You Must Be Very Intelligent: The PhD Delusion

by Karin Bodewits

You Must be Very Intelligent is the author's account of studying for a PhD in a modern, successful university. Part-memoir and part-expose, this book is highly entertaining and unusually revealing about the dubious morality and desperate behaviour which underpins competition in twenty-first century academia.

This witty, warts-and-all account of Bodewits years as a PhD student in the august University of Edinburgh is full of success and failure, passion and pathos, insight, farce and warm-hearted disillusionment. She describes a world of collaboration and backstabbing; nefarious financing and wasted genius; cosmopolitan dreamers and discoveries that might just change the world... Is this a smart people's world or a drip can of weird species? Modern academia is certainly darker and stranger than one might suspect...

This book will put a wry, knowing smile on the faces of former researchers. And it is a cautionary parable for innocents who still believe that lofty academia is erected upon moral high ground...

Genres: Nonfiction, Academia, Memoir, Education, Autobiography, Audiobook

353 pages, Paperback

Published July 10, 2017

Reviews

[Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unexpectedly delightful book in its accuracy. It documents the PhD experience in a painfully familiar way. As a humanities grad student myself, I've heard horror stories exactly like this from my friends in the hard sciences, but I've never before seen anyone document them in such a thorough and insightful way. In her best moments, the author is able to capture the intense social tensions and the institutionalized aimlessness of university life.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, one important thing up front: Although not being a PhD student, neither somebody going to university for a science degree, I found this book highly engaging!

Karin Bodewits’ novel takes the reader on a journey through a three-year-long PhD experience at the University of Edinburgh. I was immediately drawn into a nuanced and well-crafted story that engages with a multitude of themes of PhD life, such as a young scientist’s academic ambitions, personal struggles with friends, family and motivational issues, and insights in the often rusty university structures and codes of conduct of modern day research.

Many passages of Bodewits’ prose are beautiful and overly well written. The author doesn’t shy away from shedding light on to the most delicate parts of everyday realities of a PhD experience. These include themes such as a troubled relationship to a PhD supervisor, the international inflation of PhD students, or the highly competitive and at times very obscure procedures of getting an academic paper published in a high ranking journal.

Bodewits’ novel is a glimpse into the ivory tower of modern day academia with all of its potentials, pits and falls. This is a book for anyone interested in the everyday life of science, higher education, and the PhD experience. But it is, beyond that, also a book for anyone looking for a heartwarming young-adult story.

[Nikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seemed to be a self-serving memoir of a judgemental snob. I don't doubt that the supervisor was an ass and that academia isn't all it's cracked up to be, but she is not alone in moving to a foreign country to be disappointed by her PhD. Some funny moments and kept me reading but ultimately writing this book seemed very self-indulgent therapy for the author.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

On recently finishing this, I can't help the feeling of disappointment which came along with doing so. Whilst clearly well written and not short of clever turns of phrase, it will likely leave a bad taste in the mouths of those who see or have seen academia as a positive experience in their lives.

It was as if Karin wanted to hate her PhD experience, pretty much as soon as it started. A narrow-minded supervisor who shows favoritism to some of his students, collegial competitiveness, sparse resources - whilst these things are not ideal, they are not the end of the world nor are they by any means unusual in the academic world. Ok, her supervisor does come across as a bit of a dick at times but was he really that bad? I suppose if he did support the failing post-doc who tried to claim the paper as his own (which rather frustratingly, we don't find out about) that would have been something to actually complain about.

The part of about Karin been made to feel unwelcome by her colleagues when she first starts - I find this very unusual, particularly for a chemistry department. Chemistry tends to produce the most sociable indviduals out of all the scientific disciplines and where of course there will always be exceptions, this doesn't feel right at all. I've known chemists of all backgrounds, who've never met previously, to be chatting away like old friends within minutes of meeting, just because of the subject as a common denominator.

The side stories around Karin's various interactions with men throughout, sort of add to the story but a lot of it is unnecessary and if anything make the character out to be slightly irritating. There are parts where I was surprised there wasn't more detail, for example the trip to Toronto - which might have been an opportunity to highlight some of the positive aspects of a PhD experience!

The book seems to end a little strangely with not much description around the viva. Of course many individuals will see this period as a kind of anti-climax but the almost mockery tone which Karin seems to adopt is a little off-putting.

I think portraying academia as a kind of twisted world where there is endless corruption, free-rides and exploitation (as this novel seems to be trying to do) is somewhat extreme. Whilst every sector has it's problems (academia being no different) it is important to convey that there are lots of positives too. This is especially true for potential readers who are unfamiliar with the PhD experience.

