From the Trenches


Comics


Don't be alarmed if you observe that academic comics seem to pride themselves on the degree of despairing cynicism they can convey (with the exception of xkcd usually). On the one hand, it's excellent for getting a feel of the trials of the research world, and on the other they give a sense of comfort and community as we go along the pathway. (You don't need a comic for all the happy things!)


PhD Comics


PhD Comics

Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham-- this was what decided me on grad school. If I could see myself suffering through all that happens to the graduate students in this comic and still emerging alive, I figured it was going to be worth it.


And all the related lists :).


xkcd


PhD Comics

It doesn't get better than xkcd. "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language", it focuses on life and programming more than science, but xkcd is spot-on when it does and is worth reading singularly for the geek factor.


Others!


Cellular Scribbles

Twitter



Miscellaneous


If someone wants to buy me this card game I would (totally make you play it with me.)


Popular Press Science


Advice


The "Surprisingly Helpful" tab in Academia Obscura has excellent grad school and writing advice.

Awesome Blogs


There are an amazing amount of excellent science blogs out there. Despite writing one I'm not a huge blog reader unless I'm looking for something specific, so I've done most of my blog-hunting for this page from scratch. I was surprised to see that commercial or commercial-like PhD blogs usually pop up when you search for posts; I far prefer blogs where you know who the author is, so I've tended to include more of those. Happy reading!

And Other Cool Things