Academic Hazing -- Part II

It's been a while since Part I happened, and I didn't publish it because I wanted to remain in good graces with my adviser. Now that it's officially over, I figured I could post Part I and finish up with Part II.

To keep the three major actors (all advisors) in this play separate, I will give them names. First, my PhD adviser I'll call M, the graduate adviser for the CS graduate program I'll call Al, and the academic adviser (she knows all things rules and regulations) I'll call G.

I got an email from G mid-August, informing me that since I hadn't given my qualifying presentation by that point, I needed to provide the graduate committee with a schedule for when I would accomplish it. I wasn't too concerned--since I had already prepared for it in Part I, I could really do it any time.

But before I could email any response, M preemptively replied to the thread (Al, G, and me) with a two-sentence response:

I am no longer supervising Nathan Clement.  I will be at the meeting.

I spoke with Al and he told me I should probably get my act together, create a plan for how I would fulfill what I previously had considered "arbitrary requirements," and try and smooth things over with M. Since these "arbitrary requirements" consisted essentially of writing a 30-page background chapter for my PhD dissertation in the next two weeks, I sent a sort of extended abstract to M as a token of my dedication. This morning I got an email that simply stated:

Your emails have caused me to revisit events and progress per your research with me.
I come to the same conclusion. I am no longer your advisor.

In talking to a fellow student in the lab, he recommended I still talk in person with M and express my willingness to "take my scholarship seriously," so I waited for him to arrive at his office.


I described the meeting to a friend via text like this:

there's not really much of a story ... I talked to him, he said no, I said "please", he said never, and then I threw his chair out his window. 

maybe the chair part was only in my mind... 

I find it interesting that less than a month ago I was considering what I'd do if "my life were completely and irreversibly turned around."

Academic Hazing - Part I

I just got a scathing email from my advisor. There's a little bit of back story, so bear with me for a minute.

About the end of April, I finished writing a paper describing my research to that point, sent it to my advisor for review, and then set it aside to do some more research.

About the middle of May, I prepared to give a presentation–somewhat equivalent to the qualification exams in most PhD programs–invited colleagues and professors, and was about to purchase fruit and drinks. The night before I was scheduled to give this presentation, my advisor suggested I wasn't ready. Suggested is a light word. He actually forbade me from giving the presentation.

About the middle of June, my dad encouraged me to submit the paper I had previously written to a conference: there was one in Australia and one in Greece. On a whim, I asked my advisor about these conferences, if he had heard of either of them, and which one he thought I should attend. His response was that I don't know enough to submit to either conference and I should instead think about combining forces with another graduate student and submitting to a conference in Colorado (who wants to go to Colorado when they can go to Australia?) I respond with a short message saying, "Thanks. I'll just submit to one of these conferences and see if I can get some feedback on my paper."

About the beginning of July (now), he sends this "scathing rebuke." Apparently, my work to this point has been unsatisfactory, it is clear that I don't know what I'm talking about, my response to his email was "very discouraging," and if I didn't fulfill a set of arbitrary requirements, he was going to metaphorically and physically kick me out of his lab.

As I sat there seething, trying to think of some sort of witty, biting email to put him in his place, I imagined how the "perfect scenario" would play out:

I would write a scathing rebuke to him (my graduate advisor was already CC'd–let that continue), and he would become incensed. The graduate advisor would schedule a meeting in an attempt to mediate between the two of us, but tempers would be high. My advisor would make his first (weak) arguments that consist mostly of things clearly made up on the spot. I would politely wait, a wry smile on my face, then patiently ask, "Are you finished?" when he stopped talking.

And then my turn would come: "Oh. So you say I've not done my part? Well, what part have you done? How do you know I haven't attained the level of scholarship you desire? You haven't even read my work! You won't be able to give me even one detail from my paper that would prove you looked at anything past the abstract–because you didn't! If anyone is to blame here, it's you."

And then I would give him the kicker. I would issue the penultimate threat. I would put him so far into his place, he would have no response but to...

And then I realized. There was no possible way for my "perfect scenario" to end in my favor. At the end, I would tell him he was lousy and should jump off a cliff. He'd tell me I was lousy and didn't belong in his lab. I'd tell him he wasn't kicking me out of his lab cause I'd already left. And then my so-called perfect scenario would be turned completely on its head. Sure, I might have been able to get a couple biting jabs at him, let the graduate advisor know a few things he surely already knows. But I'd be no better off than I would be in any other scenario.


And then I was reminded of my fast-growing comparison between receiving a PhD and getting admitted to an elite club. I've always known it was an elite club, that you had to complete a set of somewhat-arbitrary requirements before you met some completely-arbitrary standard. And I knew that, once you were "in the club," you could get the secret handshake and sit at the secret table and talk with all the super-important people just because you had those special three letters attached to your name.

But until this point, I had never thought there was hazing. Every semester, the school sends out reminders that "individuals or organizations engaging in hazing could be subject to fines and charged with a criminal offense." Causing physical harm to someone else just so they can enter your club is strictly prohibited. But the mental and emotional hazing is part of the game. My last advisor required me to spend a summer unpaid, working on a dead-end project, and didn't approve when I wasn't in the lab every day. Why? Hazing. If you want to join the club, there has to be some sort of (usually unreasonable) mental/emotional/physical harm. And then once you do join the club, you get to inflict the pain on others.


Or perhaps I really do need to better my scholarship and just take it silently.

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon

I watched a movie the other night, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon. It's about Jean-Dominique Bauby, journalist and editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. He suffered a massive stroke that left him with "locked-in syndrome:" he could think, hear, and see, but couldn't move anything but his left eye. Ten days after he finished his memoir (after which the movie was named), he passed away.


A few weeks ago, my right arm started to ache. At first I thought it was carpal tunnel, but the symptoms pointed more toward tendonitis. I looked around on Google hoping for an easy cure (something like, "do arm yoga every morning for 15 minutes") but was sorely disappointed when all sources agreed that "the first stage toward recovery" was to "stop the repetitive actions that caused the tendonitis for at least 3 months." How does a computer science PhD student doing an internship at Google stop typing?

Although it's nowhere near the life-altering condition of Jean-Do, I wondered what it would be like if suddenly my life were completely and irreversibly turned around. Like the construction worker who breaks his back in his late 40s, or the medical doctor who goes blind.  What if I could no longer type? Or even worse--what if I could type, but I'd be miserable the rest of my life unless I chose not to?


Maybe I'll pull an Angelina Jolie an preemptively become a genetic counselor.