Monday, April 20, 2009

a Ph.D fable

In lieu of a thoughtful, well-written post, I give you - stuff I found on the internet!!

The Rabbit, the Fox, and the Lion

One day, a rabbit was casually hopping back to his hole when, just as he was about to jump into his hole, he was grabbed around the neck by a fox, bent on eating him.

"Oh, please don't eat me," said the rabbit to the fox, "For I am just about to finish my dissertation."

"Why should I care about your dissertation?" asked the fox.

"Because," replied the rabbit, "I think the subject would fascinate you. It's entitled, 'Why Foxes Can't Eat Rabbits.'"

"That's a stupid dissertation," declared the fox. "Of course foxes can eat rabbits. In fact, I'm going to eat you right now!

"But wait," said the rabbit, "Just come down to my hole for a minute. I'll show you my dissertation, and, if you're not convinced, you can eat me. But, I promise you, I will prove to you that my thesis is, in fact, true."

Reluctantly, the fox agreed, and he followed the rabbit down into the hole. There, in the rabbit's hole, the fox saw a pile of bones in one corner, and a lion typing on a laptop in the other.

"What's that?" the fox asked, gesturing at the pile of bones.

"That's my research," replied the rabbit.

"Well, what's he doing here?" asked the fox, looking at the lion.

"Oh, he's my advisor," said the rabbit, at which time the lion pounced and ate the fox.

Moral: The subject of your dissertation really doesn't matter. All that matters is who's your advisor!

4 comments:

Peter said...

you speak truth

jennifer said...

Hi Jesse! Someone should really construct a regression model and see how much variance the advisor factor accounts for in PhD students' success. I bet that really would be one huge R squared :P

Sam said...

Hehe this is hilar. Except I think I'm going to break the trend. My adviser is awesome and I'm dumb and lazy. =(

I'll definitely be telling this joke to a few of my friends here. Thanks Jesse =)

jchan985 said...

jenn - you have proven yourself to be a huge graduate student nerd. congrats and good job =D

sam - hahah i think I'll take after you, Sam, but probably dumber and lazier.