How to get a PhD in three easy steps

Step 1: Arrive in the dead center of nowhere -- Laramie, WY.

Step 2: Proceed to freeze half to death, climb at Vedauwoo for 500 days, travel the West, fish, party, and spend interminable hours staring at incomprehensible science-y stuff.

Don't be too surprised if your hair falls out while you're at it.



Step 3: Graduate, be happy it's all over, and move on to bigger and better things.

So that's it, folks. If you're still paying attention, this officially brings this blog to a close. I'm no longer a grad student, I don't live in Wyoming, and at this point there's not that much left to say about how weird I find the US to be -- I've officially gone native. Feel free to glance at the archives: I particularly recommend my first impressions of Laramie, thoughts on a High Plains summer, and some advice about going to graduate school. All the pictures are available on Flickr. If you've lost touch with me for any reason, I am finally available on Facebook again, and if you have a professional inquiry I've got a work web page with more info.

Thanks for reading, everybody, and I hope you enjoyed it.


Cheers,

Dr Johan

You Might Be Getting Older If...

...you've ever read a print edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Y'see, when I was a kid, I'd ask my parents about stuff, and they'd say, "I don't know, why don't we look it up?" They had a middle-of-the-line Swedish encyclopedia sitting in a bookshelf right next to the couch in the living room. I loved that encyclopedia, and since it had a lot of illustrations and long articles, it actually made for good casual reading. After a while, I'd read all the page-length articles -- hence my mad Jeopardy skillz.

In the late 90's mom and dad came into some money, and one of the first things they did was to upgrade the encyclopedia. Out went the now-outdated 80's glossy pages in favor of the Swedish equivalent of EB: the venerable Nationalencyklopedin. It was the French leather edition, too, with the covers embossed in fake gold. Absolutely beautiful set of books, and the 20 volumes take up several feet of shelf space. The company selling it was surprisingly on the ball for 1998, because you got a DVD and a subscription to their website with your purchase. Neither The Tome of All Knowledge nor The Oracle yet existed, and the DVD was certainly handier than fiddling around with books, so the vast majority of those pretty leather-bound books never even got cracked open.

Fast-forward to 2012. Nationalencyclopedin actually survives as a printed work, although it's hard to even find a place to buy it on their website -- they only advertise the web subscription. EB is officially no more. My grandfather's go-to reference on everything has admittedly been out of print since 1957, but it was one hell of a reference work in its day. Unfortunately it caused grandad to occasionally refer to "Indo-China" and "the Negroid race", so I guess there's something to be said for updates. If I ever have any kids, I assume I'll be teaching them Google-Fu on whatever the iPad looks like ten years from now. And I'll certainly be telling long, rambling stories about how much awesomer things were "back in my day."

Oh yeah, and I turned 30 and went to San Francisco. Check out the pictures, and then get off my lawn!

The Great Escape

Not only a classic war movie, and a classic sport climb, my personal interpretation the phrase is "getting away from all the things that get me down about Laramie". My PhD is winding down, and I'll soon break free of the vortex. In the meantime, I've been practicing my prison break techniques. For instance, escaping winter by spending the holidays in California:

The family wisely decided to spend Christmas somewhere nice this year, and so I met up with mom, dad and sis in sunny SoCal in late December. When I left Laramie, it was snowing and -10 F. 24 hours later:

Escape: successful! We had us a hell of time cruising around California in a huge rental car, hanging on the beach, eating seafood, seeing old friends:

Fortunately for all of us, at some point in her life Mom made an executive decision and vowed never to stay in any hotel with less than four stars. I gotta admit, it makes for pretty comfy living:

So for ten glorious days, I was as happy as a pig in mud. Or to put a California spin on it, a seal on the pier:

However, all good things come to an end, and all too soon I found my self Laramie-bound again. But wouldn't you know it, the weather actually cooperated this year and turned out warm. Winter almost didn't happen, and Spring rolled around two weeks early:

To celebrate, I practiced my wall-climbing technique (so I don't have to dig out when the time comes). After 10 long years, four major and six minor joint injuries, and two dozen trashed pairs of climbing shoes, I think I'm finally getting the basics down:

I figure that's almost practice enough. When the chain-gang boss finally looks away, I'm ready to break my shackles and run. Where the road goes from here isn't all that clear yet, but as long as it's heading somewhere different...

The Greatest Show on Turf

Although technically referring to the St. Louis Rams of yesteryear, "The Greatest Show on Turf" is certainly American football. Forget soccer, forget rugby, forget baseball, and definitely forget cricket. Running the gridiron, tossing the pig skin, the chess game on grass: it has few competitors and no equals. Although I've only been watching for the last decade (masochistically throwing a Superbowl party at 4 AM in the morning in Sweden as necessary!), this is now far and away my favorite professional sport. The combination of almost cartoonish violence and feints-within-feints strategy is irresistible. But until this week, I had never attended a live professional football game.

