I’m glad every body responded! This is exactly the type of conversation I wanted to have and expected to have. I didn’t expect many people to “like” what I had to say. I’ll respond to everything. It may take some time…
I think the comic regularly crosses line of what is good taste. Like I said, sometimes I’ve enjoyed it, but other times it comes across as overly personal in its criticisms of people who choose to work at universities. For example…
http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1106
It’s not Dilbert. Dilbert is still relevant and funny in my opinion. Most of the US work or has a family member working like Dilbert. PhD comics paints academia in a bad light. People you meet who are not in academia may start talking about PhD comics. I don’t think that is helpful.
When I was in grad school…it was within the last year. Other grad students were genuinely annoyed by Phd comics too. I’m not alone in my opinions.
My experience working in industry was not a good one. For somebody to say that, compared to academia, the grass is always greener if you just go take a “real job” hits me harder than it would hit others. Education represents a large part of the US economy. Phd comics both mystifies this world and puts it down.
I love comic books and geek toys. I also know how much they actually cost. I always thought the running joke of the series was that these guys were sporting collections worth 20k…they aren’t frugal at all. Two grown men rooming together to save money, so they could by 20k in “toys”. I thought that was funny and most people got that.
However, my point was never that they were wealthy or even upper middle class. My point was that they were solid middle class, stable, and had a future. This couldn’t be farther from what PhD comics describes for a career path.