Customer Reviews

Life is tough and then you graduate: The second Piled Higher and Deeper Comic Strip Collection

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There is scarcely a doubt that graduate school can be frustrating. Much as Dilbert captures such absurdities in the workplace, Jorge captures absurdities in the life of a few average grads. The boss is replaced by the advisor. And the cubicle by a ... cubicle.

If you have been in a graduate program, or have suffered through a "close" friend the trials and tribulations of being in one, you will come to love Jorge's sadly accurate description of our lives.

Highly recommended for honesty and wit.

These comics are abolutely hilarious and a true representation of life in grad school. Slackerny and the crew saw me through many a dark hour of slugging away through "The Thesis". Go ahead and buy the books and quit wasting time on the lab computer reading these strips and get back to your research!

That's the second book from Cham, and like the first one it catches all the aspects of a doctoral student. It's sad, it's hilarious, it's ironic, and it's so doctoral! I recognize myself in this.

If you have the first one, this is a must.

I'm out of graduate school more years than I will admit to in public (unless forced to do so by former classmates). And it's something to be survived. It is an apprenticeship, in every sense of the word. And let's not forget that being an apprentice to HIS BROTHER made Ben Franklin run away from home.

As I read through the strips, it's easy to see different aspects of my own time in grad school, whether it's the pile of grading, the (seemingly) carniverous undergrads, the long hours, the lack of a life outside of the lab. But it's all there.

It's important to remember, that it DOES end, one way or the other. And that Ph.D.s are awarded , not to the brightest, but the most determined.

I've been following PhD for quite a few years now, first as an undergraduate and later as a graduate student at Stanford. This is a great gift for prospective, current, and graduating grad students. Its popularity has really swept over the nation's grad students - I'm not surprised that so many thousands (millions?) read this comic every day on the web.

The latest book is a fun read - the comics are exceptionally well drawn, and Jorge (the author) creates a geeky but lovable set of grad characters.

Having just finished a PhD thesis, I must say I always found J. Cham's strips very accurate and witty. Of course most references are to the U.S. grad system, but it nevertheless applies to international students too. I graduated in Switzerland but in many ways I feel like Mike, Cecilia and the various heroes of this series.

And if you want to get an idea of the actual strips, they are all freely available on the author's web site [...]

Purchased for Christmas for my daughter - a PhD student. the entire family had alot of laughts with this book.
I would only recommend if there is a PhD student in the midst.
The humor is accurate per my daughter.
This would be a great gift for any PhD student.

It's pretty common to see workplaces with funny and topical comic strips taped to desks and common spaces. There's always some Far Side or Dilbert cartoon that just seems to strike a chord with your work, like it was written for you. If you're in graduate school, every single strip by Jorge Cham is like that. Strips from this book are printed out and stuck on the walls of my lab, and every other lab in my neuroscience department for that matter. Not only is this stuff funny, but it's so painfully real, and it helps to know that the struggles we face are shared by the rest of the graduate world, regardless of their discipline. Buy it for someone in grad school! They'll think it was written just for them!

Jorge Cham and his PHD Comics are for graduate students what Scott Adams and his Dilbert cartoons are for the cubicle-dweller white-collars of the corporate life. It's as (painfully) real and funny as it can get.
This collection of his strips, which is also available at his website (www.phdcomics.com), is a fantastic gift for your grad student friend, or to their "PhD widow" (a.k.a. spouse) -- to show them that there are other widows like them throughout the world.
I'm Brazilian, and those strips are as true in my country as in the US, and I believe as in every other university around the planet!

pretty "accurate" funny description of life of PhD students, may not appear be funny to people who are not PhD students, because only had you been there could you understand what the author tried to put.