The Power of Procrastination

A Lecture by Jorge Cham A Piled Higher and Deeper Publication Other books by Jorge Cham:

Piled Higher and Deeper: A Graduate Student Comic Strip Life is Tough And Then You Graduate Scooped! Academic Stimulus Package Adventures In Thesisland The PHD Comics 20th Anniversary Collection We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe Prof. Smith’s Rules For Advising Grad Students (& Postdocs)

The Power of Procrastination: A Lecture by Jorge Cham © Copyright 2003-2018 by Jorge Cham. All rights re- served. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.

“Piled Higher and Deeper” the comic strip originally appeared in The Stanford Daily Newspaper at Stanford University. www.phdcomics.com

Printed in Canada. First printing, July 2018 ISBN-10: 0-9721695-8-X ISBN-13: 978-09721695785 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018946871 For Laura Jorge at Polytechnique Montréal, March 2010 Photo credit: PolyPhoto Hi, hello, how’s it going? Well, it’s an honor for me to be here today. I want to thank all the organizers and sponsors for bringing me here today (round of applause). Thank you for coming out today. I know you would all rather be doing research on a Thursday afternoon but instead, you’ve made the sacrifice to come hear me talk. You’re here for the free food, aren’t you? I am. I’m here today to talk about some of my experiences as a grad student. I was in grad school at Stanford University for, uh... a number of years. Let’s not get too specific. My thesis was on making small robots that could run like cockroaches. Yes, that’s your tax dollars at work. Here is a movie of the robot we built:

I like to show this movie because a) it reflects what grad school felt like to me (running frantically, not getting anywhere, while a more intelligent being stamps you down), and b) it’s the only way I can get people to look at my research. You see, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I probably

5 won’t be remembered for the research I spent years working on as part of my plan to become a Professor.

By far more popular has been what I was doing when I should have been doing research, when I was procrastinating, which was to draw this comic strip called Piled Higher and Deeper, or PhD Comics. I’m always impressed at conferences by academics that start their talks with an outline of their presentation. It gives you the impression they’re very organized and they know exactly what they’re doing. So, here is a detailed outline of my talk: • Present outline • Talk • Answer questions OK, I don’t exactly know what I’m doing, but I thought I’d start by talking about how the comic strip got started. During my first quarter at Stanford there was an ad in the student newspaper looking for a new comic strip. One night, I was talking to my brother and he said that when he was a grad student, he thought there should be a comic about grad students, because all the ones about undergrads were lame, and didn’t they know that grad school is when the real pain begins?? At the time, I was drowning in classes. I was also a teaching assistant, and I was working at a lab, trying to get a professor to hire me as a Ph.D. student. So it’s not like I didn’t have enough to do, but it seemed to me that there WERE a lot of stories 6 about being a graduate student and being a young academic that were not being told anywhere else. Grad students seem to be largely ignored in popular culture. For example, there are countless movies and TV shows about doctors (the real kind) and lawyers and policemen, but you rarely see anything about being a grad student. Granted, those other jobs involve life or death situations, whereas our daily routines barely qualify as life. And, to be fair, there have been a few notable exceptions. In 1978 there was a movie called “The Seniors,” starring Dennis Quaid, about “four grad students who support them- selves by getting grant money to study sexuality in college-aged women.” Did anybody see this one? Then there is the classic film “Real Genius” (based on Caltech, by the way) about grad students who are shocked to discover that their research is being used for military purposes. Imagine that! In Real Genius there are a lot of scenes of Val Kilmer doing lab experiments. Calibrating instruments! Adjusting sensors! Recording data! And we start to get the sense why people don’t make movies about grad students. More recently, there was “A Beautiful Mind” about the mathematician John Nash, and “The Hulk” about geneticist Bruce Banner. Both these movies are good examples of what can happen when you spend too much time doing research.

7 In general, it seems that if a movie or TV show features a grad student or a scientist or researcher, they usually resort to the stereotype of the crazy eccentric who doesn’t care about anything except his or her work. So when I set off to write a strip about grad students, I asked myself, “Who is this strange creature known as a graduate student?” “What is really happening inside their complex and complicated minds?” Well, it turns out that it’s not that complicated:

By this I mean that most of the people that I knew in grad school didn’t fit the stereotype of the awkward academic that you always see portrayed in popular culture. Most of the people I knew were really just regular people: they came from diverse backgrounds and had different passions and interests. Most of them just wanted to make it through grad school and many of them weren’t even sure why they were there. And so I started drawing the strip, trying to capture in them these feelings of anxiety and moments of doubt. There were

8 comics about looking for an advisor and begging them to hire you to work in their research group. There were comics about being a teaching assistant, and having to deal with annoying undergrads (which I can say because there probably aren’t many of them listening to this). There were comics about learning grad student etiquette:

Never ask a grad student how their research is going. That’s just rude. At some point it became clear that I needed more characters. So I looked at the people around me, and found characters that people could to identify with. There was Cecilia, one of the brave 5-10% of women in some fields like computer science, physics, or electrical engineering.

