If you’ve completed a master’s or doctoral degree during the last two decades, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the comic strip Piled High and Deeper, better known as PhD Comics.
Figure 1: Most recent comic as of 3/19/2021
PhD Comics focuses primarily on the tragedies and triumphs that many people writing their theses or dissertations face, and – given creator Jorge Cham’s expertise (he has a PhD in mechanical engineering) – relays scientific concepts to readers, as the screenshot above shows.
Although our individual experiences as grad students can vary greatly, it is nonetheless helpful to have a reference point for the stories that we do share. As someone who’s studying greentext stories as folklore (also defended my prospectus, so I can start writing the dissertation now), I understand that folklore is a means by we define and reinforce values and build our communities. To that end, PhD Comics is major part of our folklore as grad students and helps us to connect over our shared experiences.
History
PhD Comics was created in 1997 by Jorge Cham, who at that time was teaching assistant at Stanford. Despite having no training as an artist, he answered a call for comics by The Stanford Daily, the school’s student newspaper. His concept for a comic strip focusing and the struggles of grad students was partly inspired by his brother Jaime’s statement that grad school is “when the real pain begins.” Not long after the comic was printed, Cham created the PhD Comics website.
After earning his PhD from Stanford, he taught at Caltech until 2005, after which he left his position to work on PhD Comics full-time. He realized that the strip was “growing into something special” and, finding himself split between his academic work and the comic strip, followed an advisor’s advice to focus on one thing to be really good at it. Cham interpreted this as encouragement to seek success and happiness outside the conventionally coveted career path of academia: becoming a tenured professor.
Although his dream job was initially to work at MIT, Cham found his calling in comics. During its lifetime, the PhD Comics universe has expanded to include six book collections of comics as well as two films, both written and produced by Cham. He earns a living through book and merchandise sales as well as lectures. His full archive of comics is free to read on his website.
The Comics
Although PhD Comics covers a wide range of topics related to the grad school experience, it features a recurring cast of characters who have undergone development over time, such as its bespectacled protagonist who closely resembles Cham. His first PhD Comic, shown below, reminds us of a much different time: specifically, when classrooms were crowded:
Other relatable episodes from this early period include phoning a parent back home, the PC vs. Mac debate, and celebrating Thanksgiving with colleagues – although they are on break, they can’t help but discuss their studies. And as mentioned earlier, characters go through arcs in PhD Comics: they graduate, get jobs, marry, and so on, and that’s part of the appeal. No story is a 1-to-1 representation of reality, but Cham’s ability to remix that into something simple and accessible helps to make his creative retellings universal. He also happens to fill a niche that is still largely unoccupied: think about how many stories and films are told set in high school and undergrad college, but not grad school, a dimension of life often overlooked by popular media.
Although he’s more than proven his ability as a scholar, Cham’s work in comics shows the extent to which the grad school experience is very much a life of its own as opposed to just a phase. Regardless of what you may be going through in your own studies, do know that you have resources available to you. As always, the Thesis and Dissertation Office is available to address any questions or concerns you have regarding your terminal paper. Also, humor is way to work through our shared anxieties as well as to celebrate our successes as grad students: to that end, the links to PhD Comics’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are also included here.