[Veronika Vazhnik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Experiences in academia, like in any other occupation, are dictated by the people you interact with: both for your job and friends that surround you. Those interactions are central to Karin Bodewits’ novel “You must be very intelligent”. The book breathes with the pain of real-life experiences, which often leave the reader wondering: has this happened in the real life or is it just fiction? You often hope that the story is not biographic, as then the experience of a PhD study becomes extremely depressing. All those experiences leave you pitying the main character, and with time you realize that there always is a silver lining, all hardships are the chances to learn. The main character becomes a new, sometimes peculiar, but so familiar among scientist, acquaintance that grows and learns through the story.



You should read this book if you are considering pursuing PhD, so that you do not enter the position with rose-colored glasses but rather make a conscious and careful choice. If you have passed through grad school, this book could be both a reminder that you are not alone going through challenges, but also that you might be luckier than others. Finally, if you supervise students, this book can be a great guide on which mistakes not to make.

[Devon Bowser · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's amazing to me is the way this book seemed to mirror my graduate school experiences despite the differences in discipline, department, university, date and country.

I particularly appreciated the writing style: semi-autobiographical. The book still read as a fictional story, with good pacing and distinct plot points but was obviously based in real experiences/emotions.

[Bart Pander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karin enters the world of British accademia filled with false hope, misplaced arrogance, undeserved insecurities, uneducated naiveties , misplaced adoration of scientists and the wish to help humanity by becoming a great scientist herself. She quickly learns what the pressure cooker of modern scientific research does to people and it isn't nice. This setting is perfect for dark humor, silly situations and sarcasm. In the end...lets say Karin learned her lesson. The book is incredibly funny and reads as a train. Recommended.

[Shelby · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unreadable.

[Meisen Wong · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny, well-written, part memoir, part exposé of a doctoral student in Chemistry. It reveals all the brutal, seedy, soul - sucking aspects of postgraduate studies, especially when one is unfortunate enough to have an incompetent, narcissistic, uncaring, plain abusive asshole for supervisor. The author also successfully conveys the precarious futures of postgraduates when stipends and fundings are scarce, and and there are simply not enough jobs to go around. But all the gloom and doom is often mediated by firm friendships found between comrades in misery. Anyhow, this was an equally depressing and enjoyable read which I blazed through in two days. And it made me all the more thankful that I was surrounded my loving, supportive, and sincere peers for my own PhD degree when it could have so easily gone toxic in the academic context.

[ash · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who has spent sufficient time doing research, I would say this is a fairly accurate representation of what the uncertainties of research life are like. I really enjoyed reading would encourage other peers planning to stay in academia or in academia to read this book for some relatable laughs and beyond.

[Cold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smashed it. Funny narrative and I bought into her story.

[Joseph Nairn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the title of Dr. Bodewits book and the brief description I read online. I ordered the book as much out of curiosity as anything. What I found as I read was somewhat astonishing. The PhD world she describes is sadly cut throat and back stabbing, and also sadly, somewhat similar to my own first go-round seeking an EdD. As I part-time student I was ignored (mostly) since I could not "spend more time in the library" doing grunt work for the faculty. Karin describes endless, pointless experiments and a PhD thesis that is complete, but hardly noteworthy. (In my second effort, completing a Doctorate in Management, I found that the best dissertation is a done dissertation.) Karin also describes in detail the hand-to-mouth existence many doctoral students are forced to endure given small stipends and ungodly hours.
I highly recommend this to anyone considering pursuing a PhD, just to provide a reality check. While specific to the sciences (she is a biologist and chemist) the academic job market she describes is unfortunately all too real.

[Vilhelmiina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but it got progressively more depressing. Maybe that’s realistic.

[Weltengeist · Rating 1 out of 5]

Once in a while, it happens that some time after starting a book, I simply can not get myself to read on. This is one of those books.

In a nutshell, I could not bear anymore how the protagonist (I don't know how much of this is autobiographic, so I rather not write "the author") is behaving. Here we have an extremely negative person who is critical of everyone and everything - she's not funny or witty, just negative. At the same time, she is acting like a jerk herself.

