The Bunny’s PhD Thesis
There’s a story that PhD advisors like to tell their students. It goes like this: Once upon a time there was a bunny, sitting in the sun and munching on some brownies.
A fox comes along, and asks the bunny what she’s up to. The bunny says: “I’m writing my dissertation on how bunnies eat foxes”. “What?! Are you serious?” says the fox. “Everyone knows foxes eat bunnies!”. “Come and see”, says the bunny, and the fox follows her into her rabbit hole. A few minutes later, out comes the bunny, with a few small stains of blood on her fur, which she promptly cleans up and sits down to munch on brownies.
A wolf comes along, and asks the bunny what she’s up to. The bunny says: “I’m writing my dissertation on how bunnies eat wolves”. “What?! Are you serious?” says the wolf. “Everyone knows wolves eat bunnies!”. “Come and see”, says the bunny, and the wolf follows her into her rabbit hole. A few minutes later, out comes the bunny, using a toothpick to clean between her teeth. She sits down to munch on brownies.
A tiger comes along, and asks the bunny what she’s up to. The bunny says: “I’m writing my dissertation on how bunnies eat tigers”. “What?! Are you serious?” says the tiger. “Everyone knows tigers eat bunnies!”. “Come and see”, says the bunny, and the tiger follows her into her rabbit hole.
Ph.D. advisors like to tell their students what happens next: The tiger follows the bunny into the burrow, where a lion sits up as soon as they arrive, kills the tiger with one stroke, and waits patiently for the bunny to collect herself and go back outside. The moral of the story is supposed to be that it does not matter what your thesis topic is; it only matters who your advisor is.
What?! Are you serious?
Here’s what really happened to the tiger:
As soon as the bunny and the tiger reached the bottom of the burrow, the bunny unzipped her bunny suit. Out came a fierce lioness, who killed the tiger in one stroke. The lioness then put back her bunny suit, and went outside to have brownies for dessert.
Indeed, the real moral of the story is this: It does not matter what others think of your dissertation topic. It does not matter who your advisor is.
What matters is that you take off your bunny costume, and let the lioness out.
P.S. If there’s an advisor in the story, he or she are indeed waiting patiently down in the burrow. Their only job is this: they unzip the bunny suit.
Dedicated to all the lionesses and lions I’ve raised.