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I love my two and a half postgraduate degrees in physics because, like all loving
relationships, they're still part of me, and it's the one I didn't finish that taught me the
most. Mathematically speaking, I have (2+i) postgrads: the last part made things complex
and didn't end up real, but it added to the magnitude of what I learned. It's also what sent
me off at an unreal angle into another career.
Luke McKinney
For example, my work on this system is why I'm not scared to write articles dissing
Superman.
Now I'm paid to learn about science and apply that knowledge to light sabers, and I have
enough qualifications to be called "Master-Master," but not enough money to actually
make anyone do so. If you're considering or already in postgrad work ...
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And you'll eventually hate a prison cell even when it has an unlimited Internet connection.
Knowing about the jobs you could take reminds you that learning for a living is a choice
you made, and why you made it.
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doing. Notice how the sheer gravity of that question has compressed the question mark
into a period because there is no possible answer. Entering a postgraduate degree means
declaring that you will become the world authority on something. Only a tiny bit of a
specific section of a sub-discipline of something, but you will know that bit better than
everyone else who has ever lived. Because nobody knew it until you did. You're pledging
to permanently expand the sphere of human knowledge by choosing a direction, learning
right up to the bounds of understanding, then head-butting them further out with what's
in your skull.
Stockbyte/Stockbyte/GettyImages
"OOOW GOD HEADBUTTING THE MICROSCOPE WAS A BAD IDEA."
This is not something you can clock into like a day job. If you're prepared to work 20-hour
days on something you hate, great! Go get paid for doing that! Universities will let you
sign up for a subject without passion because that's how they get highly skilled technical
laborers for sub-mininum wage. Ph.D. students work longer hours than submarine nuclear
reactors, and under greater pressure. You are dedicating at least half a decade of the
most capable part of your life to becoming the master of something. Act like it.
Ph.D.s are where education reveals its true form: not teaching people what we already
know, but learning how to learn what we don't. Research is taking on the previously
incomprehensible machinery of the universe with 1.4 kilograms of yougoo. It's a lot of
work. It's how we build the future. It's why the title of science fiction's most brilliant
person is "Doctor." Not "CEO," or "President," or "Major," but "Doctor," because he knows
to find and solve new problems by being intelligent at them.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-important-things-nobody-tells-you-about-grad-school/
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Pixland/Pixland/Getty Images
The Internet can severely damage this process.
If you act like an obedient schoolchild, scrabbling every hour to complete every
assignment you're given to try to get the best marks, most professors will totally let you.
Turning grad students into Morlocks is how you get allegedly smart people to volunteer
for slave labor.
This is an imago of adulthood: mature enough to resolve fiendishly difficult research
problems, but doing it only because grown-ups told you to. Accepting that academic
research means years of inhuman hours at low pay is a parody of the idea of intelligence.
The whole point of defending a thesis is learning how to argue with more experienced
people about how right you are. You need to start that early. Pick a good project, only take
tasks that will help your work or situation, and stand your ground about taking the time to
have a life outside the lab. I've seen labs where the professor arrives at 9 a.m. on Saturday
morning just to check that everyone is there, then leaves to have his own day, while
ringing at random to make sure nobody learned from him. Fast food joints don't pull
nonsense like that. And pay almost as much.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-important-things-nobody-tells-you-about-grad-school_p2/
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But that's because postgrads are all about learning. Lesson 1: You will have to put up with
precisely as much shit as you're prepared to. (This lesson applies to every subject, and
the real world, too.)
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with others will still do better in every field. And when you do get them finished,
charismatic public speakers will become even more important, standing with one foot on a
burning drone to urge the human resistance to seize the time machine.
Research is all about communicating results to other people. More importantly, funding is
about communicating results to people who don't even care about them, or you, and
already have 20 labs who've made great cases for 10 labs' worth of money. Teaching is
also a great way to boost your student income immediately. Teaching assigned classes
only scrapes a few dollars, but pre-exam grinds are a seasonal harvest of pure cash.
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chance to learn what you love, always, using your brain instead of beating it to death
against bar codes and spreadsheets and sales reports and all the other jobs that only
exist because robots aren't quite good or cheap enough yet. But if you don't take that
learning seriously, you've swapped the world for nothing.
The better option is to keep learning. A proper degree will help you get a job, but a Ph.D.
is how you say "No thanks, I love this stuff." There is no feeling like filling your mind with
intelligence you love. Most people don't get to do that. Most people have to train their
brain to endure the hours until they get to think about things they like, but they're so tired
that those things become Breaking Bad and unconsciousness. Research lets you turn
your soul into a fascination engine, consuming the output of human intelligence, living and
breathing the very pinnacle of human progress. Then reaching out to push it a little bit
further.
Luke also looks at Even More Sexist Commenters, tumbles, and responds to every
single tweet.
For more college advice, check out 7 Tips for Not Screwing Up College, Should You
Go to College? and The 7 Dumbest Things Students Do When Cramming for Exams.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-important-things-nobody-tells-you-about-grad-school_p2/
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