The illustrated guide to a Ph.D

[HIT]

Let's put a Ph.D into perspective.

Imagine a circle, that contains all of human knowledge:

By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:

By the time you finish high-school, you know a bit more:

With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty:

A master's degree deepens that specialty:

Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:

Once you're at the boundary, you focus:

You push at the boundary for a few years:

Until one day, the boundary gives way:

And, that dent you've made, is called a Ph.D:

Of course, the world looks different to you now:

So, don't forget the big picture:

Keep Pushing.

 

[cope+]

Word.

 

[easiestEC]

thank you

 

[bayarea8]

an interestinng way to think about it

 

[edai]

Completely skipped middle school, the part where you learn nothing and just have terrible hormonal changes and worry about everything.

 

[ski93]

I like this a lot.

 

[Big5hifty]

this is actually pretty insightful. thank you

 

[special_k10101]

never thought about it this way. pretty cool to see that visually.

 

[corona]

a PhD. you know more and more about less and less until you know all about nothing.

 

[Zump.]

Mind = Blown

 

[Bill.Nye]

I'm just gonna put this out here;

your knowledge looks like a penis

 

[the604]

good for you, kid.

you must think about dicks alot

do you notice them often? do you imagine them everywhere?

1st sign of being gay, right there.

to OP, that's a very good way to put a Ph.D into perspective. thanks for the insight

 

[[~_~]]

I've been told that a Ph.D is long past the point where knowledge stops answering questions and instead only asks more.

 

[JuliusJ]

hmm. That would make sense actually

 

[HIT]

That's the point.

breaking past the boundary of human knowledge, means thus far, all questions have been answered.

A Ph.D is only attained once a new question has been asked, and answered.

 

[HIT]

my town didn't have a middle-school haha

 

[DirtYStylE]

This post has so much win I liked it on facebook.

Perfect representation!

 

[freestyler540]

well put. Ph.D's are fucking hard to get and only contribute very little.

Now, discoveries like the Theory of relativity of Albert Einstein take the circle and blow up half the circle and that is his contribution. Even the great physisist Michi Kaku only contributed one equation in string theory...and we are not even sure it works

 

[chicken]

yet when you combine the work of the thousands of people you get the circle we see here. The lifelong work of thousands of people is immortalized in this collective human mind. The pursuit of knowledge, even if it is somewhat of a selfish pursuit, is still one of the best things you can do with your life.

 

[geteducated]

good post, think of it this way as well, would you rather have a 10 metre plot of land with the best top soil in the world for farming or would you rather have 10 acres of land with only 3cm of good soil laid on top of bedrock?

or

would you rather be a giant cedar tree at sea level in a temperate rainforest and be 100's of years old, or would you rather be a 3 foot high tree on top of a mountain and be 100's of years old?