On this blog, you are going to hear a lot of wonderful things about being a graduate student. I know I’ve already told you about the personal computer and the sandwich toaster, but there are many other fabulous perks that I and my fellow bloggers are sure to enlighten you on. So, in order to stymie any possible accusations of bias in the Graduate Life blog, I am going to inform you about some of the side effects that I have experienced in my efforts to get educated.
1. Judgement based on your subject area. I study platypus venom, which is strange and obscure, so it naturally follows that I am a little odd, and at risk of becoming an eccentric-professorial-type later in life.
2. Novelty T-shirts. It’s your birthday coming up. Your friends can’t afford to buy you that art deco teacup/Shetland pony you’ve always wanted. Instead, “Great, he/she studies X”, your friends think, “why not get him/her a novelty t-shirt?”. Luckily, when I describe my area of study no-one has yet listened past my description “I study platypus venom...” to hear the next bit “...genes”, or else I would be at risk of drowning in a sea of double helix tops. I have several platypus t-shirts, and trust me, there are a lot more DNA shirts than platypus shirts out there.
3. Your subject area everywhere. On birthday cakes (especially if you study cars, squares, or cakes, or if your friends are very clever like mine are (see pic). More difficult if you are studying pi or Greek furniture of the 3rd century).
On statues (especially if you are studying an Australian animal/explorer, or any fruit. Again, if you are studying pi then you might be ok). You won’t be able to get away from it!
4. Unstructured days (especially if you’re a research student). Sure I can go shopping on Tuesday. Whoops, I slept in and it’s noon and I’m still in my PJ’s, is it even worth going to uni?
5. Becoming an expert in procrastination. You probably think you’re pretty good at this already. Think again. Until you’ve been a graduate student, you are a most productive individual. In fact, this is such a big facet of postgraduate life that I won’t expand on it here. Next time I’ll tell you all about it.
Comments
This is a great blog Camilla, I have only attempted an Honours thesis and I consider myself an expert in procrastination - so looking forward to skilling up further in that deparment.
Posted by: David | June 12, 2009 04:55 PM
As a PhD student in engineering myself, I completely identify with your issues. And, for the record, there are even fewer novelty T-shirts on rheology (but I think there are a few on Carbon Nanotubes)
Posted by: Janek | June 15, 2009 12:10 PM
Glad to hear that you like the blog David! I'm writing about procrastination at the moment (actually, does that count as procrastination?), so stay tuned for further advice!
Janek- we'll keep an eye out for rheology t-shirts for you, as surely no PhD experience is complete without a novelty T-shirt?!
Posted by: Camilla | June 19, 2009 04:22 PM