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Welcome to Thinking Out Loud, a blog that contains postings from The Tampa Tribune’s Editorial Board and from various Tribune Community Columnists. Unlike the unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper’s institutional voice, the blog postings offer personal perspectives on the issues, personalities and events of Tampa Bay. We invite you to participate by posting your comments. We’ll do our best to respond.

Contributors:

Joe Guidry

Joe Guidry is the deputy editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune. He is a Tampa native and a graduate of the University of South Florida. He is married and has an adult son.

Jeff Stidham

Jeff Stidham grew up and lives in Bartow. He has been with the Tribune for nearly 22 years, the last 10 on the editorial board.

William Yelverton

William Yelverton is a Tribune editorial writer who has worked for the paper nearly 22 years. He lives in the Dade City area.

Jim Beamguard

Jim Beamguard is a Tribune editorial writer. He is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Davidson College. He and his family live in Brandon.

Jackie Papandrew:

Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer and editor. Her syndicated humor column appears in publications in the United States, Canada and India. She lives in Largo with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.jackiepapandrew.com.

Camille Beredjick

Camille Beredjick is a senior at Chamberlain High School, an avid musician and a scribbler with a quirky sense of humor. In the fall, she will be attending Northwestern University to study journalism, political science and music, and she plans to pursue a career in journalism.

Jim Harnish

Jim Harnish is in his 17th year as Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He and his wife, Marsha, have two daughters and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethune-Cookman University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles and studies. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren and cheering for the Florida Gators.

Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is a novelist living in Pinellas County with her husband and two 220-pound mastiffs.

Sheryl Young

Sheryl Young was a Tampa Tribune Community Columnist in 2005-2006. A freelance writer since 1997, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Style Magazines, St. Pete Times and nationally in Better Nutrition, Today’s Christian Woman and more. She’s received a First Place Amy Foundation national "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award, and has lived in Tampa Bay with her family for over 20 years.

Christie Gold

Christie Gold teaches English and journalism at Freedom High School in Tampa where she advises Revolution, the school newspaper. She has been both the Hillsborough County Teacher of the Year and Florida Journalism Teacher of the Year. She lives on a small farm in Wesley Chapel where she trains as a competitive equestrian.

Natalie D. Preston

Natalie D. Preston is a karaoke singing, only-child pouting, Seminole Tomahawk waving, newlywed bride blushing, 50-state traveling, girlie girl who loves to shop, read, run and jump up and down on her soapbox.

Fernando Figueroa

Fernando Figueroa is a researcher, educator and lives in Riverview.

Gary Beemer

Interests include humor, politics, economics, community and world affairs, finance, people, religion, music, sports, current events, the arts and education.

Nicole Yunger Halpern

Nicole Yunger Halpern is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she studies everything she can get her nerdy little hands on. Desired major: life. No, not necessarily biology. Life.

Kris DiGiovanni

Kris DiGiovanni is a Tribune Community Columnist, Huffington Post contributor, Daily Kos diarist, and teacher, who recently moved from NW Hillsborough to another planet - a small beach community in Pinellas County. She also blogs at www.sandscript.wordpress.com

H. David Braswell Jr.

H. David Braswell Jr. is an Information Systems Professional. He is a native New Yorker and a lifelong NY Giants fan. He attended college in California (Cal State Northridge) and moved to Tampa in 1998.

Sean Marcus

Sean Marcus teaches creative writing, journalism and reading at Chamberlain High School. He has one son and is expecting a daughter in early March. He can be reached at wuizabug@gmail.com

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To PhD or Not to PhD?

Posted Sep 3, 2010 by Nicole Yunger Halpern

Updated Sep 3, 2010 at 02:31 PM

Ever since I discovered that “PhD” stands for “Doctor of Philosophy,” I’ve wanted one. My relationship to my course catalogue resembles that of a four-year-old girl to a My Little Pony superstore; I attend so many office hours that they stretch into office days; I can describe a Frisbee with Euler’s Equations more accurately than I can throw one. By age five, I committed myself to a Path for Helpless Dorks.

Since learning what “PhD” stands for, I learned about earning one. And concluded that the abbreviation should denote “Painful and Hellish Decision.”

Exhibit A: the webcomic (online comic strip) PhD Comics. Also known as Piled Higher and Deeper, the webcomic depicts “life (or the lack thereof) in grad school.” Its heroes battle blundering researchers, indifferent advisors, iffy job prospects, and the procrastination encouraged by a hilarious webcomic for students who should be doing research instead of reading webcomics. A friend of mine introduced me to PhD Comics last year. Now that websites for grad schools have joined the webcomic in my bookmarks folder, I feel as though I’m applying to get hit in the head with a Frisbee.

Exhibit B: a friend of mine who’s pursuing a PhD in physics. He likened undergraduate education to vacation, in comparison to grad school. My undergraduate experience frequently includes six hours of outside-of-class work for one class per day. I’d prefer that this experience remain leashed to education, and not sink its fangs into holidays. If it did, I might grow Piqued and Horribly Depressed.

Exhibit C: the capitalization and lack of punctuation in “PhD”—which I always forget. If I forget them, others must. Appending such a suffix to my name would halve the number of people who write the name, already long and spelled strangely, correctly. Pity we can’t all earn degrees in Penning Hard-to-write Designations.

Perhaps I hesitate to chain myself to a physics department for five years because I fear the irons will rub. Perhaps because I fear loneliness. Because I fear I’ll overwork myself. Because I fear I’ll burrow so deeply into a sub-discipline of a sub-discipline of physics that I’ll find myself alongside a gopher who knows more about art history than I.

But perhaps I hesitate to pursue a PhD because physicists consider problems from multiple angles before drawing conclusions, and because I consider myself a physicist. Perhaps I want to hone my conclusion-drawing skills. Perhaps I find myself grinning like the Cheshire Cat while vanishing unsolved integrals. Perhaps feeling a solution’s shape before arriving at the solution gives me goosebumps. Perhaps I feel less-than-half-satisfied with my understanding of physics and doubly-driven to triple my knowledge.

Perhaps I have a Pulse-throbbing, Heart-thumping Desire to Pursue a Higher Degree.

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