9 Then there was Tajel, the token humanities student, who was always protesting something. And of course, we had that guy or gal that everybody seems to have in their department. You know, the one that’s been there longer than anyone can remember. In this case, it was Mike Slackenerny:

It was Mike’s job, as the grizzled old grad student, to educate the new students in the way of the Ph.D. In one comic he says, “Money, a social life, a shave... a grad student needs not such things.” That was actually said to me during my first year by an older grad student called “Mike.” I don’t make a lot of this stuff up! Mike’s character was also someone people could identify with in terms of dealing with relationships and the expecta- tions of your significant others, your parents, etc. I drew the strip, and people seemed to like it! I think people connected to the comics not just because they could identify

10 with the characters and with the situations, but also because the subtext of the comics was always about asking the real question about grad school. The BIG Question:

Why do we put up with it?? Because it certainly isn’t about the money. Below are the results of a survey by the Chronicle of High- er Education in 2001 that looked at graduate stipends over a range of disciplines in several dozen Universities in the U. S.:

11 If we take the average of these figures, we get an idea of what grad students make a year, i.e. how much they are valued by society. This average turns out to be:

Average Grad Student Annual Stipend = $14,055

It’s not... Bad? It’s probably enough to, you know, survive. Maybe if you eat at McDonald’s every day. But to put it in perspective, let’s compare this to how much you’d be earning if you worked at McDonald’s. That figure (assuming minimum wage in California) turns out to be:

Working at McDonald’s = $14,040

$15 less! Yeah, I’m lovin’ itTM. Of course, we all know that money won’t make you happy. But let’s face facts, not having any doesn’t help either. So the question of why people go to grad school fascinated me, and it still does to this day. But then I did something that was a little unusual back then: I put the comic strips online on a free web server on the Stanford campus, and on the ones printed in the newspaper I put the web address on the bottom right corner of the comic. I think what happened next was that people who read the comics at Stanford started telling their friends (the ones they knew from undergrad who were going to grad school in other Universities) about the website, and then those people would tell their friends in other Universities, and those people would

12 tell their friends, etc... And so, like a virus (or a Tupperware Party), the strip went out into the world. It was interesting at this point for me to learn that the stories I was writing about weren’t just limited to Stanford University, or even to the United States. On the contrary, it seemed to be a global anxiety phenomenon. I once compiled a list of the schools of all the people who subscribed to the PHD Comics website and found that there are over 1000 institutions on that list. And it wasn’t just limited to engineering or the sciences, which is where I was coming from. People from all kinds of majors were reading the comics. I also made a list of the majors of all those subscribers, and there are over 800 disciplines in it. It’s interesting to read from this list. For example, it says on it that there are grad students from Art History, Brain and Cog- nitive Science and Politics reading the comics. There are even grad students majoring in Buddhist Studies. I guess you can get a Ph.D. in B.S. (officially). But even more interesting was when I started to hear back from all these people across the world and across all these different disciplines.

Reader E-mails I can roughly categorize the e-mails I get from readers into 13 these four types of e-mails:

Reader E-mail #1 “Oh God, I break down and cry each time there’s a new strip. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

This type of comment makes me feel... Good? It’s a weird feeling knowing that you’re making thousands of people out there weep. You’re welcome? Then I get a second type of e-mail, and it goes something like:

Reader E-mail #2 “Thanks for helping me slack off! I’m supposed to be doing research, but instead I just spent the last couple of days reading your strip!”

This type of comment also makes me feel... Good? I’m pretty sure that, by now, somewhere out there a grad student was about to discover something amazing for humankind (like cold fusion or the solution to global warming), when all of a sudden their lab-mate says, “hey, check out this comic strip!” And humankind took a step backwards. Again, you’re welcome. Then I get a third type of comment, and it goes something like:

14 Reader E-mail #3 “Cecilia is so hot. Can I marry her?”

Now, this type of comment disturbs me a little. First of all, she’s an imaginary cartoon character. And second of all, she’s MY imaginary girlfriend. Go make your own imaginary girlfriend or boyfriend! But then I get a fourth type of comment, and it usually goes something like: Reader E-mail #4 “You make me feel less alone. Your comic is probably responsible for keeping many of us sane.”

When I get this type of comment, I think... “Aww...” It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, these comics are not just a huge waste of time for humankind. Maybe, just maybe, they’re only a medium-sized waste of time. A little while back, I read this survey done by the University of California at Berkeley where they sent a questionnaire to all their graduate students asking about their mental health. Here is what they found:

Survey Result #1 95% of respondents felt overwhelmed

This figure, 95%, is quite amazing. The idea that 95% of all grad students at some point feel overwhelmed or overstressed

15 is almost unbelievable. I mean, you’re probably wondering, “Who are the other 5%?? And why are they lying?” Wait, I know. They’re probably in Buddhist Studies. Of course, I’m not sure what the numbers are for other schools, but I don’t imagine it’s that different. I mean, if anyone should be more mellow, it should be Berkeley students, if you know what I mean. A little more seriously, though, the survey also found: Survey Result #2 67% reported feeling hopeless or depressed at some point in their graduate career This figure is more alarming. Sixty-seven percent means that two thirds of all grad students at some point feel hopeless or depressed about their academic careers, their research and their lives in general. Two thirds! Well, I am here to tell you that there is another way. And that way is the way of PROCRASTINATION.

That’s right, Procrastination. 16 I know what you’re thinking: “Procrastination? But that’s a bad thing, isn’t it? Sex, drugs, procrastination... My mother doesn’t know I do any of these things!” But I think Procrastination just gets a bad reputation. And I think it gets a bad reputation because people often confuse it with its close cousin, Laziness.

Procrastination ≠ Laziness

I actually argue that Procrastination and Laziness are NOT the same thing. Why? Laziness is when you don’t want to DO anything. Procrastination just means you don’t want to do it NOW. I’m going to let that sink in for a minute. They’re not the same thing! In fact, if you look it up, the dictionary defines Procrastination as “to postpone or delay needlessly.” This sounds like a negative thing, but I think it actually gives us a loophole: If you can find aneed for it, then maybe it’s not so bad! In fact, there have been many instances throughout history where I think Procrastination has worked out for the best. Here now is a list of great procrastinators in history:

Great Procrastinator #1: Isaac Newton Most people know the story of Isaac Newton and how he figured out the principle of universal gravitation while sitting under an apple tree. I think the real question is: What was he 17 doing under that tree?? He certainly wasn’t in the lab working, was he?

