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The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir

pgbovine.net

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Re: The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir

#51

Post by kylebrown »

pgbovine wrote: post #11

whoa i'm astonished people have the attention span to read this on a friday night :) here's an HTML version too ... http://pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir.htm

Thanks for writing this, much insight and honesty. I sense that your Mother's talent for sociology has rubbed off on you, don't you think? I see it both in your choice of and approach to research (interviews, case studies, etc. as opposed to purely technical), and in the way you recognized and clarified the socio-political barriers to graduating (the subtleties in finding the right project and people).

A couple of childhood friends just finished their third year of their PhD programs, one in molecular biology and the other in physical chemistry, and are very much in that all-too-common third/fourth year rut. I wish they'd had this to read three years ago!

Re: The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir

#52

Post by pgbovine »

dchichkov wrote: post #32
pgbovine wrote: post #11

whoa i'm astonished people have the attention span to read this on a friday night :) here's an HTML version too ... http://pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir.htm

Really liked the Burrito tool. I'll definitely give it a try. It feels like it could be a perfect companion with iPython notebook (which sadly lacks version control and lab notes).

thanks! just to warn you -- it is definitely "research-quality" code. out of all the tools i built for my dissertation, CDE is the only one that's remotely usable ... everything else is just a proof-of-concept.

Re: The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir

#53

Post by pgbovine »

carterschonwald wrote: post #45

I must confess, while the grad school parts resonated for me, the part that was most engaging was the vein of applied provenance tools. Having recently left my program (but enjoying research), I've actually been spending a huge amount of time planning out and slowly executing building a better tool chain for data analysis, and one of the really exciting details that has popped out of my design is a very nIce support…

thanks; this might be a presumptuous suggestion, but if you're interested in these topics, please take a look at my dissertation. at the very least, it's useful as a bibliography of work in this field ...

http://pgbovine.net/projects/pubs/guo_phd_dissertation.pdf

Re: The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir

#54

Post by wslh »

pgbovine wrote: post #30
tomcam wrote: post #27

Wonderfully written and a page turner. Bookmarked it but ended up devouring the thing in one sitting. Deserves widespread publication. Guo is a remarkable dude, and brutally honest. It's a tale of perseverance and canny self-promotion from a guy who is spectacularly good at learning from failure. I felt an almost parental joy upon reading the outcome. Publish this on Kindle, Mr. Guo!

wow, thanks for the compliments! i'm looking into rendering in a Kindle-friendly format soon.

Yes, +1 for the kindle/mobi version

Re: The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir

#55

Post by b2rock »

azarias wrote: post #42

This is great, and thanks for writing it up. I don't think many graduate students would consider doing this right after graduation...I certainly wasn't in a mood to write another detailed document after getting done with my dissertation (also a couple of months ago, and in computer science). I wanted to add a little about the end-game. For me, the decision of what to do next followed a slightly different path. In the…

When looking at it from a start up point of view...isn't is possible to emulate most (all?) of the lessons you learn from grad school in the start up environment?

Re: The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir

#58

Post by hoops »

Ten mins on the website and this strikes me as all being very "needy". I'm still struggling to understand why everyone feels these type of "little ole me" stories are so fantastic. (It's not the author's first either...)

Just wanted to offer the counter opinion. Each to his own...

Re: The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir

#60

Post by Mindless2112 »

pgbovine wrote: post #50
Mindless2112 wrote: post #31

As a current graduate student skeptically considering working toward a Ph.D., this has helped me confirm my suspicion that it's not for me. I started doing research as an undergrad, so I have become somewhat familiar with academia's publication game... and I find it distasteful. Knowing what goes into a Ph.D. is invaluable in making such a decision, and this book was quite helpful in that regard. Thank you!

i have a big fat disclaimer in the preface that this isn't meant to be anything other than me telling my own story; it's one data point, and there's a huge amount of variation in Ph.D. student experiences. maybe i didn't make the disclaimer big enough, though :)

I read the book with that disclaimer in mind.

Please don't take my comment as "you ruined my motivation for further education"; it was meant as "you saved me the trouble of finding out the hard way that this really wasn't what I wanted".

I have never been interested in being a professor, so I would be in it entirely to push my limits. But if I know I won't enjoy it (and as far as Ph.D. programs and publication go hand-in-hand, I know I wouldn't), then is it really worthwhile? That isn't to say I wouldn't emerge a stronger person at the end, but I would rather find ways to push myself intellectually that I will enjoy. I believe they're out there.

Edit: I just read a post about your book at http://blog.regehr.org/archives/743 which you might be interested in.

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