Getting the LOR: "I want to be a college professor."

  • Imagine you are sipping tea or coffee while discussing various issues with a broad and diverse network of students, colleagues, and friends brought together by the common bond of physics, graduate school, and the physics GRE.

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CarlBrannen
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Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 11:34 pm

Getting the LOR: "I want to be a college professor."

Post by CarlBrannen » Thu Oct 28, 2010 8:08 pm

This is for the English department, but physics is just down the hall:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/27/qt#241873

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HappyQuark
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Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:08 am

Re: Getting the LOR: "I want to be a college professor."

Post by HappyQuark » Thu Oct 28, 2010 11:02 pm

CarlBrannen wrote:This is for the English department, but physics is just down the hall:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/27/qt#241873
I literally couldn't stop laughing at the "So you want to get a PhD in the humanities" video. Why would you intentionally write a script, which presumably had the primary intent of convincing people that grad school is rough and over-romanticized, with arguments that hinge on the student character saying ridiculously idiotic things? Keep in mind that the interplay between these characters had to have been pre-meditated, meaning someone sat down and decided that the student should say a bunch of silly crap and the professor would respond with "oh my god!" on multiple separate occasions in those stupid robotic voices.

As to the content, I was too distracted to see if any valid points were made.

kroner
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Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:58 am

Re: Getting the LOR: "I want to be a college professor."

Post by kroner » Thu Oct 28, 2010 11:48 pm

I think they just wanted to make fun of naive aspiring English PhDs.

The law school one is kind of offensive to me, considering how much money lawyers make.

CarlBrannen
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Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 11:34 pm

Re: Getting the LOR: "I want to be a college professor."

Post by CarlBrannen » Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:05 am

HappyQuark wrote:Why would you intentionally write a script, which presumably had the primary intent of convincing people that grad school is rough and over-romanticized, with arguments that hinge on the student character saying ridiculously idiotic things?
I'm pretty sure this was written with the intention of making people laugh, probably by an English professor just testing the xtranormal software.

I bought a copy of the software myself but couldn't get it to run properly on my laptop.

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HappyQuark
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Re: Getting the LOR: "I want to be a college professor."

Post by HappyQuark » Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:09 am

CarlBrannen wrote:
HappyQuark wrote:Why would you intentionally write a script, which presumably had the primary intent of convincing people that grad school is rough and over-romanticized, with arguments that hinge on the student character saying ridiculously idiotic things?
I'm pretty sure this was written with the intention of making people laugh, probably by an English professor just testing the xtranormal software.

I bought a copy of the software myself but couldn't get it to run properly on my laptop.
I assumed it was meant to be comedic and informative. It was neither but of its two failings, I thought the informative part was more ridiculous.



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