Great Procrastinator #2: Albert Einstein Then there’s the story of Albert Einstein. I bet Einstein’s mother would have loved for him to have worked hard at the patent office where he had his real job, and made his way up to middle management just like he was supposed to do for his ac- tual career. Instead, Einstein spent a lot of his time working on Physics equations, which clearly worked out for him. Relatively speaking, of course (sorry for that joke).

Great Procrastinator #3: Isaac Asimov On the list is also the famous science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov. Not many people know this, but it took Asimov 10 years to finish his Ph.D in Chemistry at Columbia University. You can picture what he looked like before grad school: young, athletic, clean-shaven. Now think of how most people remember him: old-looking, with crazy white hair and those wild sideburns. Grad school did that to him. Later on in his life, Asimov wrote in his biography that his thesis advisor actually told him, to his face, that he was a bad writer. In spite of that, Asimov spent a lot of his time writing what turned out to be some of the most significant science fiction novels of the 20th Century.

More Great Procrastinators A few more modern heroes of procrastination are the Yahoo! and Google founders: Jerry Yang and David Filo (Yahoo!) and 18 Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google). Both companies were actually started by graduate students at Stanford. In fact, legend has it that Yahoo started when Jerry Yang and David Filo’s advisor happened to go on sabbatical. Jerry probably turned to David and said, “Hey, our professor isn’t here right now... Why don’t we try to CATEGORIZE THE EN- TIRE INTERNET? Before he comes back?” That’s somelegendary Procrastination. There’s also real science that makes the case for Procrastina- tion. For example, there’s the work by the cognitive psycholo- gist, Theresa Amabile. Amabile makes the distinction between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivators. Extrinsic Motivators are outside pressures, like when someone tells you that you have to do something because there’s a deadline, or because there’s a reward or an award at the end. Amabile found through experiments that Extrinsic Motivators actually make people feel more controlled, and can decrease their creative ability. [Amabile, T., 1998, Harvard Business Review] More recently and more high tech is the work by Jung-Bee- man et. al, in which they use fMRI to look at people’s brain activity while trying to solve problems that require insight. Their hypothesis is that when you’re trying to come up with insightful solutions to open-ended and difficult problems, you’re trying to put together concepts within your brain that are not obviously connected to each other. For that, they argue, you need a kind of low-grade, almost unconscious, brain activity:

“Large semantic fields allowing for more overlap among distantly related concepts may help overcome 19 impasse in insight problems... Because this semantic processing is weak, it may remain unconscious.” The idea is that if you think about your problem too much, or focus on it too hard, you can actually suppress the kind of important long-distance connection-making needed to be insightful. [Jung-Beeman, M., et al., 1998, PLOS Biology]

Yes, that’s right. I have references to back this up!

So What’s the Problem? It seems that Procrastination, or putting things off, is not in itself necessarily a problem. There’s a lot of historical evidence and scientific data that makes the case for Procrastination. Still, there’s a lingering stigma about Procrastination in society, especially in Academia. So I asked myself the question, “Why is that? What’s really the problem with Procrastina- tion?”

I thought about this question for a long time. Perhaps too long. Then one day, I realized that maybe the answer to this question can be found in a very typical conversation I seem to have with grad students and academics no matter where I go in the world. This conversation goes something like this: --- ME: Hey, how’s it going? THEM: Oh God, I am so stressed! I’m trying to graduate!

20 I have all this research I have to do. I’ve only been sleeping 3 hours a night! ME: Whoa... If you’re only sleeping three hours per night, that must mean... You’re doing research 21 hours a day?? THEM: Uh... No. Actually, I went out with friends, I watched TV... And I’m organizing this event for the campus (underwater basket-weaving/obscure martial art/jazz oboe/ pick your favorite obscure hobby that you learn in grad school) club. ME: ... THEM: I’m the club president. ME: Oh. THEM: ...but I SHOULD be doing research! I’m supposed to be working right now! ---

“Aha!” I thought. Thereal problem with Procrastination is not that there aren’t enough hours in the week to do all your work and also pursue all your hobbies and your interests. The real problem with Procrastination seems to be all about... GUILT. Yes, guilt. As you have all probably found out, the thing about Academia is that it never ends. In Academia, there is AL- WAYS something else you should be doing, or could be doing, or are supposed to be doing. 21 At any given time of day, on any day of the week, there’s always something more you could be working on: more references you could be reading, more papers you could be writing, more funding you could be applying for, more experiments you could be running, more data analysis you could be doing, more equipment you could be putting together, more talks you could be giving, etc., etc., etc... In contrast, I think people with regular “9 to 5” jobs might have an easier time leaving everything in the office at the end of the day, and then just going home and relaxing. But in Aca- demia there are no boundaries. In Academia, there is a constant anxiety of always feeling like there’s something else that you SHOULD be doing, or are SUPPOSED to be doing. And yet, you often find yourself basically...

22 ...Not doing these things. I believe it’s this constant anxiety and this constant internal struggle that perhaps contributes to having a lot of young academics burn out early in their careers.

A Theory of Procrastination

So then I asked myself the question: “Why is that?” If it’s true that we feel like we have all these things that we could be doing, or should be doing, or are supposed to be doing... Why can’t we do them? Why can’t we just do the things we’re supposed to do, instead of doing other things, and then feeling guilty and depressed about them to the point where we don’t even enjoy those things we used to enjoy before? Well, I thought about this question also for a long time and, bear with me, I think the answer here is simple. 23 The reason we don’t do the things we’re supposed to do is... Because we don’t want to do them. I know, that’s deep. You see, this is all related to my grand Theory of Procrastination, or as I call it my

Unified Theory Of = U. T. O. P. I. A. Procrastination In Academia

I’m pretty sure this theory is correct because, come on, it has such an awesome acronym.

