Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School
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As for his graduate students, no one seems to want to discuss them, though some say they were in the office when he boarded it up.
The Adjunct
The Adjunct is in another department halfway across campus, one that really has very little to do with yours. However, because of a marginally relevant paper she published ten years ago, her name somehow became affiliated with your department, and her Web page pops up with all of the others, although her photo was taken standing in front of a different tree.
The Professor Who Wrote a Textbook
Have you heard that the Professor Who Wrote a Textbook wrote a textbook? You haven’t? You absolutely have to buy it. Even though it’s only fifty pages long, has no color photos, includes graphs that look like they were drawn freehand on a Macintosh in 1994, and was produced by a publishing house with the same name as the professor, it’s totally the best resource out there—which is why, when you take the mandatory class he teaches during your second year, it’s on the list of required reading. I mean, it’s in stock at the campus bookstore, so it must be authoritative.
The Founder
Think “Strom Thurmond meets George Burns,” but without the racism or the entertainment. Well, maybe a little racism.
The Founder is the only surviving member of the department’s original faculty, began his research before your field was even invented (this is even true if your field is history), and, like Strom Thurmond and George Burns, is at least somewhat dead.
So out of touch that he still asks the department secretary for mimeographs—of cuneiform—the Founder still somehow maintains perfect attendance at departmental seminars and colloquia, sitting smack in the front row and shaking what’s left of his head throughout the presentation. As soon as the talk ends, his black-veined hand shoots up and there is an audible exhalation of despair in the room when he declares, “I have three questions and a comment.”
Students should be afraid to take him on as a mentor because, seriously, there’s no guarantee he’ll still be alive six years from now.
Grant Applications: Rationalizing Minutiae
Research is expensive, and money doesn’t grow on trees—that is, unless they fund that proposal to breed a money tree. Money comes from grants, which are the largest and most foolishly committal statements of trust in academia. magine trying to get money from a bank the same way you apply for grants. “If you give me all this money,” you’d tell the banker, “I’ll use it for the following purposes we both know I’m lying about.” And the banker would give you the money.
It’s like your parents handing you ten dollars when you’re a teenager. “Now, you’re going to go see a movie, right? That’s where this money is going?”
“Yes, Mom,” you say, “I’m going to see a movie.” Then you spend the money on crystal meth.
When writing grant applications, follow these guidelines for each required section:
Title
The title of your grant is extremely important. Remember that you’ll be competing with hundreds or even thousands of other grants, so you’ll want to make yours memorable. Here’s an example of a good title that will really get your grantors’ attention:
OMG READ THIS GRANT PROPOSAL AND PASS IT ON TO 50 OTHERS OR U WILL DIE!!!:)
Abstract
Many grant-writing books counsel you to “Tell ’em what you’re gonna tell ’em, tell ’em, and then tell ’em what you told ’em.” This piece of advice presumes that what you’re tellin’ ’em is so unclear you need to tell ’em three freaking times. But hey, whatever occupies space.
The Abstract is the first time you tell ’em. It forces you to write in twenty lines what you’re about to write in twenty pages. It also makes you wonder what the point is of those twenty pages if you can summarize everything so nicely in twenty lines.
Background
Anyone who applies for multiple grants in the same field has a few “boilerplate” paragraphs that they use in the Background section of each. The more such paragraphs you incorporate, the less you have to write, so use as many as you can. That’s right: The trick to writing grant applications is to do as little writing as possible.
Significance
Writing the Significance portion of a grant application is the only time in months that the real-world applications of your research have crossed your advisor’s mind. Most academic projects have no significance—besides funding the investigation of something that happens to fascinate your advisor—so fill this section with absolute lies: “If you fund our grant to build a robot that can play badminton, um, that robot might later opt to cure cancer. It could happen.”
Specific Aims
In this section, list what you hope to accomplish with the grant money. Avoid writing truths such as “We will spend most of the money on pizza.” Grantors want to see what specifically you’ll produce (which, in the case of the pizza, is poop).
If you can’t think of any good Specific Aims, try to list some Nonspecific Aims:
We will perform research that results in a result.
We will generate something or learn something about something.
We will totally do stuff.
Collaborators
The purpose of collaborators is to commit you to working with people you’ve never met on a project that none of you fully comprehends. It also gives you someone to blame when nothing works.
Preliminary Results
It sounds odd, but to receive funding for work, you must first demonstrate that you can achieve relative success doing that work for free. Then … uh … you hope that the grantors will want to pay you anyway. Hmm.
Experimental Approach/Research Plan
It’s difficult to devise methods for research you plan to conduct several months from now. So if you can’t think of a good strategy, simply write, “Trust me.”
