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100 Reasons Not to Go to Grad School

Started by Malthus, May 17, 2012, 03:02:11 PM

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Malthus

Came across this blog:

http://100rsns.blogspot.ca/

Any grad students here? What do Languish grad school-goers think? Accurate or bunk?
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

PDH

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

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"I'm pretty sure my level of depression has nothing to do with how much of a fucking asshole you are."

-CdM


Eddie Teach

Better than teaching evil, I suppose.
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Valmy

#4
Totally agree.

I do love the whiny people who comment on the blog who say crap like 'well maybe happiness does not depend on financial success'

Yeah because people go to get advanced degrees so they can be on food stamps.  If you just really want to learn German History, or whatever, then study German history for the love and do not go deep into debt at some University.  Unless you really think you are, or will be, one of the top German History experts in the United States (or Europe or whatever) but that requires very serious commitment.  As it should for an academic career where the jobs are few, usually low paying, and very competitive.

I like this:
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

The Brain

People who doubt their ability want the degree. People who bring up their degrees are invariably retards desperate to impress.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

CountDeMoney

Quote from: Valmy on May 17, 2012, 04:28:42 PM
I do love the whiny people who comment on the blog who say crap like 'well maybe happiness does not depend on financial success'

The fuck it doesn't.

Ed Anger

Droz: What's your major?
Sanskrit Major: Sanskrit.
Droz: Sanskrit. You're majoring in a 5000 year-old dead language?
Sanskrit Major: Yeah.
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

Solmyr

I'm getting a degree because I want to get an education and to interact with academic circles. And besides, I dunno about the US, but in Finland a degree does give you the right to demand a better job and higher pay.

Malthus

Quote from: Valmy on May 17, 2012, 04:28:42 PM

I like this:

Oh man, that cartoon is painfully funny - I love the expressions.  :D
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

jimmy olsen

If I had the money I'd go to grad school immediately. I love school.

It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Habbaku

Reading some of the links in that blog makes me cringe in sympathy.
The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers.

Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people.

-J. R. R. Tolkien

MadImmortalMan

Quote from: Solmyr on May 17, 2012, 05:07:51 PM
I'm getting a degree because I want to get an education and to interact with academic circles. And besides, I dunno about the US, but in Finland a degree does give you the right to demand a better job and higher pay.

It's mostly a method of sorting applicants now. Not so much a thing that gives you an ability to ask for more money.
"Stability is destabilizing." --Hyman Minsky

"Complacency can be a self-denying prophecy."
"We have nothing to fear but lack of fear itself." --Larry Summers

PDH

I am one of those "I don't need money to be happy" people.  Of course, the caveat is that I know I will have a nice retirement due to family, I get to do what I want (I don't adjunct and hope to make ends meet - I work full time and teach because it is fun), and I was very good at going to grad school.

Still, there were some things quite shocking to me - the hierarchies among the students, the fight to get known and accepted by the faculty, the bloodthirsty comments when someone failed...all would have made it much more stressful had I not been pretty good at the whole grad experience.  Even then, I saw it for what it is, I haven't gone on to get a PhD.
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

-------
"I'm pretty sure my level of depression has nothing to do with how much of a fucking asshole you are."

-CdM

DGuller

Among actuaries, there is definitely a strong feeling that anything above a bachelor's degree is not worth it, and is often counter-productive.  In my experience, there is some truth to that;  in my company the success record of graduate degree holders is definitely mixed.  Some people are really brilliant, but others are bottom of the barrel, often due to temperamental factors.  One economics PhD recently got cut, to the relief of everyone.  I'm not sure whether it's correlation or causation, though.