This theory is based on what I called in early comicsNew - ton’s Laws of Graduation. You might be familiar with these laws from my books or from the website, but the First Law of Graduation states:

Newton’s Laws of Graduation FIRST LAW “A grad student in procrastination tends to stay in procrastination unless an external force is applied to it.”

This is formalized more in the Second Law of Graduation, which states that:

24 Newton’s Laws of Graduation SECOND LAW “The age,A , of a doctoral or master’s thesis process is directly proportional to the flexibility,F , given by the advisor, and inversely proportional to the student’s motivation, M.”

We can write this law as an equation in the form:

AgeThesis = Flexibility / Motivation

Which we can then abbreviate as:

A = F / M

Which we can re-write as:

F = M A

And everybody knows, you can’t argue with F = M A! If you laughed at this joke, I want to thank you. I once gave this talk to a group of art and social science students and... There was dead silence in the room. So that’s my theory: how long it takes you to write your thesis or, I would argue, how long it takes you to do anything you’ve been wanting to do, is equal to the amount of flexibility you’re given to do it, and then divided by the amount of motivation you have to do it. Let’s spend some time now to explore this equation in more

25 detail, and let’s start with the bottom term, Motivation.

AgeThesis = Flexibility / Motivation

The Motivation Chart

Most grad students come to grad school because, well, it seems better than a real job. But still, you get excited about it, and you come to academia eager to learn and eager to make a difference in the world with your research. So you take that next step in your life and you get ready to turn that corner to face the challenges of grad school. Unfortunately for a lot of grad students, grad school ends up looking more like this:

Or, if you were to plot this complex psychological phenomenon in the “Motivat-o-meter,” it would start off looking like this:

26 Motivation usually starts pretty high, but then, when you get to grad school, there’s a big crash. I think there are a couple of reasons why this happens: Ego crush #1: You have to get used to being average Maybe before in your undergrad or high school years, you were one of the top students. But in grad school, some people go from being at the top of their class to struggling to stay in the middle of the pack.

Ego crush #2: Grad school actually makes you dumber Contrary to what was advertised in the brochure, you don’t feel smarter in grad school. Right after you finished your undergrad degree you probably felt pretty good about yourself because the ratio, or difference, between what you think you know and what you think you don’t know is pretty high:

27 But then you get to grad school...

In grad school you realize that a) you forgot most of what you learned in undergrad; and b) you didn’t actually learn that much. In grad school you’re suddenly surrounded by experts in your field who know a lot more than you.

Ego crush #3: Feeling like an Impostor Once your ego is crushed, you usually start to compare yourself to others:

28 Yeah, you know who I’m talking about. That person in your research group that works all the time and seems to crank out a new paper every month. You compare yourself to them, to your peers, to your professors... And you end up feeling like an impostor. This is a well-known phenomenon in Academia called “The Impostor Syndrome.” It’s sort of when you feel that the only reason they let you into the graduate program was... A clerical mistake. Sometimes you don’t feel like you’re as smart as everybody else, that you’re somehow fooling everyone and that you don’t belong. That’s the Impostor Syndrome.

Ups and Downs After that, it’s a series of ups and down on the Motivation Chart. Mostly downs. ↑ Maybe you get excited about the research topic that you

29 picked for your thesis (or more likely the research topic that was picked for you). ↓ But then you realize that it’s impossible. AND that someone already did it (??). ↑ Maybe you get motivated about your final exams or Ph.D Qualifying exams.

↓ But then you actually pass, and you enter the “Post Quals Slump” where you can’t even get out of bed anymore. ↑ Slowly, you claw you way up the motivation chart... ↓ Until that one day when you get that phone call. That phone call from your friend:

You know which friend, right? The one thatdidn’t go to grad school. And you’re talking to them on the phone, and they’re telling you how awesome their life is, how they have jobs (real jobs), how they just had a baby (a real baby)...

30 They tell you how they earn a lot of money, and how they just bought a house. And you’re thinking: “You can BUY hous- es?? How does that even work?” Meanwhile, you’re on the other line... All by yourself. Alone at night. Still in the lab.

Eating ramen noodles. And this is the part where it gets scary for a lot of grad students. This is the part where FEAR SETS IN. Fear of a couple of things:

Academic Fear #1: Fear of Failure

Let’s face it, those of us who usually make it to grad school tend to be the type A over-achievers. We have a lot invested in ourselves, our accomplishments and what people think of us. So, we sometimes have a hard time admitting to ourselves

31 when we haven’t succeeded or when it’s time to keep moving on. Unfortunately, you also get...

Academic Fear #2: Fear of Moving On

Academia can be a comfortable situation. I mean, you can walk into your office or lab at, what, 10am? 11am? Noon? A lot of people freak out at this point because they actually get afraid of what will happen to them if they graduate. Because if you graduate, then you have to decide what you want to be when you grow up. It’s scary to think of what comes next. You get afraid of re- joining the real world out there, beyond the walls of Academia. It’s sort of like prison inmates who are scared of finishing their sentence. You’ve seen “The Shawshank Redemption,” right?

The Message And so, a lot of people at this point hesitate, and then they freak out, and they end up procrastinating a lot, which in turn causes them stress and anxiety.

32 If you ever find yourself at this low point, and you find yourself procrastinating a lot, then my message to you all is this: That procrastination? IT’S OK.

