Piled Higher and Deeper: A Graduate Student Comic Strip Collection

by Jorge Cham

A collection of the first five years of "Piled Higher and Deeper," a comic strip about life (or lack thereof) in graduate school, as it originally appeared in Stanford University's "The Stanford Daily... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0972169504
• ISBN13: 9780972169509
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Piled Higher and Deeper Pub.
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Sigh, the life of a grad student

You think you have unique problems in grad school. Then I read PhD comics and realized that ALL grad students have the same problems. Even though you can go for DAYS not talking to another human (professors don't count!), Cham describes our lives accurately! :) It's a perfect gift!

Biting, incisive, brilliant

I was a doctoral student at Stanford at the same time as Jorge, and have been reading the strip since it first appeared in the student paper. From virtually the first day it ran, it has always demonstrated remarkable insight into the highs and lows of the experience. A small part of the humor is Stanford-specific, and so won't make much sense to people from other schools, but the vast majority is remarkably universal. The sad thing is that the handful of friends for whom I've bought the book -- as a way to give them a sense of what I was going through, since no amount of verbal explanation really seemed to convey it accurately -- all had pretty much the same reaction: "Geez, why would you put yourself through that? Why would anyone?!?" Despite that, both books are brillant, and very much worth having.

Precious Procrastination

Grad students! Are you working too hard? This comic strip collection can help. "Piled Higher and Deeper" ("PhD") is the first collection of strips of the legendary webcomic of the same name, written (and published) by Jorge Cham of Stanford University. This volume contains comics from roughly 1997 - 2002, including classics such as --The Grad Student Documentary ("Having feasted, the grad student enters a lethargic state called "researching", in anticipation of the next free meal.") --What is... the Thesis ("Is it so hard to believe? That grad school isn't real?") --Post-Bachelor's Disorder ("Do you experience frequent headaches trying to count how many years you've been in school?") --The High School Renunion ("Um... well... I... I'm still in school...") and many others. From the first crudely drawn sketches of cramped classrooms and quals to the later, well-drawn strips of research and conferences, "PhD" never fails to entertain. Some of the humor may be dark and depressing, but that just makes it more realistic, and all the more potent. If you don't believe that a grad student comic strip could possibly be so good, feel free to check out the strip's website, [...], where all of these strips are available for free. (But be warned - reading the entire archive could be hazardous to your research, and once you start, it's hard to stop...) Why buy the book when all its content is available free online? For one thing, to thank Jorge for all the hours of procrastination that he has so kindly provided. For another, to have access to the comics even when you're away from your compu... ok, never mind. The first reason is more than good enough by itself. Even though "PhD" focuses on engineering, grad students in all fields should find it equally entertaining. And of course, grad students are not the only people who can appreciate this volume - former grad students and future grad students will almost certainly enjoy it as well. All grad students past, present and future should purchase this first "Piled Higher and Deeper" collection (or better yet, have it purchased for them) without delay.

The second funniest piece of text I have read lately

I especially suggest this book to people thinking about taking the PhD route. Read it before making a decision. Twice. Then, if you decide to go for it anyways, don't come crying to me when you finally realize that the thing you call your daily life is actually the raw material for one of the funniest comic strips around. And, believe me when I say Jorge is a funny guy but he doesn't really exaggerate that much, which makes the whole book more funny ( and kinda sad, too ). In any case, this is the second funniest thing I have read during the last couple of years. So, get it!Oh, curious about the funniest thing? My lame attempts at writing drafts for my thesis introduction, of course, what else?

Who needs PhD? Every science graduate student

A truly entertaining portrayal of graduate life. Anybody who's in grad school can find at least one strip (if not whole sections of the book) which fits them to a T. You find yourself laughing at just how true it is, and at the same time thinking it's all too warped to be real. I enjoyed every page!A word of caution -- this is a very effective procrastination tool and may inspire cynicism (but that's not bad, is it?...)