to call me Doctor, Professor, or whatsoever.

As long as they are comfortable with it, so be it.

* * *

" You have Doctorate degree, so why are you here? Why don't you go to any research institution or medical industry?"

Hmm, I'm quite used to that question already for the past four months. So many people have asked that same question.

I wonder does Doctorate title really sound that great?

If you are inside PhD field for some time already, maybe you will understand my decision why I choose to change my "destiny" away from the "normal academia pathway".

PhD vs work

Had a talk from two people, who change their position, from PhD to work or the other way around. Since I was so curious about the reason behind that, so I just ask simply question "why do you choose PhD/work over your previous position?"

PhD --> work
- Simply that I think I don't really like the pure research thing and feel that PhD is really not into me. When I was PhD, I felt that everytime I woke up, thing in my mind was just "Ahh.. Another day needs to be passed again". After I work now, I just don't feel like that anymore. Simply wake up and go to work.

work --> PhD
- Good question. I also don't know why.

Note: The person who choose PhD over work has just started his PhD program. Let us wait for a while, and later see his response =)

So? what do you think?

Scold me for no reason

>> You scold me for fun, man
      Let me feel really down man
      Scold me for no reason
      Or a reason contrived <<

How do you expect I would like to do your favor out of my personal interest?

Graduate on its own

A little conversation on the way back from lunch:

A: Oh my, it seems that everything I've done didn't work. What should I do?
B: It's okay. Just do whatever you usually do, enjoy your life like usual. There is a time when you will graduate on its own.

Perhaps it is an interesting hypothesis that the time you spend in grad school does not have any correlation with your effort, your talent, or your intelligence. It is simply a constant which value depends on your supervisor and his/her budget.

~AYS~
lamabangetnungguconfermentdoank

4 Tipe Boss

Kecuali kamu adalah anak orang kaya banget yang begitu mulai kerja langsung dapet perusahaan sendiri, dalam suatu titik di hidup kamu, kamu pasti akan punya yang namanya bos. Nah, bos sendiri ada macam-macam tipenya. Berikut adalah tipe-tipe bos:
Bos yang Berwibawa, Menyenangkan, dan Pintar

Ini adalah tipe bos sempurna yang menjadi idaman semua pekerja. Bos tipe seperti ini biasanya ramah, punya visi yang jelas, bisa ikut becanda, kalo lagi serius dia serius banget, dan bawahannya respek sama dia. Bos tipe ini biasanya dicintai oleh para bawahannya dan para bawahannya bisa loyal banget sama dia. Kalo doi ultah, biasanya para bawahan dengan sukarela hati akan ngasih kado/kue/surprise.

Bos yang Menyebalkan Tapi Pintar

Ini sepertinya adalah tipe bos yang paling banyak ada. Orangnya sangat menyebalkan, banyak maunya, suka marah-marah, tapi harus diakui dia pintar sekali dan punya visi. Bos seperti ini biasanya disegani dan ditakuti oleh para bawahan dan biasanya para bawahan gak mau berurusan langsung sama si bos ini. Suasana kantor akan langsung tegang setiap dia ada di ruangan. Biasanya sih orangnya gak asik.
Bos yang Menyenangkan Tapi Kurang Pintar

Bos tipe seperti ini biasanya banyak becanda, suka melucu, bisa bergabung dengan bawahan, disukai oleh banyak orang, namun ketika berurusan dengan pekerjaan biasanya dia malah tidak pandai. Visinya tidak jelas, tidak tahu banyak hal, suka dikibulin bawahan, pokoknya kasian deh. Biasanya bawahan dari bos semacam ini terbagi dua: ada yang simpati tapi ada juga yang malah berniat jahat untuk ngebego-begoin si bos.
Bos yang Menyebalkan dan Tidak Pintar

Ini adalah tipe bos yang paling tidak diinginkan semua orang. Tipe bos seperti ini biasanya suka marah-marah untuk urusan yang dia sendiri tidak tahu solusinya. Selain itu, dia juga suka marah-marah untuk problem yang random dan marah-marahnya bisa merembet ke hal2 lain, bukti ketidak-profesionalitasannya. Bos seperti ini biasanya sangat ingin diakui ke-boss-annya dan dia seringkali secara implisit maupun eksplisit bilang ke bawahannya kalo dia adalah boss dan para bawahan harus menghormatinya. Ini adalah bos-bos yang paling sering berusaha digulingkan oleh bawahannya.

Ya begitulah kira-kira. Termasuk tipe yang manakah bos kamu?

Sumber: http://malesbanget.com/2011/05/4-tipe-bos/