rivka

It's a tricky one. The "bullshit, more shit, piled higher and deeper" thing's a very common expression over here (in spite of the fact that most PhDs here miss out on the MSc) - new post-docs in a department will quite happily ask each other just what they piled higher and deeper, for example. There's also the "knowing more and more about less and less" line, which has always struck me as being a politer (on the surface) way of saying the same thing.

Oh, and there's the suggestion that having been through the mills of the dissertation and viva has a sort of case-hardening effect (although who the hot sword is, and who is the enemy prisoner, seems to have been garbled in translation).

But, the people who make these comments have probably forgotten the period of battle-fatigue, if not outright shell-shock, that slams down on the newly-minted PhD: I've lost count of the number of colleagues and co-workers I've had who had planned (often in incredible detail) post-viva/post-result parties, but who simply didn't have it in them to carry out the plan when it came to the point of actually going to the pub.

I'm seeing that side of things from close up at the moment, because tigermoth has just handed in her dissertation for an MSc in Quality and Business Excellence, and far from feeling like hitting the pub, she's drained and empty.