The majority of graduate students feel overwhelmed and depressed, a 2004 study from University of California, Berkeley reported.
Jorge Cham, creator of the comic strip “Piled Higher & Deeper,” says it doesn’t have to be that way.
“I am here today to tell you that there is another way. That way is the way of procrastination,” he said.
Cham shared his thoughts on the lighter side of graduate school Oct. 20 at the Aline Wilmot Skaggs Biology Building.
Cham holds a doctorate degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and, consequently, has personal knowledge about the graduate student experience. He started the comic while he was still in school.
“If I’m going to be remembered at all, it’s probably not going to be for the research that I spent years on,” Cham said. “I’ll probably be most remembered for what I was doing when I should’ve been doing research-while I was procrastinating-which is to make this comic strip.”
He said he got the idea when his brother complained that all the comics in the school newspaper focused on the lives of undergraduates, when it was the graduate students who were really suffering.
In 1997, “Piled Higher & Deeper” appeared in the The Stanford Daily and soon gained an online following around the United States.
“(The strip is) pretty well known by all graduate students,” said Betty Mohler, president of the computer science graduate student advisory committee, who helped organize the event.
Cham said that many students feel guilty about taking breaks when there is work to be done. He suggested that they lighten up and realize that no one is able to spend all their time and energy on schoolwork.
“I think that procrastination gets a bad rap,” Cham said. “I think part of the problem is that it often gets confused with its close cousin, laziness.”
Procrastination is not the same as laziness, he said. Laziness is when you don’t want to do anything, procrastination is just when you don’t want to do it now.
Another cause of graduate-student stress is pressure to live up to the expectations of the faculty.
“Your professor probably doesn’t think you’re an idiot,” Cham reassured students. “The truth of the matter is he probably doesn’t spend much time thinking about you at all.”
Cham said that it is important to keep graduate school in its proper perspective.
“If you look at all the people that get famous, in their fields or whatever, very few of them got famous for the work that got published in their (graduate school) thesis,” he pointed out. “Most of them got famous for the work that they had their grad students do for them.”
Many audience members said they were impressed with Cham’s ability to successfully capture the experiences of graduate students.
“He really knows what he’s talking about,” said Steve Morgan, a graduate student in physics. “It’s almost unreal how accurate it is.”
Graduate student in biology Erin Hanlon said it was good to know she isn’t alone.
“All the negative points? That’s been my life for the past year, which is sad, of course,” she said.
After the presentation, Cham signed copies of his two compilations, Piled Higher & Deeper: A Graduate Student Comic Strip Collection and Life is Tough and Then You Graduate.