Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics-Chapter 4523 - 3607: Edge of Tomorrow (16)

If you fail one course in a year, you must redo it, and you're not allowed to compress the hours; you have to start from scratch and take the course all over again.

After completing all the courses, there's an exam to take, the so-called PhD graduation exam. This exam's difficulty is absurd.

The comprehensive qualification exam for the Psychology course that Shiller teaches includes a 7-hour written test in one day, a clinical application test within three days, and a week-long topic analysis test.

Once everything is finished, all the related faculty members come together to mark the papers and give scores. Each person has only three chances, and if they fail all three exams, they must withdraw.

Even after passing the exams, you can't immediately start writing the thesis until you take about two months of thesis writing training courses. Once the course has passed, you have to take another exam, which marks the end of the training phase.

Most people take 3 to 4 years to complete the training phase. Even super-geniuses take at least two years to finish all the coursework and exams.

After passing the training phase, you then start writing your graduation thesis. The review standards for PhD graduation theses are even more absurd: only if you're recognized as an expert in your specific subfield and have world-class innovative achievements do you have the possibility of passing.

Due to Gotham University's unique geographical attributes, it boasts considerable talent quality in the Psychology field. Currently, of the five PhD students under Shiller, only one who just started his PhD hasn't passed the comprehensive qualification test; the others have all finished it and have begun writing their theses.

But, whenever the topic of thesis writing comes up, Shiller is at a loss.

This brings up Shiller's own academic path.

In fact, in his previous life, Shiller was just an ordinary university professor, not someone particularly renowned or considered an industry expert. In terms of academic level in psychology theory, he could only be described as average, with no achievements worth envying.

This is because most of his energy wasn't devoted to academic research; he treated work as merely going through the motions, spending most of his time as just an ordinary university lecturer.

However, after arriving in DC, his predecessor was already a globally acclaimed psychologist. This status as a psychology master wasn't something he could simply opt-out of.

Only at this point did Shiller begin to pour most of his energy into academics. Luckily, his unique mental analysis talent allowed him to navigate it smoothly, maintaining his persona as a psychologist effectively.

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Speaking of which, in his predecessor's time—Anatoli—he didn't engage in theoretical research but focused on applications. He neither studied Behavioral Analysis nor Psychoanalysis Method—he simply didn't research analysis methods.

After Shiller's arrival, he transitioned to researching Psychoanalysis Method, which didn't surprise the industry, as most disciplines follow this pattern: starting in applied fields in youth, transitioning to pure theory in later years.

The reason being, the fundamental aim of all disciplines is to explore the world, and researching theory is closer to exploring the truths of the cosmos. Every scientist who achieves a certain level of academic success inevitably holds such pursuits.

Shiller's large student base is due in part to his involvement in both applied and theoretical psychology, and his widespread reputation. Who wouldn't want an industry leader as their mentor?

Moreover, everyone studying psychology curses Psychoanalysis while simultaneously wanting to explore it, holding feelings like "this is too absurd, I want to see what it's all about."

Actually, Shiller's students include those with Empathy ability. There are quite a few born with Empathy ability like Jenna; some even surpass her talents. But this doesn't mean they can write theses worthy of graduation.

It's a known fact that Empathy ability involves emotionally resonating with others to perceive their feelings at certain moments and thus analyze their psychology, deducing a series of conclusions.

Here's the problem: the foundation of Empathy ability is emotions, and written language is incapable of fully depicting emotions. For humanity's complex and beautiful emotional system, all words fall short.

Empathy ability and Spiritual Analysis are based on emotions, but theses are based on logic. Writing a thesis on Spiritual Analysis requires expressing emotions through logic, which is inherently contradictory.

Many people experience this sensation when watching TV shows or admiring artwork: the transmission of emotions is abstract.

When you see an image or hear some music, what appears in your mind isn't precise vocabulary, but rather an abstract feeling.

Summarizing and synthesizing abstract feelings into logical inferences and vocabulary is the key to writing a successful Spiritual Analysis thesis.

However, most people can only focus on one point: those with Empathy ability tend to emphasize describing abstract emotions, while those inherently rational and logically precise lack emotional experience.

Thus, Shiller's portfolio of theses can be summed up as emotive, richly-worded prose and dry, rigid, hollow expository writing, with no one able to perfectly blend the two. This is a truly sad story.

Of course, some turn to researching Behavioral Analysis. But as long as it's an analysis method, researching emotions is inevitable. Humanity is inherently emotional, and motives for various behaviors cannot stem solely from rational logic, they certainly involve passion and impulse.

The more precise one is in pure logical analysis, the more incoherent one becomes in emotional analysis, making certain portions of their theses harder to understand than the ravings of a hysteria patient.

Correcting this is difficult, as everyone's emotional experiences vary. When Shiller shares his understanding, most people still can't fully comprehend it, let alone base any substantial writing on it, ultimately reliant on themselves.

So, compared to the normal teaching process—students independently completing work, the teacher pointing out deficiencies, students correcting these and improving their scholarly abilities—Shiller's approach is more like playing a card game.

It's as if he's engaging in activities that seem like teaching on the surface, but he's actually banking on luck to produce results: putting students out there, waiting for them to one day gain sudden insight, merging emotion with reason to achieve academic success and graduate; or finally realizing they're not fit for psychological research and simply giving up, allowing mutual relief.

Of course, even though helping them revise theses rarely offers substantial assistance, Shiller still diligently reviews everything they send, offering them suggestions as much as possible.

This isn't out of concern for cultivating talent for the psychology field but mainly to clarify accountability, letting them recognize that their inability to graduate isn't the instructor's fault. This might expedite their decision to quit.

It's the same in any country: responsible supervisors are few, those both skilled and responsible are even rarer. Shiller's responsible attitude earns him high praise among students, though some call him overly strict, each year many students still enthusiastically apply to him for graduate and PhD studies.

And Gotham University exploits this, both recruiting new students for him and sending graduation stragglers to rotate to him, which makes his card pool increasingly more eclectic, reducing the probability of drawing a good card. It's truly a disheartening tale.

Though no genuine strong cards emerge, the pool overflows with performers of all sorts. Aside from their decent thesis level, they seem to have everything one could ask, packaged into a villainous organization, potentially filming eight seasons of Suicide Squad plus two games.

As the saying goes, ultimately Studying Psychology leads to madness or demise. Those who study such a discipline and survive under such academic pressure are mostly already insane.

While antisocial personality is mostly innate, it can certainly be fostered thereafter. Many examples exist where extreme pressure leads to mental instability, driving individuals to retaliate against society. In Gotham, however, people rarely resort to attacking the weak, preferring more precise, elegant, and artistic methods.

After sending the email, Shiller soon received a reply. The other party indeed didn't want to let go of this big fish; they provided an address in the reply, inviting him to a meeting.

Shiller saw the address's number and felt a bit surprised, it was actually in the activity building of Gotham University's old campus.

After Gotham University's relocation, the old campus wasn't completely demolished; half of the land was sold, the remaining land retained for use as an Art Museum and teaching buildings for certain humanities and art disciplines.

No wonder Brainiac Support Association acts so arrogantly without any conflicts occurring within the school; it turns out their lair is at the old campus.