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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Achan hiArusa" data-source="post: 4184137" data-attributes="member: 2597">I did and went to Space and Planetary Sciences out of fear of the physics candidacy.  Biggest mistake of my life.  At least the physics candidacy was a) objective and b) gave you a second chance.Yay! I'm not alone. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />It may have to do with the comfort with complex rules systems.  After having to go through Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics the corebooks just don't seem that involved.  I've used Riemann Zeta functions to analyze gun damage in Masque of the Red Death before (good Lord I'm a nerd).Well, I the other physics grad students thought I was a geek for being a D&D player and the other D&D players thought I was a geek for being a physics grad student.  Made them feel better and a bit uncomfortable not being the geekiest person in the room.Then again, I had a program director in Space and Planetary who got upset if you even hinted at having a life outside the lab.  He hated the fact that I had a lot of friends outside of the program and that I just didn't click with the rest of the grad students in the program (except for my then girlfriend who was also a gamer and an Aspie which was part of problem with the rest of the grad students).  He really encouraged us to form friendships with each other and that the only outside ones we should have were ones that were "useful."  We were supposed to have a personal life only when he wanted us to and that was only for his parties and the field trips.  Part of the reason getting into that program was a mistake.</blockquote>

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