Accumulation

Grad students in general complain a lot about grad school (see: PhD comics), but I think one undeniable fact about it is the accumulation of knowledge. I worked for a prof during one of my co-op terms, and he's now applying for a Canadian Research Chair, which is pretty cool. One of the requirements for the CRC is that he had to give a seminar on his target application, so I decided to drop in on the seminar.

Not that much of the seminar was that new to me. I've seen them either in his course that I took, or when I was co-op'ing. Certainly, having a stronger algorithms, machine learning and robotics background, I can appreciate the ideas and models more, and ended up talking to him at the end, pointing out different algorithms that is probably worth trying. Felt super weird, telling a prof that I've got some ideas for him to try.

I think a big part of growing up is that we don't see that we're growing up. I still refer to my parents as the "adults" and us as the "kids". PhD has been tough because really, my prof is training us to be her peer (never going to happen), and the responsibilities and expectations are gradually shifting to me. But that's what real life is like as well. A reminder to raise to the responsibilities and expectations set before us.

As a side note, sometimes I get asked what PhD is like. I've come to describe it as this:

• Undergrad - Your prof asks you a question...then he answers it
• Masters - Your prof asks you a question...then you answer it
• PhD - You prof looks at you. You ask yourself a question. Then you answer it

That, and I point them to PhD comics.