Project Team
Your granting agency will want to know not only what work will be done, but who exactly will do the work. This is your opportunity to assemble a crack team of ragtag misfits, each with a special skill that will come in handy at exactly the right moment. (“The data are inconclusive? Luckily we’ve got T.J., the bony ten-year-old whiz kid, and his feisty dog Scraps.”)
Budget
Most of your budget will consist of something called “over-head”—because, amazingly, when you spend money on research, other money magically disappears! Where does it go? I don’t know, but isn’t that a nice Lexus your advisor is driving?
References
You’ll spend a bulk of your grant-writing time adding, deleting, renumbering, and panicking over the references. What happened to reference 59? It became 58 when I removed reference 37? But then why didn’t reference 41 become reference 40? Now I have to realphabetize! And why does this damn thing keep auto-formatting?
Electronic Grant Submissions
Because we live in the digital age, when things that are actually simpler to do with paper are now forced to be digital, you can submit many grants online. This process ensures that (a) you can never tell, until you’ve completely submitted the application, exactly how many sections are required, and (b) everyone in the country will try simultaneously to upload their grant proposals to one overburdened, crashing website.
Extreme Makeover: Data Edition
Your advisor is in a publishin’ mood, and he won’t take “these are the data I actually measured” for an answer. How do you polish your results while maintaining a façade of statistical validity? Let’s take one of your data sets and learn how to eliminate those unsightly blemishes, or “outliers.”
And now the big reveal:
Amazing! So clean! Your fit passes right through both data points! Imagine that: Two data points, taken independently at two different times, are exactly collinear! Congratulations. Your advisor will be slightly less displeased with you.
Blind Data
In grad school, you’ll have a thousand commitments, each vying for your undivided attention. So guess what: It�
�s time to divide your attention. Divide it like a pan of brownies, and parcel out only as much as each task demands. This vital skill is called selective negligence.
When your advisor asks you to perform research, before you “try your best” or some crap like that, use this flowchart to answer the all-important question “Does this warrant genuine effort?”
Getting Anal About Oral Exams
From their role in the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials to waterboarding at Guantánamo, oral exams have enjoyed a rich history. Also called “comps,” “orals,” or “quals,” which, respectively, are short for “Completely Useless,” “Oral Sex Would Be Much Better than This,” and “Quaaludes May Be Necessary,” your oral exam is a test unlike any other. It is a test of knowledge. It is a test of mettle. It is a test of stamina.
It is a stupid, stupid test.
Basically, a group of distinguished professors surround you, much like a group of hyenas surround a wildebeest about to take an oral exam. They start by asking about your research, with which you ought to be pretty familiar. Then they ask about your general field of study. Then related fields of study. Then unrelated fields of study. Eventually, you can actually observe them physically pulling the questions from their asses. “Why is Spain?” they’ll ask. “When is Hitler?” “Balls!”*
If you know the answer to their questions, never show how comfortable and complacent you feel. Your committee will cut you off right away and move to a topic that makes you squirm. Therefore, pretend to squirm, and pretend to be as surprised as they are when you ultimately produce the right answer.
If, however, you don’t know the answer, try giving one of the sample responses below. Photocopy the next page, cut out the responses along the doted lines, and keep them in your pocket. When you’re stumped, pull one out and read it. Your committee will be impressed—or at least stunned long enough for you to run from the room and never see them again.
I’m unclear on what your definition of “is” is.
Why so much emphasis on answers? What’s important is the process. And this five hundred dollars I’m about to give you. Both are important.
Heresy!
Please phrase your question in the form of an answer.
The jig is up!
If the answer I just gave is wrong, then, baby, I don’t want to be right.
An excellent question. I might ask your wife the same thing.
I could answer that. Or, alternatively, I could show you Japanese pornography. I’ll let you choose.
It’s a trick question. There are no penguins at the North Pole.
I won’t dignify that with a response.
Does it really matter? Were all going to die someday anyway.
Partial Arts
It’s exam time, and you’re ready—kind of. You’ve studied, drilled, and familiarized yourself with all relevant concepts—sort of. You’re prepared to kick some ass (but not all ass), to pass with low-flying colors, and to give it 110 percent of the effort required to give it 70 percent.
Partial credit time, bitches.
Most exam questions have a single correct answer, but they each have many, many partially correct answers. Can’t remember who wrote Pride and Prejudice? The answer “some woman” should at least be worth a few points. Don’t know the structure of methionine? Write a C, for carbon. It’s in there!
Next time you find yourself staring blankly at an exam question, try one of these techniques for getting partial credit, remembering that when you do this, you’re being clever—but when an undergrad does this on a paper you have to grade, it’s just annoying.
