Forum brings grad students together
Ph.D. Comics’ Cham tells of procrastination and success
1:20 p.m., May 10, 2011--The University of Delaware's inaugural Graduate Student Forum brought 275 graduate students from across campus together for nearly 80 research talks and posters, plus a dinner capped off by the hilarity of Jorge Cham, creator of Ph.D. Comics.
During his eight-minute talk, Evan Bradley, a doctoral student in linguistics and cognitive science from Lancaster, Pa., presented his research to explore whether speakers of tone languages such as Mandarin and Yoruba (spoken in Nigeria) have an enhanced ability to perceive pitch, both in language and in music.
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Bradley attributed his ease in explaining his work to his experience teaching undergraduate courses at UD, and to describing his research for relatives at Thanksgiving dinners. He wants to pursue a research career in academia.
Alex Campbell, from Winchester, Mass., presented a study on TV violence. He received his bachelor’s degree in communication and English from UD and hopes to go into advertising or public relations once he finishes his master’s in mass communication.
“The importance of knowing how to convey your research to broad audiences can’t be overestimated,” noted Charlie Riordan, vice provost for graduate and professional education. “It will serve you in communicating your work to family members to funding agencies, school districts and the community at large.”
Laughter erupted throughout Cham’s presentation, “The Power of Procrastination.”
Cham started drawing “Piled Higher and Deeper” (Ph.D.) Comics as a graduate student at Stanford, where he earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering. Today, Ph.D. Comics receives 12 million page views a month and is carried by a thousand universities.
“Apparently, it’s a global misery phenomenon,” Cham quipped.
Cham began receiving messages from students such as: “Your comic is probably responsible for keeping many of us sane.”
According to a Berkeley study, 95 percent of grad students have felt overwhelmed at some point, and 67 percent have felt hopeless or depressed.
Some of those feelings, Cham said, can be attributed to the fact that when you reach grad school, you have to get used to being average, and you also have to get used to being dumber because you realize you don’t know as much as you thought you did.
For those students, he offered a pathway out — procrastination.
Cham offered as proof of the approach, the founders of Yahoo and Google, Isaac Asimov (who took 10 years to get a Ph.D.), and Isaac Newton.
“The real question is,” Cham said of Newton, “what was he doing under that tree?”
“It was a great afternoon and evening overall,” concluded Tara Falcone, president of the Graduate Student Senate, which co-hosted the event with the Office of Graduate and Professional Education. “We planned on making this a tradition, and the success of our first forum puts us on course for doing so.”
Article by Tracey Bryant
Photos by Evan Krape