Piled Higher and Deeper Page #5

It's pretty cold on Mars.

Thanks.

Professor Smith's presenting at our symposium right now,

and you know what he's thinking?

That I failed him, and I'm just not good enough.

I'm sure that's not the case.

How do you know?

He probably doesn't think about you that much.

You ever wonder what the point is?

Eh. Not really.

I mean about this research we do.

We publish so that people can give us more money

so that we can do more research so that we can publish more!

Ad infinitum!

Ad nauseum.

See, I thought that I was gonna be working on big problems,

but it seems like I'm just working on a subproblem of a subproblem of a subproblem.

We're all just research tools.

I don't wanna be here forever, like..., like--

Me?

[music]

There you are.

Hey.

I don't think I've been here before. It's...

...like a rat maze? Yeah.

Sometimes I think grad school's just a weird psychological experiment.

Wouldn't that be funny.

This year I got to move one spot closer to the window.

Sunlight goes by seniority.

I haven't seen you around the house very much.

I've been working here. I've got my coffee and clothes

and water and food. And a place to crash

and the internet. My work's all on the computer.

I could do an entire Ph.D. without leaving these four walls.

Don't you need to shower?

All my friends are online.

How do you find anything?

I know it looks chaotic, but really it's organized.

It's really organized. That's my research paper pile.

And that's my class stuff pile. And that's my bank stuff pile.

What's this one?

That's my I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-it pile.

Isn't your dance competition today?

I can't go. I'm working.

I'm taking a break!

So, what's the lab pool up to on how long I've been here now?

Uhh, three hundred fifty?

[music] [dinosaur roaring]

Let me know when it gets to $500.

I like to win it every couple of years.

Mike, what happened?

I worked hard. I was industrious.

And then the project that I spent my first seven years on

got retracted. Nobody could reproduce our results.

And you couldn't do it again?

Nah, we lost the funding. The machine we used got shut down.

Nobody believed you?

Nobody believes anything in academia. That's the whole point.

Evidence is king. The only thing you take for granted is that there'll be another grant.

Man.

Life is tough. And then you graduate.

Everybody's here because they want to be here.

There's nothing reasonable about pursuing a life of reason.

Cecilia, as your roommate and secondary character, I have to tell you

you need to snap out of this funk.

I have to finish my thesis, Tajel.

I'm gonna be thirty-five in a few months.

Thirty-five?

In base seven!

Dating and dancing just don't make for good research.

No, but they do make you happy!

You feel like you've lost your passion for research

but maybe you've just forgotten how to be passionate about anything.

Graduate school is as much about truth in research

as it is about finding truth in yourself.

How do you do it, Tajel? How come you're never stressed?

Well--

How do you do it, Mike? How come you're never stressed?

It's easy in research to get tunnel vision.

You feel isolated, like you're the only person with your problem.

But the truth is

you're not alone. But whenever I get stressed

I just ask myself the question:

Do I really care?

Would I rather be doing anything else?

You're not a machine. You have to embrace the things you're passionate about.

Every great idea, every great moment of "Eureka!",

came when it was least expected.

Google,

Facebook, Newton and gravity, Einstein and relativity--

all of these things happened when they weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing.

When they were following their passion--

Procrastinating.

I need to relax.

Exactly.

No! I mean my experiment.

That's why I haven't been able to get the data.

I need to relax to boundary limit conditions--of course!

[music]

I could still make the competition!

Yes!

How do I look?

Ready to rumba.

Uh, Miss T.A.?

What about the homework?

It's all in the book!

I've figured it out.

Professor Smith's methodology, it's not right or wrong.

It's just that it doesn't apply for all of the experimental conditions.

Whoa.

Does anyone have a--

Here. Use mine.

Thanks!

Does anyone know the fastest way to the symposium?

Yeah, take the sub-sub-basement corridor to the Millikan Library.

Topside is swarming with the tour groups at this time.

"Thanks!

-- Wait!"

You'll need this!

Thanks!

[music]

Are you ok?

Uh, yeah, yeah. I will be.

All right, I gotta go.

"Me too, okay.

-- Okay, uh??

[music]

[pounds on window]

[music]

[pounds on window]

[music]

I thought you couldn't make it to the competition.

I decided to give myself extra credit.

[music]

So.

So?

That project I assigned you wasn't impossible after all.

I guess not.

Huh.

Are you surprised by my competence?

I must be losing my touch.

Although, showing up with the data you did at the last minute,

that was, uh, that was dramatic.

A little bit of theatrics can go a long way in academia.

Sometimes I ask my students not to give me their data

until the night before a presentation.

That way I can honestly say it's data that my grad student just sent me.

Well I thought you'd want to see this right away.

It was...interesting. Might make a good Figure 1 on a Ph. D. thesis.

Just Figure 1?

Unfortunately, I don't have any funding for another Ph. D. student right now.

However, I do have some interesting ideas for a new proposal.

If you'd help me write it, and if it gets funded,

I might consider taking you on.

Yes. I'd like that, Professor.

No need to thank me, uh...

Winston. My name is Winston.

Very well.

Now get back to the lab.

[music]

You came to recitation.

You stopped making lecture handouts.

So now, we have to come and, like, pay attention and stuff.

Who's ready to learn about hash tables?!

Get it? Keys?

Yes? Do you need an extension?

No, actually I wanted to say thanks.

This has been a really cool class.

I can't wait to get to more complicated stuff next term.

Really? You think this stuff is cool?

Yeah, but I'm kind of a dork.

You're like a grad student waiting to happen.

I hope not, but thanks again. I'll see you around.

Uh, you too.

[music]

Jen?

Guess what? Your sugar momma is about to be a real momma.

You have nine months to deliver your thesis.

Mike's married?

Hi.

Hi.

Can I help you with that?

Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks.

Hi. Are you guys graduate students?

This is for my thesis. I'm studying why

there's a fifty percent dropout rate amongst Ph. D. students.

That means that two out of every four graduate students

will never graduate.

But I know that there're a lot of issues that I should be really concerned about,

especially as a graduate student, because, you know, no one's really going to be your advocate.

So.

How's research?

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