Not sure what a graduate degree has to do with anything... Personally I find lisps to be much more productive to work in, compared to any other type of languages, no matter the "elegance" or "design". For me, having maximum productivity is where the fun comes from, eliminate most of the boilerplate from writing programs leads to just being able to focus on the important parts.

To me it's the most fun language to use. When you understand it to a good degree, you stop fighting compilers and are able to focus entirely on the problem at hand.

Mind to explain? What’s no fun, what do you prefer?