7 Lessons from Grad School
Jan 12, 2010
1) 32 percent on an exam can be a great score
2) 4 mountain dews do not equal a full night of sleep
3) The phrase “if you put it on a slide, you have to know it.”
4) Learn a whole lot about very little
5) Personal hygiene is not universal
6) Snacks offered before a guest lecture do not count as a meal
7) Don’t end a first date with ‘I love you.’
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What lessons did you or are you learning?
Anon
January 12th, 2010 at 4:54 PM #
I’ve learnt that the best way to destroy your interest and enthusiasm for science is to become a scientist…
Artem
January 13th, 2010 at 1:02 AM #
Schools are places where large numbers of young people are forcibly brought in close proximity to large numbers of books.
Everything else is up to the students themselves.
Or, to paraphrase a book character “I am not going to teach you however you will be permitted to learn”.
milkshake
January 13th, 2010 at 2:50 PM #
Getting too close to the Sun will blind you (and afterwards when you can see again you notice a bad case of sunburn)
milkshake
January 13th, 2010 at 3:10 PM #
If you join a famous group and if the first thing you hear from your advisor is “You start on this little project that employs our old methodology, and it has been all published so you should be able to finish this in couple months”, NOW it is the right time to run and scream
Sili
January 14th, 2010 at 1:52 AM #
No man is an island.
Dr SNO
January 15th, 2010 at 9:17 PM #
8. Get out as fast as you can
Adam
January 18th, 2010 at 9:32 AM #
8. No amount of obfuscation in a paper can survive ten minutes of dedicated concentration.
9. You only have yourself to blame for choosing to live in a smaller pond with bigger fish.
10. The secret PhD handshake is both a complete fiction and very, very real.