Wednesday, September 2, 2015

12 Fake Things to Say to Your First Year Classmates

So graduate school is starting up soon, and there's usually that awkward moment when all the first years have to stand up and say something about themselves. Here's a few suggestions:
  1. "I was a pro wiffleball player, but that got boring."
  2. "I'm on the run from the Russian mob, so I figured grad school was a good place to hide." 
  3. "College was so awesome with all of my classes, so I was hoping to sign on for another 6 years of lectures." 
  4. "I heard grad school in chemistry pays really well, which is good, because I'm not sure how I'm gonna make my next payment on my Ducati." 
  5. "I'm here to get my Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, but I'm actually training on the side to be a MMA fighter."
  6. "I wanna get one of those sweet tenure-track gigs." 
  7. "I'm here for the work-life balance I've heard all about." 
  8. "I decided to go to graduate school in chemistry, because I want to invent the next Viagra." 
  9. "I was working in industry and I was tired of getting cold calls from recruiters, so...." 
  10. "Late nights and Taco Bell are really my thing." 
  11. "Well, it was this, or be chained to a GC with no autosampler." 
  12. "I can't really 'tell you about myself', because the CIA has already relocated me 3 times and 4 is the limit.  
Readers, surely you have better suggestions. 

24 comments:

  1. "I love mechanism problems and literature searches. What else is there to grad school?" (This might be closer to the truth than I'd like.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. "I am here to work so hard 12 hours a day 7 days a week to get a Ph.D. in 5-7 years, then I will do a postdoc for 2-5 years and then end up unemployed doing more unstable postdocs to earn less than a librarian or a USPS mail man"

    ReplyDelete
  3. "I'm in grad school because I heard you can work on whatever research problem you want in here and uncover the deep mysteries of the cosmos. Right? Anybody? Bueller?"

    ReplyDelete
  4. "I'm here because I want to work on explosives research and become a made man. Barring that, I'm hoping to learn how to make drugs in my spare time. At least I can be sure of getting a job when I get out."

    Maybe that's not such a good idea?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'll be moonlighting over at Los Pollos Hermanos.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "I'm here because all through high school and college I never spent any time abroad, and I was told grad school in the sciences or engineering was the next best thing."

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm here to help solve the STEM-worker crisis. I'm really excited!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I used to resemble that remark...

      Delete
    2. Graduate school. Because I need something to do with my hands while I think about the plot of my next best-selling young adult novel.

      Delete
  8. "I'm here because I loved solving NMR spectra so much as an undergrad I would do problems for fun like soduku."

    ReplyDelete
  9. "I'm here because I didn't get accepted to Teach for America and I thought this would be a good alternative."

    ReplyDelete
  10. "My undergraduate chemistry professors told me that graduate school would be the most rewarding years of my life!!"

    ReplyDelete
  11. "I'm only here to better develop my character as a mad scientist so it will be more believable when I'm in the WWE and hitting people over the head with a flask."

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm here looking for reactions and catalysts that will be named after me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A graduating PhD from my group was expressing regret at his defense party that he had not yet had his named reaction identified yet. He was being serious. And now works in telemarketing.

      Delete
  13. I'm just killing some time until the job market improves.

    I didn't get into med school. An M.S. will make my application stronger when I re-apply in two years, right?

    ReplyDelete
  14. "I am the sultan of Schmidt"

    ReplyDelete
  15. I'm autotelic and weird and I actually kind of don't mind doing repetitive work if I feel it's working toward actually accomplishing something. I actually like the fact that there aren't really any set milestones or goal points. I joined because I want to do this kind of research in this kind of lab.

    ReplyDelete
  16. "I'm here because, as far as my dream of achieving fiscal responsibility by dropping out of high school and working in fast food goes, that ship has sailed."

    ReplyDelete
  17. "I'm here to change lives through the transforming power of chemistry"

    ReplyDelete
  18. As one of my undergrad profs had put it over twenty years ago, "If I'd had only a couple more miles per hour on my fast ball and a couple more inches on my sinker, I wouldn't have had to bother with any of this 'science' crap." I thought he was joking, then. Now, I wonder.

    ReplyDelete
  19. 5."I'm here to get my Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, but I'm actually training on the side to be a MMA fighter."

    Chemjobber, have you been reading about John J. Bonica? (If not, he was a pro wrestler through med school and into the beginning of a career that would see him transform pain medicine.)

    ReplyDelete

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20