Today’s PhD students face more pressure

By Alan MacEachern. The typical PhD funding package is for four or five years but the typical PhD takes six or seven.
It has been said that to play pool well is a sign of a misspent youth. Or, in my case, of a doctoral degree. Maybe that amounts to the same thing. I got quite good at pool in years four to six of my PhD. When grad students ask me how long my degree took, I squirm. “Seven-plus years. But really, just four. Once I got down to it, I actually got through very quickly, in a way.” I spent much of that time finding excuses to do more research, making outlines, bartending and playing pool. I didn’t write. One day, archaeologists will undoubtedly trace Jesus’s missing years to a PhD in religious studies. More...