PhD: Do i really want this???

So the question is: "Do i really want this?"

When you will apply for PhD positions, regardless of your field and destination, you will probably have some time in your hands, while you are waiting for the responses. Use this time to think whether you really want to do a PhD.

If you haven't discovered it already, PhD-Comics is a very useful comics collection. It has some USA-specific concepts like quals etc., but still captures the funny essence of the PhD-life and will most probably become one of your best procrastination friends at some point in your study anyway. So here are some comics which i think are relevant to a candidate.


In the first two i have copied here, the unending cycles of motivation and de-motivation are depicted. At the beginning of your study and even in the first year you will really think that everything will go smoothly and you will get good results in a short period of time. After a while, which corresponds to the time you spend to work yourself into your topic and read a lot of literature, you will realize that some of the things you've planned are already done and some of your ideas will never work...





As nicely shown above, the frustrations are usually coupled with periods of fresh hope. In general, as long as you don't loose your red-line in research everything will go just fine. And, being in an environment of people going through the same kind of stress makes all more bearable. In Germany, the usual duration of a PhD study is 3-4 years in natural sciences and 3-5 years in engineering. So an extreme prolongation is rather rare...


http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd050508s.gif


Some more fun stuff is copied here to highlight some possible and undesirable side-effects of graduate school :)

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd061209s.gif



So, i strongly recommend all candidates to have a look at the home-page of PhD-comics, it will definitely make your waiting time more enjoyable and help you to reach a clear decision :) 

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