Welcome to Hell, young specialist!

You are 23 years old. Spring, birds, sun, diploma...

Suppose you are almost a master's degree student at almost the most famous university in the country, Southern and Federal. You successfully complete your specialty with a code unknown to anyone (all for convenience). A respected professor brings you to your defense. In fact, everyone has long understood that the trick is in the bag, but big words throw dust in the eyes of the unenlightened. And everything seems to be fine, but you begin to experience an animal fear before receiving your diploma. You soberly realize that your alma mater has not presented you with anything other than a beautiful red book and a sense of your own importance (which is not so obvious to the employer). In order to somehow delay the moment of disappearing into the abyss of the unknown, you make a seemingly shocking decision - graduate school. A candidate of their sciences sounds cool, well, the issue with the army will be resolved, the job could be a fortune, plus a scholarship of as much as “6 thousand” (mad money). You seem to have been an excellent student, you even got something from the governor, you are not burdened with a family (although everyone is already starting to look at you with suspicion), so your decision is irrevocable. And now, shining in the rays of glory of a nascent star, you enter the door of the scientific supervisor. That’s the end of the fairy tale, and variations on the theme begin.

1) Department "shik-shine". New equipment, modern magazines fly in packs every month through the armored doors of the laboratories. Even if all the beauty is in the semi-basement, and the wires of modern appliances are chewed by rats, and no one takes the title of your dissertation seriously, but you are proud of the modern split systems in classrooms. Sometimes strangers even visit. They have nothing to show, so they show the newest thing, gnawed by rats. Every time it's the same. Have you noticed how surprised the faces of strangers are? So they know very well that we are far from CERN, but they cannot understand why we are so proud.

Your leader also sits on this same “promised land.” In some unknown way, his discoveries amaze foreigners, so he has grants, a desire to work, the ability to teach, the ability to take care of students and, voila, you are taking readings from truly high-precision instruments over the hill. Make an effort - and you really are a sought-after candidate. Although this is unlikely to be useful to you in Russia, and no one takes the title of your PhD thesis seriously.

2) The department is “kind of average.” You can get here through the door, but it feels like being in a time machine, like in the 80s of the 20th century. Everything is from that era: starting with instruments (which, by the way, measure everything just as accurately), ending with furniture. The progress here is shown by metal-plastic windows (barely snatched from the “chic-shine”), computers (almost powerful), and 1 air conditioner per department. What are they doing here? Usually the words “basic research” serve as a cover. The first phrase skillfully covers up the venerable age of the lecturers who believe that the Olympiad in Moscow has just ended. But it is worth paying tribute to the fact that the teachers really do teach, sparing no effort and time. Here it is possible to obtain a decent explanation of complex phenomena, even if this means spending the night in the laboratory (it’s a pity that there are few who want it). At this department it is possible to obtain excellent knowledge, skills and abilities that will result in a fairly “fundamental” diploma. But only your works will be suitable only for the good of the Motherland. As for the degree of participation of scientific supervisors in scientific leadership itself, this happens intermittently. That is, if suddenly in business (otherwise you won’t survive) your manager experiences downtime, then he will be happy to help you quickly write and submit, and everything will be done smoothly.

3) The department “sucks.” It’s difficult to even say that this is a department, because all the equipment is hidden from students due to shameful antiquity (although the “average” student, for example, is not shy), and the train hides in the corners as soon as it senses a stranger. At first everything is quite nice. They allow you to touch (what they didn’t have time to hide), learn, asking you not to strain somehow, then they pay less and less attention to you, then they completely forget in the hope that this will help avoid unnecessary questions. Once upon a time (there are legends) here they received government orders, traveled abroad with innovations, wrote (and published!) books. Now everyone has suddenly suddenly decided that science was easier back then, but now science is stuck, so it’s better not to meddle, so as not to be devoured in the “storm-torn life.” The supervisor smiles at you when you meet, but in response to all questions he prefers to either refer to senile deafness or dementia. At the same time, the cunning guy is extremely smart in his field, but at first he doesn’t tell you her secrets, and then he doesn’t let you near her at all because of the information collapse that happened to you. At the same time, you will never get an answer from him “Yes” or “No” (what prevents you from saying the second one, I have no idea), but the professor will highly professionally break off your shining face of a newly minted Einstein with detachment from your problems.

I’m not sure that a supervisor is obligated to treat students like they’re discarded bags. But I believe that he must motivate people to work by any means possible, even if for the sake of this he has to throw himself under the bullets of the bureaucracy. In such a case of justified self-sacrifice, the scientific supervisor can proudly bear the title of professor. As for the equipment, the main thing is the current in the socket, and we’ll figure out the rest.