Consider the set-up: The protagonist is described as an intelligent, ambitious and so far also very successful woman, who has not only finished her studies with very good marks but also worked in industry for a few years. Nonetheless, she has to ask her parents for money for her first pieces of furniture, and she lets herself treat like an 18-year old who has just moved out of her parents flat. Seriously: Mid-20, successful industry researcher, and then you start a PhD just to find out that you don't have a desk, you don't have a computer, you don't even have money for a smock, you barely get paid, and your group is the laughing stock of the whole department - wouldn't you just look for other job opportunities the moment you would come home? Instead, she goes through the whole crap of bad working conditions, bad co-workers, bad boss - because what?

Okay, if you like, you can read the whole story as a portrait of a person with an extremely low self-esteem. At least that's what I take from the constant need to describe all of her surroundings as consisting of idiots, but at the same time feeling like a helpless victim who is not able to do anything about her situation. This might be an accurate description of how some people feel, but I can't for the life of me see why this is supposed to be funny or witty - it's just sad.

It's also a shame because I think that there IS a lot of real-life comedy in the PhD experience. Regrettably, this book does not manage to transport this feeling. I did not feel entertained, I felt repelled.

[David Giltner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karin’s book is an entertaining and engaging look at the emotional roller-coaster path to becoming a PhD. It is a story of unrealistic career expectations slowly vanquished by a dysfunctional advisor in a competitive environment. It makes great fiction, and is a bit sobering when viewed as perhaps a semi-autobiographical account of the author’s own experience. My own PhD experience was a pretty positive experience overall, so I found myself feeling very lucky as I followed the fictional Karin through her tumultuous experience.

My favorite aspect of the book was how she explored the personal aspects of the characters lives outside the university. Graduate school can be very intense, and I often felt pressure to sacrifice my non-professional interests in lieu of my career aspirations. Reading about the real human characters in Karin’s novel, with relationships and interests they fostered outside the lab, was a refreshing and encouraging experience.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a missed opportunity. I enjoyed Karins descriptions of Edinburgh and a lot of what she speaks about will ring true with many PhD students. I’m also glad someone’s taking a stab at ousting the PhD process, and can empathise with her on many occasions throughout the book.

These enjoyable parts however are overcast by Karins shallowness to those she meets along the way. Her persistent descriptions of peoples appearance and her patronising tone about vocations outside of academia is relentless and ugly. The book ends very abruptly with only really a small paragraph summing up her actual thoughts of her experience of the PhD process.

What could have been a great stab at the pointlessness of the PhD system is unfortunately just a tone deaf diary of Karins 4 years in Edinburgh.

[belkais · Rating 4 out of 5]

Academia is a scary place but i want to be there someday ..

[Bookish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clever, interesting, and more importantly, down to earth – this book is a glimpse at the race (or crawl) to the PhD finish line. I picked up this book when I noticed a Goodreads friend of mine reading it, and decided it’d be fun to hear a different perspective. Getting a PhD is very prestigious; it takes a lot of hard work and time. It’s certainly too scary for me! So what’s it like for someone who’s walked the line, achieved the degree, and who’s looked back on all that progress? Worth it? What did they find surprising? What did they find horrifying? Was it worth it after all?

This book covers all this and more. The pleasant writing style mixed in with deadpan humor made it easy to forget I was reading a memoir-style book; it felt more like a casual blog post. Which I found refreshing – it didn’t take itself too seriously. It shed a lot of light on the process, and in a frank, sometimes brutally frank way. Love lost, tedious work, shooting kangaroos – it all adds up.

If I had to find a downside for this book; it’d be the present-tense writing style. It seemed the author stumbled with it a few times, forcing me to reread a sentence or sometimes a paragraph to fully understand their point. Since this is clearly the author looking back at events, it would’ve made more sense in past-tense.

Nonetheless, this story is crisp, realistic, and hilarious. It opens with our main character being outrageously hungover, even as she starts out what’s supposed to be the defining moment of her academic career. She’s just finished a drinking binge (with horror stories few of us are willing to admit we’ve experienced ourselves), and now she has to impress her PhD supervisor, understand the lay of the land, and make decisions about where to live… There’s a dose of real life that many don’t glamorize.

For anyone considering their academic future, considering their PhD – or who just want a funny read where we can shake our head along with the main character… this book is for you.

[Matteo Di giovanni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually enjoyed reading Karin's story. I ready some complaints from people saying "it is not academia", "such things do not happen", "it is unlikely", "se writes about something she only wants to hate", ecc...ecc... but I think that such complaints are basically wrong.

