[Editor's Review]
There are many techniques to achieve Complete and Irreversible Demoralization of your initially mentally-balanced graduate student. Sure the stresses of working in a laboratory and thesis-writing may already be driving your graduate student over the edge, but aren't you supposed to be contributing in your capacity as an advisor?
This book teaches the tricks of the trade from the masters of Complete and Irreversible Demoralization at such renown institutions as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Concrete examples are amply provided in the book chapters, which are logically divided into distinct time periods of your graduate student's ill-fated career in science.
Wooing with false promises of graduation in a few years' time is encouraged during the laboratory rotation period and the first six months, in order to set the student up to be crushed with disappointment later on. During the pre-pre-liminary exam (or pre-qualification exam) phase, there are tried and true methods for increasing the level of stress in your graduate student's life. For example, you can belittle her worries about passing the exam and continually pester her about experiments at an unabated rate.
During the many years you will enslave your graduate student, there are many demoralization tools available at your disposal:
One technique is the so-called Jekyll and Hyde Maneuver, which isn't as diabolical as it sounds. Rather than converting between a mad scientist and a seemingly sane man, you merely have to change your mind all the time about the importance of experiments. Come up with a cockamamie experiment, and then pressure your student to do it "yesterday." Then a few months later, after she struggled through an impossible protocol and acquired some data nonetheless, ask her why she wasted her time with such an ill-conceived set of experiments. Or, tell her to quit wasting time on some experiment. Three weeks later, demand data from that experiment, saying you need it for your grant proposal.
The highlight of this book is the chapter on demoralization techniques for the thesis-writing phase of your graduate student's career. With stunning clarity, the authors share their methods in a matter-of-fact, no non-sense way:
When she tries to set a concrete timetable for defending and completing her thesis, refuse to talk about it with her. Set as a condition even more experiments, despite the clear decision by her committee that she should write up her thesis and defend without waiting for data from those experiments. Finally, when she suggests a month for graduating, call her plan "delusional." Mock her seven years worth of experiments and two shelves full of lab notebooks as nothing by saying that "most people acquire data before they set a defense date."
As you leave a conversation with her, tell her she's "under the gun" for the next month and needs to work "very very hard" despite the fact that she hasn't had vacation in two years. She's been so busy, in fact, that she hasn't had enough time to buy herself some cold medicine and might very well die in the next few days if she doesn't stop to take care of herself.
Then right after she worked very hard and presented her progress for a lab meeting, tell everyone "have a nice (end of August) vacation, everybody. Oh, not you... you're not going on vacation. *You* need to work hard. Ha ha." Then go on your vacation, and when you come back, harass her some more.
No science PhD advisor should attempt to demoralize his graduate student without the insights of this book!
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