It’s OK because a significant turning point for me during my time as a graduate student happened when I took a class from a professor at Stanford called Bernie Roth. Bernie Roth is a world-renowned, well-respected authority and researcher in the field of kinematics and robotics. But Bernie is also a very philosophical person, and he always chal- lenged his class with this question:

“In life, what are the things that you HAVE to do?” Typically, people answer this question by saying things like, “Well, you have to eat” or “You have to sleep” or they’ll say things like, “You have to get a job” or “You have to pay your bills.” (Some people also usually say, “You have to die” but remember, the questions says, “In life...”) Bernie would tell us that over the many years he was a professor, he noticed that grad students and academics often used language like this. He would hear them say things like, “Oh, I’m so stressed, I have to finish this project” or “I have to get good results” or “I have to get this published” or “I have to get a good postdoc” or “I have to get a faculty position” or “I have to get tenure...”

33 But Bernie’s point was very simple: Actually, in life, there’s nothing that you HAVE to do. If you really think about it, this is true. Nobody is making you do any of these things. It’s a difficult point to accept, but there are no exceptions: nobody’s making you sleep, or breathe, or get a job, or even pay your bills. Everything you do, Bernie would say, you do it because you WANT to do it. A lot of people reject this, or they find it hard to accept. They’ll say things like, “If I don’t eat/sleep/breathe, I’ll die!” or “If I don’t get a job, I’ll starve or end up in jail!” But this just leads them back to the same conclusion: you eat/sleep/publish because you want to eat/sleep/publish. Ultimately, it’s your choice. At the time, this blew my mind. Maybe it’s a lesson you already knew, or knew intuitively, but for me it was a revelation. Because if that’s true, then I say that Procrastination is what you do when you’re doing what you want to be doing. In other words, if everything you do you do it because you want to do it, then even Procrastination has that sort of equal value, which means it’s a good thing, right? At this point, you’re just supposed to smile and nod. Disre- gard any logical fallacies in that reasoning.

My main point is to just relax. Enjoy Academia and its unstructured constraints. Most important, listen to your inner Procrastinator. Listen to your inner passions and your inner

34 motivation.

Now what? OK, I am guessing that many of you are probably thinking at this point, “Hey, Jorge, all this Procrastination stuff... That’s great...” “But what if I never graduate?? How does any of this help me move on with my life??”

Well, fortunately for all of us, there are other terms in the equation:

AgeThesis = Flexibility / Motivation

As small as the bottom term (Motivation) may get for you, the upper term (Flexibility) will get even smaller. (Here I would try to make a joke about L’Hôpital’s Rule, but then only the Math majors and Engineers would laugh.) Basically what happens is that eventually, and inevitably, the final decision to finish something is essentially made... For you. Eventually you’ll run out of time or money, or you’ll suddenly be expecting a baby, or your significant other moves to another city, or you find a job that you really, really want, and all of a sudden you’ll be faced with a deadline that you will not want to miss. Because here’s a little secret nobody ever tells you: Nobody is ever happy with their thesis. It’s true. Just ask your advisor, your professors, your Postdocs, or anyone who’s finished their Ph.D.

35 if they were 100.0000% happy with the final product they turned in at the end. I would bet they’ll tell you... “Uh, no. Not 100.0000%”. Most likely, they’ll tell you that they ran out of time, or ran out of funding, or they were expecting a baby... So they just grabbed all the research they had done up to that point, smashed it together into one document (after checking that all the margins were the right size, of course, that’s super important), and then they just shipped it out the door. Because something else that nobody ever tells you about Aca- demia is that if you look at the people who are famous in your field (i.e. the big names and the world renowned experts), very few of them did their groundbreaking work as grad students. Most likely, I would bet, they made their mark when they were Professors. And this makes sense because when they were Professors, they had grad students do the work for them. 36 At some point, you realize all these things and you ramp up the Motivation Chart. Maybe you get to the point where you defend your thesis (or at least write the outline for it). But after that, it gets a little bit bumpy. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to cover that here today. I’ll leave that for my “Future Work.” (Only in Academia would anyone laugh at the words “Future Work”). Before I wrap up, I want to leave you with one last piece of advice. I think in Academia we tend to form in our heads an image of our advisors as Omnipotent Beings: God-like Entities who look down upon us and judge our every move and our every word. This tends to stress people out a lot. 37 But you know what? The truth is that your Professor (well, probably) doesn’t think you’re an idiot. Why? Because the fact is that she or he really doesn’t spend that much time thinking about you.

What I Learned In Grad School To finish, I always like to end my presentation with one last list. I feel that people see my comics or watch my movies and they assume that I have a very cynical view about the Ph.D and about Academia. People used to ask me all the time, “Do you wish you had quit your Ph.D earlier?” Or “Do you wish you had never gone to grad school?” And I always tell them: No. Actually, I’m really glad I went to grad school and I’m really glad I was able to stick with it and finish my degree. The reason is that I think you learn a lot of very useful skills while getting a Ph.D. You learn a lot of useful “transferable skills” (that’s what they’re called these days) that will help you not just in Academia, but in whatever career you choose for yourself. These skills are: • How to use Powerpoint • How to write • bullet items lists • How to give a presentation on any topic (even Procrastination) 38 OK, I joke around with this list, but I’m actually serious about it. I feel that in Academia: • You become an independent learner and are able to teach yourself anything technical that you need to learn for your research. • You also learn to think analytically and are able to break things down into their components. • And you also learn how to keep in mind the Big Picture of things and be able to communicate that to other people. Yes, I know. You’re probably angry at me now because I ended the talk on a positive note. Grrrr. So I’ll leave you now with the words of Mike Slackenerny:

“Grad school is a state of mind.”