THE LONG-DISTANCE ZOOM-IN
Question: What factors influenced Molière to revise his play Tartuffe?
Correct Answer: Conservative factions such as the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement viciously opposed the play, and the Archbishop of Paris threatened to excommunicate anyone who so much as read it. Thus, Molière rewrote the work as the less sardonic L’imposteur.
Answer That’s Gotta Be Worth Partial Credit: Atoms comprise molecules, which make up substances such as paper. Paper has many uses, one of which is the application of ink thereto, a process called “writing.” Those who practice writing are called “writers,” of which Molière was one. In Molière’s work, as in the work of many writers, individual letters combine to form cognitively recognizable subsets called “words.” Molière used many words when revising Tartuffe, thus creating a version containing some “words” from the original and some new ones as well. The next four paragraphs will detail the history of the theater. We will begin with ancient Greece.
THE ANSWER THAT PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVELY IMPLIES THAT THE QUESTION WAS POORLY WORDED
Question: What is the density of steel?
Correct Answer: 7.8 g/cm3
Answer That’s Gotta Be Worth Partial Credit: It’s a property of steel.
BEATING AROUND THE BUSH
Question: Name the two classes of stony meteorites.
Correct Answer: The two classes of stony meteorites are chondrites and achondrites.
Answer That’s Got a Be Worth Partial Credit: Oh, you know. Stuff. There are these classes and whatnot. How was your weekend?
WRITING ABSOLUTELY, VERIFIABLY TRUE STATEMENTS THAT ARE AS ACCURATE AS THEY ARE IRRELEVANT
Question: Briefly summarize Jean-Baptiste Larmarck’s evolutionary theory.
Correct Answer: Lamarck’s evolutionary theory encompassed a “complexifying force,” which relied upon the theory of spontaneous generation, and an “adaptive force,” which was a precursor to modern Darwinian theory.
Answer That’s Gotta Be Worth Partial Credit: Lamarck, whose first name was Jean-Baptiste, was a man. He lived for several years before he died. During his life, he formulated an evolutionary theory. This occurred prior to his death. Scholars have long referred to his evolutionary theory, and at least one assessment has been created and implemented to determine the extent of their understanding of the same. This assessment demands, “Briefly summarize Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s evolutionary theory.” Such an assessment demands a response, ideally an accurate one. This response must be constructed prior to my death.
IMPLYING THAT THE WAY THE QUESTION WILL BE GRADED MAY DAMAGE YOUR SELF-ESTEEM*
Question: In your opinion, why does Gene shake Finny from the tree in A Separate Peace?
Correct Answer: Gene feels insecure about his own abilities and sees in Finny the person he will never become. This action is Gene’s way of regaining control.
Answer That’s Gotta Be Worth Partial Credit: In MY OPINION, Gene is really a tree-shaking alien demon from the planet Feldspar. These guys shake trees all the time. And because it’s MY OPINION, you can’t mark this wrong.
THE ANSWER THAT SHOWS YOU PUT A LOT OF TIME INTO STUDYING A DIFFERENT CHAPTER
Question: Are platyhelminthes classified as acoelomates? Explain.
Correct Answer: Platyhelminthes lack an internal body cavity and thus qualify as acoelomates.
Answer That’s Gotta Be Worth Partial Credit: The giraffe is an ungulate mammal of the genus Giraffa. Its heart can weigh over twenty pounds.
THE ANSWER THAT RELIES ON A DELIBERATE, RADICAL MISINTERPRETATION
Question: Can you think of the French verb that means “to be absent”?
Correct Answer: manquer
Answer That’s Gotta Be Worth Partial Credit: No. I cannot.
THE INEVITABLE
Question: During which geologic epoch did Homo habilis appear?
Correct Answer: Pliocene
Answer That’s Gotta Be Worth Partial Credit: I love you.
Academic Conferences: More Than Just a Free Hotel Room—Free Food, Too
Good news! You’ve discovered something extremely trivial about the world, and you’ve been invited to share your observations with a small room of socially awkward people paying minimal attention. That’s right. You’re going to an academic conference.
Academic conferences are places where schol
ars of all stripes, neophytes and luminaries alike, gather in one location to dress nicely and take short, seated naps. Without conferences, a scholar would never experience that magical moment of meeting someone else who has thrown his life away in the exact same pursuit. Even better, a conference may be the only event that convinces your department to pay to send you somewhere—though don’t expect them to go nuts with the spending:
YOU: I thought you said you booked me a non-stop flight.
YOUR DEPARTMENT: No. We said it’s a nine-stop flight.