A crash course in this Ph.D. thing

I came across the following and thought they did a nice job explaining my world and experience in my academic program:

• The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.
• What do grad students in math do all day? Do they just sit at their desk and think?

Now, of course, I'm not a math grad student. My work is not quite so intense as what the author explains. That said, it gets at the general process pretty well.