What is the most interesting question you get asked as grad students?

[Zanela123]

Post here!  Let's discuss!

[avflinsch]

Typical conversation --

Q: Will you get paid more after you graduate?
A: No, the average salary in the field is probably around half of what I get paid now.
Q: Why do it then?
A: Because the PhD program I want to apply to requires this (or a slightly different) master's degree in order to be accepted.
Q: Will you get paid more after that degree?
A: Nope, I already get paid more than what that would pay.
Q: Why do it then?
A: Because I want to.
Q: ??????

 

 

[sjoh197]

Is your partner ok with that? (referring to me going for my phd)

[sierra918]

5 hours ago, sjoh197 said:

Is your partner ok with that? (referring to me going for my phd)

I'm always surprised when I get this one. That's pretty presumptuous of people, but they don't seem to think so. Don't we all want supportive spouses?

[sjoh197]

38 minutes ago, sierra918 said:

I'm always surprised when I get this one. That's pretty presumptuous of people, but they don't seem to think so. Don't we all want supportive spouses?

My response was

"No, we don't actually talk about our life plans and goals together." (insert sarcastic eyeroll)

Lol

[dr. t]

"In academia, 'interesting' is always preceded by the silent 'not'."

[shadowclaw]

On 7/22/2016 at 4:50 AM, sjoh197 said:

Is your partner ok with that? (referring to me going for my phd)

My husband has been asked many times since we moved across the country why he came all this way when I'm the one going to school. Are long-distance marriages a thing when only one partner wants to get a degree?

[Need Coffee in an IV]

1 hour ago, shadowclaw said:

My husband has been asked many times since we moved across the country why he came all this way when I'm the one going to school. Are long-distance marriages a thing when only one partner wants to get a degree?

They aren't getting degrees but my parents are in a long distance marriage. I guess they decided they don't like living together full-time but don't want to split. Its unusual or at least it is to a lot of people!

[maelia8]

Most popular questions:

1) So what do you do with X degree after you get your Ph.D.? (tempting answer: become a shamaness and guide the world after the apocalypse annihilates civilization)

2) Wow, why does X degree take so long? (tempting answer: I don't know, how long should it take to become familiar with everything written about the history of European Civilization in the past 50 years or so?)

3) Can you answer X random question about the Nazis? (tempting answer: #notallgermanhistorians)

Please pardon the saltiness. 

[MarineBluePsy]

Well why do you have to move to study that?  There are plenty of Universities right here where you already are, why can't you just go to one of them?

I get this question most often from people who didn't go to college or maybe just took a few classes.  It's like they just can't fathom how every single school doesn't have a program for every field of study.

[Danger_Zone]

21 hours ago, maelia8 said:

Most popular questions:

1) So what do you do with X degree after you get your Ph.D.? (tempting answer: become a shamaness and guide the world after the apocalypse annihilates civilization)

2) Wow, why does X degree take so long? (tempting answer: I don't know, how long should it take to become familiar with everything written about the history of European Civilization in the past 50 years or so?)

3) Can you answer X random question about the Nazis? (tempting answer: #notallgermanhistorians)

Please pardon the saltiness. 

I get questions like the third one all the time! I get questions about the War of 1812, various other wars, ancient history.. And when I can't answer it I get "but I thought you knew history." I do! Just a very, very minuscule portion of it on a topic you probably don't care about. 

Oh and then I get this one from my boyfriend: "Why would you choose to go to school for even more years? you nerd."  

[sjoh197]

5 minutes ago, Danger_Zone said:

I get questions like the third one all the time! I get questions about the War of 1812, various other wars, ancient history.. And when I can't answer it I get "but I thought you knew history." I do! Just a very, very minuscule portion of it on a topic you probably don't care about. 

Oh and then I get this one from my boyfriend: "Why would you choose to go to school for even more years? you nerd."  

I get people who hold up random rocks and then ask me what happened to them. Sigh

[spectastic]

I tell people I study batteries, and their eyes light up and go "OOO, TESLA?"

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

I loooove when people ask me physicsy questions because people always ask about the interesting stuff. Y'know, they ask about gravitational waves, the Higgs boson, time travel, and other interesting pop sci topics.

[lovekilledinos]

Oh my god, I get people asking me about 'digging stuff up.' I'm like, 'That's Archaeology, which is a branch of Anthropology that studies the past. I'm more interested in present culture.' Cue a vague nod and something like, 'That must be hard!' No, it's no harder than anything else people study. 

[juilletmercredi]

You mean actual most interesting question or most "interesting" (annoying/meaningless) questions?

When I was a grad student the most actually interesting questions I got were inevitably from people who were passingly interested in or familiar with my topic area and wanted to know more. It was usually some permutation of "Oh, wow, really? Why do you think that is?" It gave me a chance to flex my expertise a little bit and talk about potential mechanisms or explanations for psychological phenomena.

By far the most annoying question was "When will you be done?"

Now as an industry researcher, one of the most interesting questions I get is "What did you do before you worked here?/How did you go from there to here?" from people who know about my public health background (I currently work in tech UX research).

[pterosaur]

I'm starting my PhD in biomimetic collaborative (swarm) robotics.

"Are you going to, like, build a robot army?"

"Yes."

[sjoh197]

3 hours ago, pterosaur said:

I'm starting my PhD in biomimetic collaborative (swarm) robotics.

"Are you going to, like, build a robot army?"

"Yes."

Oh my god... This made me want to change my answer.When people ask what I'm researching... And I say "alpha particle thermochronology" the most awesome question I get about 95% of the time is

 

"Oh, so you're like, really smart... huh?"