Of course, if you asked him which state of mind he means, he would answer: “Preferably sleeping, which you are inter- rupting, now go away.” That’s the end of my talk. Thank you! 39 A list of all the places this talk has been delivered

May 12, 2005 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) May 20, 2005 California Institute of Technology September 30, 2005 University of Colorado Boulder October 20, 2005 University of Utah October 24, 2005 Rice University October 25, 2005 Georgia Tech October 27, 2005 North Carolina State University October 28, 2005 Virginia Tech October 31, 2005 Virginia Commonwealth University November 1, 2005 University of Virginia November 2, 2005 Johns Hopkins University November 3, 2005 University of Maryland November 4, 2005 Johns Hopkins University Medical Campus November 7, 2005 University of Pennsylvania November 7, 2005 Drexel University November 8, 2005 University of Rhode Island November 9, 2005 Yale University November 14, 2005 Cornell University November 15, 2005 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute November 17, 2005 Princeton University December 2, 2005 University of New Mexico January 19, 2006 University of Washington January 23, 2006 University of California Davis January 26, 2006 University of Calgary January 27, 2006 University of Alberta February 8, 2006 Scripps Research Institute

40 February 8, 2006 University of California San Diego February 10, 2006 Kansas State University February 15, 2006 University of New Hampshire February 17, 2006 Dartmouth College February 22, 2006 University of Southern California February 23, 2006 University of California Los Angeles February 27, 2006 Indiana University February 28, 2006 Purdue University March 1, 2006 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign March 2, 2006 Northwestern University March 3, 2006 University of Chicago March 6, 2006 New Jersey Institute Of Technology March 8, 2006 Harvard University March 8, 2006 Massachussetts Institute Of Technology March 9, 2006 University of Massachussetts Boston March 14, 2006 Boston University March 15, 2006 Brown University March 16, 2006 Clark University March 20, 2006 Michigan Technological University March 21, 2006 Mayo Clinic March 23, 2006 University of Iowa March 24, 2006 College of William and Mary March 27, 2006 Texas A&M University March 28, 2006 University of Texas Austin March 30, 2006 University of Texas Galveston April 1, 2006 University of Georgia April 3, 2006 University of Michigan April 5, 2006 Carnegie Mellon University April 7, 2006 Penn State University

41 April 27, 2006 University of Delaware April 28, 2006 University of Maryland Baltimore County May 3, 2006 Harvey Mudd College May 4, 2006 University of California at Berkeley May 5, 2006 Stanford University September 6, 2006 Syracuse University September 13, 2006 University of North Carolina September 15, 2006 Wake Forest University September 19, 2006 University of Massachussetts Amherst September 29, 2006 University of California Irvine October 5, 2006 Instituto de Astrofisica Tenerife, Canary Islands October 25, 2006 Case Western Reserve University October 26, 2006 University of Wisconsin Madison October 27, 2006 Medical College of Wisconsin October 28, 2006 Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science November 6, 2006 New Jersey Institute Of Technology November 8, 2006 Queens University November 16, 2006 Washington University St. Louis November 18, 2006 National Association of Graduate-Profes- sional Students Annual Meeting November 20, 2006 New York Academy of Sciences December 1, 2006 Western Michigan University January 19, 2007 University of California Santa Cruz January 23, 2007 University of Ottawa January 24, 2007 University of Toronto January 30, 2007 University of Arkansas January 31, 2007 Michigan State University

42 February 17, 2007 University of California Riverside February 23, 2007 University of Houston March 8, 2007 University of Illinois Urbana Champaign March 28, 2007 Binghamton University March 30, 2007 Texas A&M University April 3, 2007 University of Alabama Birmingham April 4, 2007 Vanderbilt University April 5, 2007 Duke University April 6, 2007 Medical University of South Carolina April 17, 2007 Notre Dame University April 19, 2007 Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab Retreat April 24, 2007 New Mexico State University April 25, 2007 University of Arizona April 26, 2007 University of California Berkeley EECS Faculty Retreat Keynote May 1, 2007 Ohio State University May 3, 2007 George Mason University May 29, 2007 University of Alberta May 31, 2007 Invitrogen Tech Expo August 9, 2007 University of California August 10, 2007 Google Authors Series September 10, 2007 University of Sydney September 10, 2007 University of New South Wales September 11, 2007 Australian National University September 12, 2007 Monash University September 13, 2007 University of Melbourne September 19, 2007 Griffith University September 20, 2007 University of Queensland September 20, 2007 Queenland University of Technology

43 September 25, 2007 McGill University October 3, 2007 Princeton University October 11, 2007 SACNAS Conference Keynote October 12, 2007 Tulane University Biomedical Sciences Retreat Keynote October 22, 2007 Cambridge University October 23, 2007 York University October 25, 2007 University of Zurich November 1, 2007 University of Nebraska Medical Center November 2, 2007 University of Missouri Columbia November 15, 2007 University of Cincinnati November 28, 2007 NSF Engineering Research Centers Annual Meeting Student Retreat January 15, 2008 University of Michigan January 16, 2008 Wayne State University January 29, 2008 University of Washington February 19, 2008 Colorado University Boulder February 20, 2008 Colorado State University February 22, 2008 Case Western Reserve University February 27, 2008 University of California San Francisco February 28, 2008 University of California Davis March 12, 2008 Worcester Polytechnic Institute March 14, 2008 Stony Brook University March 27, 2008 Université de Sherbrooke April 3, 2008 University of Nebraska Lincoln April 4, 2008 University of Louisville April 8, 2008 University of Kansas April 9, 2008 Iowa State University April 10, 2008 Bowling Green University

44 April 17, 2008 University of California Santa Barbara April 23, 2008 Cornell University Undergraduate Research Forum Keynote April 24, 2008 Cornell University May 2, 2008 M.D. Anderson Cancer Center May 7, 2008 Massachussetts Institute Of Technology May 8, 2008 Harvard University May 14, 2008 University of Edinburgh May 15, 2008 University of Glasgow, Scotland May 21, 2008 Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland June 5, 2008 International Workshop on Logic and Syn- thesis, Keynote June 16, 2008 Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning Forum Evening Address August 25, 2008 University of California Merced August 28, 2008 Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland September 15, 2008 "Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center" September 18, 2008 Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, Belgium September 19, 2008 Aarhus University September 20, 2008 Ochem - Aarhus University September 22, 2008 Aalborg University September 23, 2008 Technical University Denmark October 21, 2008 Frontiers in Optics Conference November 4, 2008 ETH Zurich November 5, 2008 Oxford University November 6, 2008 Southampton University

