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The Ph.D. Survival Guide
By Eric Jay Dolin
Illustrations by Dave Carpenter
(iUniverse, 140 pp., ISBN: 0595350305, $13.95)
Getting a Ph.D. is an intellectually exciting experience. It can also be very painful. Roughly 40,000 doctoral students graduate each year in the United States. Most of them bear the scars of what is too often a lonely and difficult rite of passage. They all could have benefited from seeing the lighter side of the doctoral process, and that is what The Ph.D. Survival Guide provides.
Learn how to pick a school based on its location, plead for acceptance, identify subspecies of Homo doctoratus, avoid professorial deadwood, select courses that aren't lethal, qualify for a platinum copying card, raise jargon to an art form, interact with unsympathetic friends and family members, footnote one's way to nirvana, suck up to secretaries, survive the dissertation defense without crying, and reenter the real world. The Ph.D. Survival Guide blends humor with advice that will help doctoral students graduate more or less in one piece.
Introduction
The Ph.D. process is intense and serious, but there is also a humorous way of looking at it. This book shows you the funny side of getting what is affectionately referred to as a "Fud," while at the same time offering practical advice for surviving the process. Topics include picking a school based on its location, pleading for acceptance, identifying subspecies of Homo doctoratus, avoiding professorial deadwood, selecting courses that won't kill you, qualifying for a platinum copying card, raising jargon to an art form, interacting with friends and family members who think you're pathetic, footnoting your way to nirvana, sucking up to your professor's secretary, picking yourself up off the floor after the dissertation defense, and reentering the real world.
This book is intended for four audiences: Ph.D.s, those that are thinking of entering a doctoral program, those who are in the process of completing a doctorate, and those who know someone who is getting a degree. Anointed doctors should read it to relive the years or decades they spent toiling in the hallowed halls and ivory towers of academia, remembering all the while that no matter how they feel about the process, it's over, and laughing about the past is better than crying. For prospective students, please keep in mind that satire is built upon varying degrees of truth. Therefore, the more you laugh at the situations described in this book the more carefully you should weigh the decision to go to graduate school. For those who have already taken the plunge, please use this book as a diversion from your studies. All work and no play may help you get tenure one day, but it's no way to live. Finally, if you are familiar with the Ph.D. process only because you know someone getting a Ph.D., you should read this book to be enlightened. Before deciding to injure your friend, lover, spouse, or more distant relative on account of their behavior during the Ph.D. process, you must understand what they're going through. That knowledge may make you more compassionate or confirm what you already suspect; namely, that any person that pursues a Ph.D. needs professional help.
There are many interpretations of what Ph.D. stands for, including the following: Patiently hoping for Degree; Professorship? hah! Dream-on; Please hire, Desperate; Pathetic hopeless Dweeb; Probably heavily in Debt; and Particularly hapless Dude. Perhaps the best way to understand what a Ph.D. is all about is to remember what a wise person once said: B.S. stands for Bull Shit, M.S. for More of the Same, and Ph.D. for Piled hire and Deeper. Prepare to find out just how deep it can get.