You just might be a graduate student if...
...you spend more on books than on tuition.
...you actually hope your professor assigns homework.
...you get a 3-hour final with 5 questions or less.
...the words "free time" are unfamiliar to you.
...you spend Saturday morning waiting for the library to open.
...you've memorized your professors' home phone numbers.
...your professors know your home phone number.
...more than 25% of your textbook is "left as an exercise for the
reader."
...you are on a first-name basis with everyone on the library staff.
...you can analyze the significance of appliances you cannot operate.
...your carrel is better decorated than your apartment.
...you have ever, as a folklore project, attempted to track the
progress of your own joke across the Internet.
...you are startled to meet people who neither need nor want to read.
...you have ever brought a scholarly article to a bar.
...you rate coffee shops by the availability of outlets for your laptop.
...everything reminds you of something in your discipline.
...you have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event.
...you have ever spent more than $50 on photocopying while
researching a single paper.
...there is a microfilm reader in the library that you consider "yours."
...you actually have a preference between microfilm and microfiche.
...you can tell the time of day by looking at the traffic flow at
the library.
...you look forward to summers because you're more productive
without the distraction of classes.
...you regard ibuprofen as a vitamin.
...you consider all papers to be works in progress.
...professors don't really care when you turn in work anymore.
...you find the bibliographies of books more interesting than
the actual text.
...you have given up trying to keep your books organized and are
now just trying to keep them all in the same general area.
...you have accepted guilt as an inherent feature of relaxation.
...you reflexively start analyzing those greek letters before you
realize that it's a sorority sweatshirt, not an equation.
...you find yourself explaining to children that you are in "20th grade".
...you start refering to stories like "Snow White et al."
...you frequently wonder how long you can live on pasta without getting
scurvy.
...you look forward to taking some time off to do laundry.
...you have more photocopy cards than credit cards.
...you wonder if APA style allows you to cite talking to yourself as
"personal communication".
The Top Ten Lies Told by Graduate Students
(taken from the Harvard Crimson)
10. It doesn't bother me at all that my college roommate is making
$80,000 a year on Wall Street.
9. I'd be delighted to proofread your book/chapter/article.
8. My work has a lot of practical importance.
7. I would never date an undergraduate.
6. Your latest article was so inspiring.
5. I turned down a lot of great job offers to come here.
4. I just have one more book to read and then I'll start writing.
3. The department is giving me so much support.
2. My job prospects look really good.
1. No really, I'll be out of here in only two more years.
Top Five Lies Told by Teaching Fellows:
5. I'm not going to grant any extensions.
4. Call me any time. I'm always available.
3. It doesn't matter what I think; write what you believe.
2. Think of the midterm as a diagnostic tool.
1. My other section is much better prepared than you guys.
Ask and ye shall receive
(to the tune of "If I only had a brain"):
If I only had a thesis
Then they wouldn't call me specious.
They would not reject my claim.
Do Do Doot Da Doot Da Dum
I would write it and defend it
I would leave and that would end it.
I'd be off to win my fame.
Why God never received a PhD:
1. He had only one major publication.
2. It was in Hebrew.
3. It had no references.
4. It wasn't published in a refereed journal.
5. Some even doubt he wrote it by himself.
6. It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.
9. He never applied to the ethics board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it by drowning his subjects.
11. When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the book.
13. Some say he had his son teach the class.
14. He expelled his first two students for learning.
15. Although there were only 10 requirements, most of his students failed his tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountain top.
17. No record of working well with colleagues.
Graduate Admissions Committee
Department of Psychology
Big Deal University
Collegeville, USA
Dear Committee Members:
Thanks for your letter of March 30. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection at this time.
This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of schools, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.
Despite your outstanding record and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my current career needs. Consequently, I will begin taking classes as a graduate student in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.
Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.
Sincerely Yours,
[Name Withheld]
Deep Thought by Jack Handy:
Instead of studying for finals, what about just going to the Bahamas and
catching some rays? Maybe you'll flunk, but you might have flunked
anyway; that's my point.
Top Ten things that suck MORE than writing a psych thesis:
And the number one thing that sucks more than writing a thesis: