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My brilliant sister is a bit sad at having to sit out the next set of heavy ion (Lead) collisions at CERN, but the CMS team is forging ahead without her. To cheer her up, I begain this list of reasons why Parenthood is like Graduate School.
Care to help ?
So Far:
It consumes all your time.
Sleep deprivation is assured.
You usually have no time for basic personal grooming or maintenance.
You get incomprehensible and conflicting demands from your advisor (Baby).
Your advisor has a poor or non-existent command of your native language.
The paperwork is never done. (wiping !)
Each thesis draft receives horrible criticism (Diapers !)
You get constant and often irrelevant advice from people not working on your project / thesis.
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The days are long and the years are short.
People who have been through it before are sympathetic--and then they laugh.
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After years of agonizingly hard work, you will receive no credit from those who benefited.
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beware the collisions
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Having done one and doing the other:
Parenthood >> Grad School
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You're always broke.
You're always tired.
People who have never been to graduate school or had a baby have no clue what your problems are.
When you're done, you have to find a job for "it".
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You'll look back fondly at this time. ( At least the being a parent of small children days.)
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All your hard-earned knowledge ends up on a library shelf that one ever looks at. (until they have kids of their own)
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Updated from my sister:
The project has lots of incomprehensible jargon (rewording)
The experiment gives frustratingly inconsistent results, causing tears
The experiment must be cycled every 2-4 hours in a 24 hour period, assuring that you work nights and weekends
The experiment if often easier to perform in a collaboration
May cause depression & anxiety, less time for family and friends, and social activities
But... Depending on your prediliction for scientific equipment, the baby is usually cuter.
The research community gives you conflicting and judgmental advice, with competitors insisting their methodology is 'right'.
I reworded some of what you wrote...
FYI, when I was getting my PhD, my husband described the graduate school/thesis process to one of his sisters, and said, yes, it sounds like having a baby. I am trying to recall if he compared it to a long drawn out pregnancy.
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How about if you had known how much work it was going to be, you would never have started it?
or
When it's done, you are glad you did it.