We dug 'piled higher and deeper'
by Heather McEwen, Marketing Manager
Jorge's talk, 'The Power of Procrastination' took a witty but thoughtful look at life as a postgraduate research student, and perhaps for many students, helped them to re-think the question they all ask themselves at some stage, "Do I want to do this for the rest of my life?"
In one of the few sobering moments of the talk, Jorge pointed out that in a recent UC Berkeley survey, 95 percent of all graduate students feel overwhelmed, and more than 67 percent have felt seriously depressed at some point in their careers. Of these 1 in 200 have attempted suicide.
At the end of the talk several bemused students pressed Jorge (the same question posed in at least four different ways) on whether he would ever get back to research. He responded, "You mean what is my real job? This is it!" There seemed to be a collective disbelief that he could have got through years of study to write a comic strip, but he did confess to seeking comfort in reading academic works, and admitted to being on the review panel for publications now and again.
His response may have provided a little more room for thought about life after a PhD. According to many careers advisers, most people will change careers five to ten times in a lifetime, and end up in jobs that have nothing to do with the degree that they graduated with.
Jorge's insights into completing a PhD were a reminder that despite procrastination and the jokes about motivation, the commitment to getting a thesis submitted in three years needs to be wholehearted and balanced with other activities in order to cope with some of what Jorge described as the 'misery of graduate study'. Like reading PHD for example.
So, I think the take home message from this fun event was that students should take advantage of sport and recreational activities on and off campus, turn off the computer now and again and speak to their fellow students instead of emailing them, go to anything that involves free food and opportunities to chat with other students and staff, get involved with student associations, talk over any problems with friends, family, academic and general staff, seek professional counselling where necessary, and live life!
The lecture was sponsored by the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science and the ANU College of Science in partnership with the Postgraduate and Research Students Association (PARSA).
Piled Higher and Deeper Comic Strip
The ANU Counselling Centre
