“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” -Benjamin Franklin
It's graduate school acceptance season, and many people out there have big decisions coming up. Some of you will have questions about where to go to graduate school, while some will have questions about whether to go to graduate school.
Image credit: Jorge Cham of PhD Comics.
For those of you in the latter category -- wondering whether you should get your PhD -- this read is for you.
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"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." -Benjamin Franklin
Recently, a number of people -- of widely different ages and levels of education -- have contacted me for advice on whether or not pursuing a PhD in astrophysics/physics/science-in-general is right for them. Of course, I can't…
"I spent every night until four in the morning on my dissertation, until I came to the point when I could not write another word, not even the next letter. I went to bed. Eight o'clock the next morning I was up writing again." -Abraham Pais, physicist
You've been in graduate school for many years…
"But I'm also talking about American businessmen doing what they were born to do. Make things. We've stopped making and become a country of consumers. Well, I, for one, am done consuming. And I'm ready to make." -Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock
I don't normally write about what's going on in my personal life…
I'm teaching our senior major seminar this term, which means that once a week, I'm giving hour-long talks on topics of interest to senior physics majors. This week's was "How to Pick and Apply to a Graduate School."
I've probably written this basic stuff up about three times already, but I'm too…
Second the "can't imagine life without ..." part.
Seems to run in the family -- the sons know well the grief and limited career prospects thanks to their sister (PhD 2013) and yet ...
One is on track to quit his engineering job which pays better than his full professors (and he's being fast-tracked to boot) because he can't imagine not diving deeper into accelerator physics (including free-electron lasers.)
The other is taking a longer route through NASA, but also into applied physics. Both are picking up other degrees along the way (mostly in electrical engineering) because that's just how it works out.
Me? I'm retired from a fun career in electrical engineering and soon will be going back to school and my first love -- physics.
Dinner table conversations in this family are sometimes a bit strange, but seriously we can't imagine doing anything else.
Special Olympics for the mind. American education has devolved below the pre-med (then neutered by Obamacare) to the diverse student. The pre-eminent disqualification for support is empirical ability (stealing from the deserving). Grant funding is a zero-risk business plan with a PERT chart. Young faculty who survived education and retain apostate ideas are quickly disabused of the notion, or are starved and forgotten to death.
The SAT is being reworked so everybody gets the same score. Can the bar go lower than sitting on the floor? Yes, a basement. Do YOU know of anybody with the Evil IQ? Report them. The unabled maximize self-esteem to be credible - effectively selecting for the deluded, hence advocacy. Run for the cure!
Too stupid a beginning. Didn't finish the rest of the foolishness in #2.