Now, I'm Cincinnati Bengals fan, and this is sadly my only piece of team gear:

Fitting, since the team has sucked so bad in the last twenty years that it'll drive a man to drink. Bad enough that spending money on tickets seemed like a waste of hard-earned cash. But lo and behold, networking to the rescue: I know a guy, who dates a girl, who has a cousin, whose mom's realty company has season tickets to the Denver Broncos. And they were playing the Bengals for the first (and last) time in years last Sunday! After some logistical maneuvering I finally got to go my first NFL game, and with my team to boot! It was awesome. Ridiculously large hot dogs:

Ridiculously large American flags:

Ridiculously large stadium (seats 70,000!):

The game started out with a bang, and 6,450 lb. of players charged onto the field (that's one team's combined weight, mind you):

The Broncos favored the run:

The Bengals passed the ball:

Although the game came down to the wire, we suffered agonizing defeat. Thirty seconds left on the clock, one final chance to score three last points, and... our rookie quarterback dove down one yard too early. Dammit. Nonetheless, the whole experience pretty much made my month. Who Dey!

Things I've learned in grad school

A recent seminar prompted some reflection on what I've actually been up to the last three years. More specifically, a recently hired postdoc in my department had invited her former advisor to speak, and was going through the inevitable introductory monologue. This brief speech typically recalls some humorous connection between the inviter and invitee, or at the very least something they shared. The freshly minted PhD chose to bring up her ex-advisor's teaching skills as a lasting memory of her grad school experience. This got me thinking: what's the real take-home message so far? Granted, I'm far from done, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if I haven't learned something in the process. So, on the assumption that nostalgia is a form of advice, or that the reader is curious about what it's like, I will dispense this advise now:

1. You are all freaks. This is actually the only valuable insight I gained from graduate student orientation. Graduate students are the 1% of college kids who actually enjoyed the classes, tests and mental challenges. Everybody else went to get a high-paying job, because their parents told them to, or because they wanted to party. This fact becomes especially pertinent when you do any sort of teaching, or when you interact with undergraduates in the lab. Don't expect that these people are motivated for the same reasons you are, or even care at all. Similarly, conversation about your "job" with members of the public is best restricted to "I'm a grad student" and stating your general field of study. People don't know, and don't particularly care, about that miniscule portion of human knowledge you're trying to master. I suggest talking about sports or TV instead. The upside here is that you'll be surrounded by at least one set of like-minded people to commiserate with: other graduate students. You'll want to bitch to somebody, because...
   
   
2. Academia has hazing. This isn't readily apparent until you've been in it for a while. When presenting your research to an audience of your peers (and superiors) you'll get a bunch of questions, many of which you won't be able to answer. Reviewers will delight in tearing your precious papers to shreds. Your committee members are liable to rip you a new one during your preliminary exams. Whether all these mechanisms are supposed to instill humility, confidence or are just perpetrated because they're tradition, I don't know. What is important about them is that they are survivable. Rarely is a student actually drummed out of a program, and no matter how much looking like an idiot sucks it's not actually going to kill you. Fortunately, there's a reward...
   
   
3. This is the most flexible job you'll ever have. Possibly the biggest advantage to the situation. Graduate school exists in an odd limbo between employment and education: you're kinda working, but on the other hand you're in school - although with very few classes. The end result is that you, and only you, are responsible for producing the data that will some day result in a shiny piece of paper and people mistaking you for an M.D. Don't feel like going to the lab today? Nobody's making you. Early mornings annoying? Arrive at the crack of noon. On the other hand, experiments need tending at all hours of the night, and since you don't have a set schedule the temptation to work way more than is advisable from a standpoint of mental health is always there. Particularly when considering...
   
   
4. Publish or perish. A tried old saw, but stereotypes exist for a reason. Aside from the stupid hat they give you, your publication record is the only tangible outcome (reward?) you'll get for 4-10 years of mind-destroying labor. This is what gets you your next job, and possibly the next one after that. If you're planning to continue in academia your papers are the only thing you take with you to the next lab, and one of the more important selection criteria when it comes to getting that tenure-track professorship. Nothing you do is worth anything until it's on a piece of paper stamped with your name, your advisor's name and something like "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" or (if you're not so lucky) "West African Annals of Floral Development". This becomes important when you...
   
   
5. Carefully select an advisor. This is a biggie, and unfortunately a decision that is thrust upon you pretty early in the game. You will be choosing your boss, main collaborator, closest colleague and professional mentor (for the next half-decade) without all that much information to go on. Picking the right one sees you exit graduate school with your head held high, a half-dozen papers in hand and a sweet job awaiting you in a location of your choice. If you choose... poorly... you can look forward to endless arguments, lack of funding and eventually quitting in frustration. Make sure that you find somebody with a compatible personality, research interests you share, money to pay you and some drive to succeed. A professor who has never graduated a student, or one that is about to retire, might not be the best choice. A good balance between all these elements is not simple to find in one person, but it is vital in order to...
   
   
6. Relax. Or at least try to. A lot of people in grad school are Type A overachievers who put a lot of pressure on themselves. This has advantages (like getting shit done) and disadvantages (like stressing out). It's all too easy to get caught up in the microcosm that your lab and your research represent. Before you know it you've gained 40 pounds and developed insomnia. Take a step back, breathe, and go talk to some normal people every once in a while (see point #1). Hike, climb, knit scarves, play video games, hang out in bars, sky-dive, travel, whatever: the objective is to put some distance between you and your work. Bonus points if you are in a relationship with somebody outside The Game, since that person can help you put things in their proper perspective. By the way, if you figure out how to actually do this, let me know how.

And there endeth the lesson. If you're thinking about going to grad school, which is probably the only reason you would've read this far, the million dollar question is of course "Is it worth it?". I have no idea. I'll get back to you after I graduate.