Grad School on the Big Screen

Education om c s. c PH D Comi

Comical In this humble circulation July 20, 2011, “PHD in the school’s engi- Grad School On Comics” strip, Cham explores how neering labs, but the intellectual freedom comic strip’s web- The Big Screen changes as site now generates scientists climb the 7 million hits each Higher education goes under the microscope in academic ladder. year. Cham hopes new ‘Piled Higher and Deeper’ movie the film, which is ´ being shown at Jovana GrbiC, C&EN Contributing Editor schools across the country this fall, will eventually make its way into even wider circulation. In the opening minutes of “Piled offer information such as the fact that In bringing “PHD Comics” to the big Higher and Deeper,” veteran graduate stu- graduate students earn less than McDon- screen, Cham almost exclusively used dent Mike Slakenerny describes academia ald’s employees. Slakenerny (played by graduate students in the cast and crew and in a nutshell to a bright-eyed, eager new Caltech chemistry graduate student Evans filmed around their research schedules. graduate student during orientation: “It’s Boney), who has been in graduate school His goal was to prove that graduate stu- like high school, except with much bigger through at least two U.S. presidents, dents are more complex and diverse than egos.” Just as in the wildly popular comic teaches the first-year Nameless Graduate how they’re often portrayed in pop culture. strip “PHD Comics,” upon which the film is Student (played by Caltech undergradu- “Sometimes, television shows or movies based, graduate school and the ivory tower ate physics major Raj Katti) to relax a little only portray one type of character that you are the subjects of satire, seen as they are more as he struggles to earn his place in see in graduate school, one stereotype,” through the eyes of protagonist graduate- the laboratory of formidable Professor he notes. “One thing we wanted to do with student archetypes. Smith (played by information technology this movie was show that grad students There’s Cecilia (played by Alexandra consultant K. Zachary Abbott). are not this one-dimensional nerd or geek. Lockwood, a planetary sciences graduate You see people from all kinds of different student at California Institute of Tech- These characters can all be traced backgrounds.” nology), the eternal optimist. She’s en- back to “PHD Comics,” a comic strip cre- Dilworth, who in real life is both a thusiastic about every aspect of graduate ated and illustrated by Jorge Cham. The chemistry grad student at Caltech and an school until the realities of its drudgery strip got its start in 1997, when Cham accomplished professional dancer, agrees. and sacrifices put her dedication to the was working on his Ph.D. in robotics at “With the movie, we were trying to show test. Social sciences graduate student Stanford University. Initially it had only a scientists as real human beings.” Instead Tajel (played by Caltech chemistry graduate student Crystal Dilworth) is the resi- Want to see the movie for yourself? Find a screening near dent cause-adopter always prepared to more online you at jorgecham.com/screenings/screenings_map.php.

