by
(
|
by |
|
|
( |
|
1. All the good ideas are taken.
There's nothing left to study. We're all just filling in the details now.
2. Science is merely a literary endeavor, as you learned in your class in postmodernism.
Alan Sokal put it this way: "It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical 'reality,' no less than social 'reality,' is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific 'knowledge' . . . cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities." (Sokal, A., 1996. Transgressing the boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity. Social Text Spring/Summer, p. 217.)
3. You hate to move.
It took four years to build your Budweiser pyramid, which has been declared a religious shrine. The Environmental Defense Fund will insist on monitoring the site when you clean out the refrigerator. If you don't vacuum the dust bunnies before you leave, your landlord will slap you with a surcharge for having a pet.
4. You can do it when you're older.
Why not wait a while? Get married, work in a cubicle for a few decades, pick up a mortgage, and send the kids to college. Then go back for the Ph.D. after retirement. Since you won't have any social security payments to make, your doctoral stipend can support you.
5. You're sure you won't get in.
In high school tryouts, you were passed over for Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. You're the only person in Cleveland who didn't make the finals in the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. You wait by the phone at night for telemarketers, but they never call.
6. You'd rather live in the real world.
It's just like the university, except with money.
7. You're not sure your degree will be marketable when you finish.
Who will commercialize the Termite Genome Project? Your adviser is encouraging, but he moonlights as an exterminator.
8. You can't afford to go to grad school.
Sure, your
stipend will help you get by, but what about the incidentals? An SUV, a big TV, a new PC, a place to ski. How can you live without them?
9. You can't decide.
Your college adviser told you to
consider becoming a beautician. Your mother wants you to become a doctor. You
could split the difference and train as a mortician.
10. Science hasn't helped your love life so far.
Your dates don't seem too keen on the smell of formaldehyde. Your bedroom walls are decorated with Pharmacia posters and sequencing maps. Your idea of a first date movie is Mechanisms of Fungi Reproduction.
Christopher G. Edwards is a science management consultant, writer, and editor. He was founding editor in chief of Nature Biotechnology and is coauthor of Entrepreneurial Science: New Links between Corporations, Universities, and Government (Quorum Books, 1987).
Andrzej Krauze is an illustrator, poster maker, cartoonist, and painter who illustrates regularly for HMS Beagle, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, Bookseller, and New Statesman.