I may agree on the point that Karin's experience may be unlikely. It is rare that all such things may happen all to the same person. But, according to my personal experience and to accounts from people I know, such things happen for real. They are not fantasy. And maybe the author also collected accounts from other people and pretended they happened to her in the book for the sake of simplicity.

I think she really told the experience of a young researcher, its feelings and fears in the best possible way. With all the funny moments, good times and memories that share the stage with frustration and anger and the many difficulties of an academic career. I really share most of what she told in this book.

[Carlotta Micale · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you realize that you are not the only one struggling with your PhD...

An interesting book, about the story of Karin and her PhD delusion. Funny, entertaining, but also a book that all the PhD students and PhD-wannabe should read and enjoy.

Sometimes the attitude of the main character it's a bit too negative from my point of view, but anyway it shows the reality of many of us, struggling with insane academic environments.

Sometimes we are afraid to tell the truth about what an awful experience is having a PhD. In "you must be very intelligent" we have the fully honest and real descriptions of everything that can be wrong in it. And there is no shame in telling people that even if we think that we took the right choice doing a PhD, we are not satisfied with it.

there is a free audio-book version available on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1JdPqF...

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is written as a diary, serving as a therapeutic exercise after a traumatizing and unfortunate PhD experience. As a PhD student myself, I can sympathize and understand the frustrations mentioned, but the storytelling still didn’t invoke any emotion in me. To be sure, this is not a novel; it feels more like eavesdropping on somebody’s life story being told in a random pub. I can appreciate it, but not really learn anything from it.

[LA · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I had even coerced my library into buying a copy. However, it's so focused on the plight of science Ph.Ds that for anyone outside of that realm (such as someone, say, in the humanities), it's hard to relate to a lot of it.

[Yang · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was an OK read. Can't relate as much though.

[Michaela Roth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book, especially if one is a PhD student themselves. Lots of "thats me" moments

[Fariz Abdussalam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you want to know the life of PhD student in a nutshell? read this book!

[Anna Noga · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that I listened to the audiobook on Spotify- I didn’t read it.

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like reading about the PhD experience from my least favourite colleague during the time of writing my own PhD...

I've seen reviewers talk about how it is well written, but I really disagree. The style is a bit vapid and overly descriptive of things like outfits and physical identifiers. It made me severely dislike the protagonist, Karin. I'm sure the supervisor sucked and I agree that academia is not necessarily all it is cracked up to be, but the victimhood of the protagonist was left unchecked throughout the whole book.

I also found it unacceptable how she thinks about and interacts with her boyfriend. Better to break up than put someone through that wave of criticism and inner hate.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

An easy, quick read, entertaining enough though I am a little disappointed by it. What I am sure is supposed to be witty and humorous sadly comes across as condescending, insecure behaviour on behalf of the protagonist. This makes her rather annoying and greatly decreased how much I was able to enjoy the book.

[Marios Gkionis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am making an effort not to regret that I downloaded it from Springer, through my institutional account, thus providing a +1 to a book that, and I kid you not, contains descriptions of people she encounters in the areas of:

- How "round their ass is"
- If they are cute or not
- How lazy her boyfriend is (whom he goes on criticising for quite a bit about his "lack of ambition", just because he is a bit more laid back. Pretty sure that if she were Einstein's girlfriend, she'd have been judgemental as well).
- What kind of clothes the people she encounters are wearing
- How manly the voice of people who date her best friend is
- If Italian men have a "small one"
- Potential correlations between nose size and penis size


To me, there are two motivations to keep on reading it:
- It promises information on the negative sides of doing a PhD
- It can be quite benefitial to read someone's judgemental internal thoughts and get to know in more detail, how some people think. It is also fascinating to have a "case-in-point" proof that academic excellence and basic emotional maturity do not go hand-in-hand.

But despite being equipped with those two motivations, I still could not muster the patience to finish this book, making it the very first book I purposefully never completed!

If you have a daughter/son who you think is going through difficult times and keeps having complex negative thoughts, give them this book cause in some cases it might be a cringe-worthy externalization that might push them to become more mature.

It really dissapoints me that a book with such high calibers of superficiallity and vanity was published (on a respectable scientific publications' cite mind you!).
I highly suspect that should a man have written a book in which he'd talk about how girls he encountered in his everyday affairs were ugly/fat/not girly, the book would have never seen a publication stamp and the author would probably get shot or something :p

[Fons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this romp through the academic world. Possibly liked it even more as the sober Dutch humour-veiled cynicism is rather recognisable.

4 stars, if the synopsis enthuses you, you will love it.