Hitchhikers Guide and Dissertations
On October 12, 1979, Douglas Adams published The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Here are 5 lessons from The Hitchhiker’s Guide for dissertation students everywhere…
1. Listen to Your Committee. Do What They Say. Graduate.
“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”
“Why, what did she tell you?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”
2. Don’t Try to Make Your Dissertation Too Complicated.
Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.
3. Your Dissertation Chair is Smarter than You.
“You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number.”
“Er, five,” said the mattress.
“Wrong,” said Marvin. “You see?”
4. Best Advice from The Hitchhiker’s Guide…
Don’t Panic
5. Except for this nugget from Deep Thought…
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