45 November 7, 2008 Imperial College London November 14, 2008 New Mexico Tech November 23, 2008 UCLA Pharmacology December 15, 2008 University of Manchester December 16, 2008 University of Cambridge December 17, 2008 Ecole Polytechnique - Paris January 28, 2009 Photonics West Conference February 10, 2009 University of Central Florida February 19, 2009 Purdue University February 23, 2009 Pennsylvania State University February 24, 2009 University of Pennsylvania February 25, 2009 Drexel University February 28, 2009 University of Western Ontario March 9, 2009 University of British Columbia March 19, 2009 Memorial University April 1, 2009 St. Louis University April 3, 2009 University of Regina April 14, 2009 University of Maine April 16, 2009 Columbia University April 17, 2009 Yale University April 23, 2009 University of Minnesota April 25, 2009 University of Texas Medical Branch April 30, 2009 University of California Irvine May 16, 2009 University of California San Diego June 3, 2009 University of California Riverside June 17, 2009 University of Eindhoven June 18, 2009 Utrecht University June 19, 2009 University of Vienna, June 23, 2009 University of Amsterdam

46 June 23, 2009 Wageningen University June 24, 2009 Radboud University, Donders Institute September 9, 2009 Laurier University September 11, 2009 Lakehead University September 14, 2009 New Mexico State University September 30, 2009 University of Alaska October 6, 2009 Dutch Physical Society Meeting October 7, 2009 Dutch National Institute of Health October 9, 2009 Central European University Budapest October 12, 2009 European Molecular Biology Laboratory October 13, 2009 Embry-Riddle University October 14, 2009 Max Planck Institute Berlin October 16, 2009 University of Frankfurt October 26, 2009 University of Reading October 27, 2009 University College London October 28, 2009 Queen Mary University October 29, 2009 Cambridge University October 30, 2009 London School of Economics November 2, 2009 University of Nottingham November 3, 2009 King's College London November 7, 2009 Northern California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education November 12, 2009 Rice University December 3, 2009 Council of Graduate Schools, San Francisco February 19, 2010 Michigan State University February 20, 2010 University of Minnesota March 8, 2010 University of Toronto March 9, 2010 École Polytechnique de Montréal March 10, 2010 McGill University

47 March 10, 2010 University of Laval March 11, 2010 Dalhousie University March 12, 2010 University of Regina March 26, 2010 North Illinois University April 13, 2010 North Carolina State University April 14, 2010 Tufts University April 15, 2010 University of Kansas April 22, 2010 West Virginia University April 23, 2010 University of Pittsburgh April 24, 2010 Clemson University May 5, 2010 University of Calgary May 15, 2010 London School of Business May 28, 2010 Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium June 10, 2010 University Edinburgh/St. Andrews SICSA Conference, Scotland June 1, 2010 University of Life Sciences, Oslo June 15, 2010 Norwegian School of Veterinary Sciences June 16, 2010 Norwegian University of Science and Tech- nology June 18, 2010 Uppsala University Creativity Day August 23, 2010 American Chemical Society September 8, 2010 McMaster University September 24, 2010 University of California Santa Barbara October 1, 2010 Society for Advancement of Chicanos/ Hispanics and Native Americans in Science Annual Meeting October 6, 2010 University Chicago October 7, 2010 Northwestern University October 8, 2010 University of California San Francisco

48 October 13, 2010 Wake Forest University October 14, 2010 University of North Carolina Charlotte October 15, 2010 ACM Reflections at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign November 4, 2010 New Jersey Institute Of Technology November 5, 2010 Canadian Association of Graduate Studies Annual Conference, Toronto November 19, 2010 Imperial College London November 18, 2010 Paris Research Job Fair November 19, 2010 Doc Up Event, Paris November 30, 2010 University of South Florida December 1, 2010 University of Michigan March 30, 2011 University of Kentucky March 31, 2011 University of Arizona April 5, 2011 University of North Texas April 6, 2011 Auburn University April 7, 2011 University of Georgia April 13, 2011 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University April 14, 2011 University of Northern Arizona April 15, 2011 Arizona State University April 19, 2011 University of Idaho April 19, 2011 Washington State University April 20, 2011 North Dakota State University April 21, 2011 University of South Dakota April 22, 2011 Texas Tech University April 25, 2011 University of Waterloo April 28, 2011 University of Trento, Italy

49 May 5, 2011 Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Carbohydrate Science Symposium May 6, 2011 University of Delaware May 10, 2011 University of Barcelona May 12, 2011 Karlsruhe Institute Technology May 26, 2011 Ohio State University June 17, 2011 Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne June 22, 2011 University College London August 26, 2011 University of Texas Arlington September 30, 2011 Purdue University November 30, 2011 National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers Retreat February 12, 2012 Aarhus University February 21, 2012 Indiana University February 22, 2012 University of Central Florida March 1, 2012 University of Colorado Denver March 28, 2012 University of Southern California May 14, 2012 International Conference of Robotics and Automation June 5, 2012 Vrije University Brussels July 20, 2012 IBM Watson Research Center September 3, 2012 Texas A&M University September 20, 2012 Nature Career Expo London September 28, 2012 University of New Mexico October 12, 2012 Dalhousie University October 17, 2012 University of Pennsylvania October 17, 2012 Drexel University November 12, 2012 New Jersey Institute Of Technology March 11, 2013 University of Oslo

