PhD is a great
gamble, I recently finished my PhD right at the middle of a grand failure and a
fabulous success. I mean Failure-wise it was not a success and success-wise it
was not a failure either. I am still newbie at failure, many of my friends have
failed in a spectacular fashion, some changed careers and some disappeared very
quickly from the scene than you can imagine.
Do you think
Sachin Tendulkar’s cover drive is really as easy as he makes to look? You know
what exactly it is. Effortless failure never exists, you got to master it,
secrets to be learned and here is this blog which I think can help you since I
am an avid learner of the failure theory.
Picking a potential supervisor: This is very
important when planning for a perfect failure, two things I can suggest here.
One is that always go for a supervisor who is almost well established in his
research so that you become a perfect “pair of hands” to him nothing more than
that. He won’t listen to your ideas, no time to guide you when you have some
problems, will never allow you to do anything on your own, which in a way is a
hidden failure of a PhD. Other important criteria is that always go for people
with Ivy league degrees harvard, caltech or even higher which has enabled them have
a desperate research career and they will surely take their arrogance on you.
Extreme specialization: One of my friends
is doing his PhD back in Australia in a crazy research area called “nano-bio-neuro-photonics”.
Extreme specialization is indirectly proportional to chance of getting a job,
the more specialized you are the less likely you find a good job. Its not a
good idea to choose “extreme specialization” if you want a sudden failure, but
it will make sure that you will enjoy the tax-free PhD income for about 4 years
and unemployed thereafter. Also, choosing it is a good sign towards a long
term-moderate failure.
Keeping yourself out of focus: At this point seeing yourself focused and strong again can get you
back on your feet and keep yourself going despite all these planned setbacks,
so it is very important that you keep yourself out of focus during your PhD all
the time. Here is what I can suggest you, intense facebooking and tweeting all day, 3 trips every
month (you can do 5 per month if you are in Europe), learning a foreign language,
attending beer/cocktail making classes. Or writing a rubbish blog like this
will ensure you are completely out of focus.
Partying whole
night and going for a meeting with your mentor at 10 am next day is a nice way
to irritate him as well as it will make him realize that you are out of focus
and out of your mind.
Writing Thesis: What if you succeed in all the above and manage reach until
this point. Don’t worry, there are few sudden failure tips. Here we go.
Tips for immediate failure: The whole point
about this blog is failing in a grand way. I don’t want to elaborate here;
instead I will give few tags you can work your way to immediate failure.
Professional jealously, plagiarisms, sexual harassment, questioning the
worthiness of a good project with your PhD supervisor (Conflict of interest) are all worth a try.
≈
Disclaimer:
This is a parody. None of the quotes are real. Happy April.
1 comment:
Nice one. I like the -parody thing. you rock ahamed.
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