You have come into contact with this person ... you think. They are that one person in your department who you recall seeing once or twice, but you never saw them again. The next time you see this individual (maybe 6 months to a year later), they have good news to report of presentations, publications, and candidacy.You begin to ask yourself, "How are they able to have so many spectacular achievements, yet I never see them in the department?". The reason that they get so much work done is due to the fact that you never see them.
Introducing the Invisible Grad
Once a certain point has been reached within your research as a PhD student, one should become relatively autonomous and not need to come into the lab as much as your less experienced colleagues. Who would want to come into the lab anyway? It's counterproductive and full of distractions. In the office, my days would typically end up looking like this:
9:00 - start work
11:00 - fire drill
12:00 - get dragged out of your lab for lunch with other students
1:30 - return from lunch
3:00 - department seminar/lecture
5:00 - time to leave! (after all, you HAVE worked an 8 hour day)
* Note: i haven't even factored in teaching/office hours for those of us who have classes as well as other graduate student popping into the lab to "shoot the breeze".
Away from the lab (perhaps at home, a coffee shop, library) these distractions are virtually non existent allowing more time to concentrate on the real reason you are in grad school, to do research! Take some advice from the Invisible Grad, and disappear from the distractions and emerge with PROGRESS !!!
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