50 March 12, 2013 University of Bergen March 13, 2013 Norwegian University of Science and Tech- nology March 14, 2013 University of Tromso March 26, 2013 North Carolina State University March 28, 2013 University of Connecticut April 15, 2013 Imperial College London April 16, 2013 University of Southampton April 17, 2013 University of Cardiff April 18, 2013 University of Portsmouth April 26, 2013 Memorial University Newfoundland September 11, 2013 Mishkenot Sha'ananim, Jerusalem, Israel September 17, 2013 Pennsylvania State University September 18, 2013 Washington College November 1, 2013 Ontario Graduate Student Conference March 7, 2014 Queen Mary University March 23, 2014 Society for College and University Planners Conference March 27, 2014 Michigan State University April 8, 2014 Oklahoma State University April 23, 2014 East Carolina University June 5, 2014 University of Oslo Science Library June 28, 2014 Graduate Women In Science Conference August 14, 2014 Applied Superconductivity Conference October 8, 2014 Ecole de Technologie Superiieure (ETS) Montreal September 18, 2014 Friedrich Miescher Institute For Biomedical Research Annual Meeting September 19, 2014 Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie Con- ference

51 October 9, 2014 McGill University September 17, 2014 Nationwide Children's Hospital December 16, 2014 University of Lausanne February 18, 2015 University of Chicago February 19, 2015 Ohio State University March 15, 2015 Petnica Science Center, Serbia March 16, 2015 University of Bath March 17, 2015 Bournemouth University March 18, 2015 Cardiff University March 20, 2015 University of Bristol March 27, 2015 Duke University April 7, 2015 Texas Christian University April 10, 2015 Brock University August 28, 2015 SUSY Supersymmetry Conference September 9, 2015 European Advanced Accelerator Concepts Conference, Elba, Italy October 7, 2015 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory October 8, 2015 Stanford University October 13, 2015 Georgetown Medical October 16, 2015 University of Missouri October 26, 2015 Auburn University October 27, 2015 Georgia Institute of Technology October 30, 2015 Midwest Association for Core Directors Meeting October 31, 2015 National Association of Graduate-Profes- sional Students November 3, 2015 University of Glasgow November 10, 2015 Exeter University November 13, 2015 Imperial College London

52 November 15, 2015 Entomological Society of America December 3, 2015 California Institute of Technology December 11, 2015 Université Libre de Bruxelles March 15, 2016 Florida State University February 25, 2016 University of Calgary March 5, 2016 Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur March 14, 2016 University of Pittsburgh March 18, 2016 College of William and Mary March 22, 2016 Royal Holloway University April 5, 2016 University of Georgia April 20, 2016 Congreso Latinoamericano de Espíritu Empresarial, Panamá April 22, 2016 National Institute of Child Health and Hu- man Development Annual Retreat June 21, 2016 University of Radboud October 4, 2016 Purdue University November 3, 2016 Western University April 11, 2016 Iowa State University June 28, 2016 NanoNow Manchester Conference February 22, 2017 Oak Ridge National Laboratory March 21, 2017 Western Association of Graduate Schools March 22, 2017 University of Washington June 9, 2017 University of Oslo July 11, 2017 National Neurotrauma Society Conference September 19, 2017 Brandeis University September 27, 2017 International Conference On Intelligent Robots and Systems October 12, 2017 EUREKA! Conference, Germany October 18, 2017 Concordia University

53 October 24, 2017 Purdue University October 25, 2017 Southern Illinois University November 1, 2017 University of Wisconsin Madison November 3, 2017 Michigan Technological University November 15, 2017 Michigan State University November 29, 2017 University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas December 4, 2017 Harvard University December 5, 2017 Massachussetts Institute Of Technology December 6, 2017 Tufts University December 8, 2017 Boston University February 8, 2018 Oregon State University February 22, 2018 Texas A&M University

54 February 23, 2018 Rice University March 19, 2018 Glasgow Caledonian University March 20, 2018 Strathclyde University (Glasgow) March 21, 2018 University of Dundee March 22, 2018 University of St Andrews March 23, 2018 University of Aberdeen March 26, 2018 Robert Gordon University (Aberdeen) March 27, 2018 University of Edinburgh March 28, 2018 Heriot-Wat University (Edinburgh) April 13, 2018 University of Michigan April 24, 2018 Casimir Conference, Netherlands June 29, 2018 University of Cambridge

Jorge at Michigan State University, February 2010 55 About Jorge Cham Jorge Cham is the creator of the online comic strip, “Piled Higher and Deeper,” also known as PhD Comics (www.phdcomics.com). He is also the co-author of the best-selling book “We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe.” Jorge obtained his Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and his Master’s and Ph.D. from Stanford University, focusing on Robotics. He was a Lecturer and Research Associate at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 2003-2005. He was born and raised in the Republic of Panamá.

Acknowledgments Thanks to my sister Laura (and to Tim!), who invited me to and organized the first of these lectures. Thanks also to the hundreds of grad student governments, deans, and administra- tors who followed suit, and to the thousands of attendees who came to listen.

Addendum

If you’re wondering, the Third Law of Graduation states that, “For every action towards graduation, there is an equal and opposite distraction.”

For more, visit phdcomics.com CHAM “Humorous and helpful.” - Isaac Colbert, Dean for Graduate Students, M.I.T. e Delivered over 390 times at universities and research institutes worldwide, " e Power of Procrastination" is Jorge Cham's lecture about his journey to becoming the cartoonist behind "Piled Higher and Deeper" (a.k.a. PHD Comics) and his Power insights on what makes the academic experience unique. Funny, yet thought-provoking, this talk examines the sources of of anxiety in academia and explores the guilt, the myth, and the power of procrastination.

e Power of Procrastination Procrastination