www.cen-online.org 39 october 3, 2011 of depicting scientists as either robots or the title characters of “Revenge of the The movie is in many ways a meta-analysis Nerds,” they wanted to “bridge the gap of why scientists do what they do. between those two,” Dilworth says. In pop culture, she explains, scientists “are only interacting with each other, and rarely in were kind of a focal point for everybody’s a 2004 study conducted by a UC Berkeley the real world. And when they do interact experiences.” mental health task force. They’ve also ex- in the real world, it never goes well.” Exploring that focal point has allowed plored the stress of how hypercompetitive Cham to elevate “PHD Comics” from a grant funding and low turnover in tenured Graduate students on hand for the pithy humor piece to a conduit for stu- professorships have created an overabun- premiere at the University of California, dents’ shared experiences, triumphs, dance of Ph.D. trainees relative to available Los Angeles, last month seemed to see boredom, frustration, and positions in the academic themselves in the film’s characters. At pain. Cham suggests that marketplace. times comparing graduate school to a pyra- the comic plays this role at “One of the things I think v e rman mid scheme and a bad marriage, the film least in part because many that people respond to in satirizes the interview process, aloof pro- students are unwilling to the comics, and the reason fessors, the constant search for free food, share their darker anguish De B r e tt it’s grown in popularity, is group meetings, the dull monotony of lab or insecurity with each that we don’t just make fun life, procrastination, and Ramen noodles. other, whether because of situations and characters But “Piled Higher and Deeper” is at its of competitiveness or a in it,” Cham says. “From the best when it peels away the impeccable “stiff upper lip” graduate beginning, we’ve asked the surface of academia to expose it for what it culture. He says that many fundamental question: Why? is: imperfect and real. The movie reminds students tell him that the Why are we doing this? Why viewers that the majority of research rests comic helps them to cope did we go to grad school? on the backs of grad students and postdocs with and survive the hard- Why are we sacrificing all in what can best be described as a feudal ships of graduate school. Cham of these things? Why do we work structure. And it emphasizes that Dilworth, who got still not have a normal life most of the time, scientists don’t really introduced to “PHD Comics” in the chem- and aren’t getting normal jobs? Why are we have all the answers, so they keep on look- istry lab she worked in as an undergradu- subjecting ourselves to all of this? Because ing. The movie is in many ways a meta- ate at UC San Diego, started reading it in a way, as serious as graduate school or analysis of why scientists do what they do. because she found it funny. But the strip academia gets, it’s still self-imposed. No- A huge part of the success of “PHD soon took on greater significance because body’s making you do any of these things, Comics” may be attributed to the fact that it resonated with how she perceived grad- right?” the strip resonates with current and former uate student life. “I was an undergraduate graduate students of every ilk. The comic, researcher, I was not a graduate student. In the end, “PHD Comics”—the comic like the movie, never singles out one dis- I was able to watch the way the adviser in- strip and its big-screen adaptation—is re- tinct field, subspecialty, or discipline, but teracted with his Ph.D. students, the way ally an opportunity to ask why we, the col- rather makes general observations that any the lab functioned, but I wasn’t a graduate lective academe, continue to train future academic could relate to. student, and I didn’t share that experi- generations of investigators the way we do, Cham credits the emphasis on univer- ence yet. All of the things I read in the when to so many on the outside, the system sality to his gregarious brother, who pre- comics, I saw reflected in real life through might seem antiquated or even crazy. As ceded him in graduate school at Stanford the graduate students in the lab.” After a Slakenerny wisely sums up at the end of the and collected a diverse group of friends in thoughtful pause, she added: “And after movie, “There is nothing reasonable about different areas of study. When he would seeing all those things, I still decided that pursuing a life of reason.” hang out with this group, Cham noticed grad school was a good idea!” “The big question then becomes why that they would all talk about the same top- Sometimes, this deep connection even do we pursue an academic career, and in 14 ics, the same gripes. “From the very begin- means exploring the darker underbelly of years, I still don’t think I have an answer,” ning I saw that there were commonalities academia, albeit subtly and always with Cham says. Luckily for us, Cham, ever the between all of these experiences. I thought humor at heart. “I guess it wouldn’t be a faithful academic at heart, is firmly com- it was very interesting to touch more upon very good comic strip if it wasn’t humor- mitted to gathering more evidence. “I these commonalities than the differences.” ous. So it always uses humor in one way always say that if I draw a comic strip for Current and former students contact or another,” Cham says. But despite this, every day that I was in grad school, I’m still Cham in droves via the strip’s website or perhaps because of it, the comic has only halfway through.” and e-mail, as well as during his frequent begun to shine a light on some of the more world lecture tours. All are eager to see serious effects of graduate school and the their stories immortalized in the strip. academic system. For example, strips have Jovana J. Grbić, Ph.D., is the creative director “One thing I realized after only a couple explored the high rates of dissatisfaction, of Los Angeles-based ScriptPhD, specializing of years,” Cham reflected, “was that the hopelessness, anxiety, and even clinical de- in science communication in entertainment, comics weren’t really about what I was pression among graduate students, 10% of advertising, and media. She tweets as going through or my feelings. The comics whom admitted contemplating suicide in @ScriptPhD.