Reason # 151 to avoid academia:
Me: Hi, Stats Professor, I had some questions about the Statistics I'm using for my thesis. So...if I wanted to determine whether the improvement of scores is greater in Group A than in Group B, what would I do?
Stats Professor: Well, you could think of it as a correlation of related correlations. But that wouldn't fully capture the improvement, so maybe instead, you should think of the first set of scores as predicting the second set. Then, all you have to do is write an equation to remove the correlation between the two sets, and then add group membership as your new predictor. But make sure you also look at the interaction between the correlation and group membership, because otherwise, you might be looking at a three-dimensional issue from a two-dimensional viewpoint.
My notes as a result of this conversation: Correlations...group membership...three dimensional...good grief, I'm NEVER GOING TO GRADUATE.
And Reason # 152 to avoid academia:
Advisor: Anisha, Professor Z wants a new publication, so I told her about the literature review section of your thesis proposal. So if you don't mind, could you send me an electronic copy of that so that I could share it with her and see if she wants to publish it?
Me: Um. Ooookay. I guess. But. If Professor Z publishes MY literature review...um...I'd get SOME credit for it, right?
Advisor: Oh, we'd never publish it without your approval!
Side note: My literature review is the thing I've worked on for the past SEVEN MONTHS. By myself. With no input WHATSOEVER from Professor Z. Who now gets to "see if she wants to publish" MY work. And if she decides that she likes it, I get the grand and wonderful privilege of "approving" all this. Notice how "approval" is not the same as "authorship." And even if I did manage to talk my way into getting credit for the authorship of the paper that I wrote in the first place, I would, at best, be listed as the fourth or fifth author. On the paper that--oh, did I mention?--I WROTE!
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