One thing that is cool about doing a PhD (there are also uncool things - I just dont't have the money for the next (used) car, the current one is badly old :( ) is getting into contact to professors and such guys.
Albeit comming from a familiy where education has been well treasured, I am the first with a university degree. I remember when I was about 15 when I met the first students as my boy scout leaders. One of them, a guy doing his PhD in optics, explained me what a 'professor' is. His definition was "no one on earth knows more about a subject than him". Impressing! ... and it never matched reality when I did my diploma at an 'Fachhochschule' (university of applied science) - albeit I learned much!
Once my later PhD adviser told me "that you never know what a chair is when U don't do a PhD at a chair". I replayed "well I learn when doing my diploma thesis" and he replayed "no, you don't". He was right.
I believe, that a typical PhD (like me!) is just a normal person. Just as almost any other graduate student - having become a PhD student (more or less) just by random. But one truly meets some other guys, extraordinary intelligent people - what holds for probably most professors ...
I wouldn't want to miss coming into contact to such people and I'm happy to have such an opportunity. But the really interesting this is (and therefore I put that 'smart' in the headline into quotation marks) that these people are definetely highly
intelligent but beside that just normal people - having similar troubles and luck as all 'normal' people have.
