What is it like to be a grad student? by Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno

The new school year is about to start. I was just checking the room that my Department of Physics makes available for graduate students. On the wall is a poster of John Belushi from “Animal House.” He is wearing a shirt that says “COLLEGE”. Most college professors and many professional scientists like me went to graduate school. What is it like to be a grad student?

Being a graduate student is like being in college, in some ways. It’s mostly different, in other ways. Fun and games make up much less of it, unless you consider doing lots of reading and homework fun---and you might, in order to have become a grad student in the first place. It’s much more professional: you’re doing a job, and you're conscious of it.

It can be heady to be playing with the big kids at last. But then, as Groucho Marx noted, “I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.” Some graduate courses, especially ones with nicknames such as “Jackson e&m,” inspire a feeling of shared adversity among grad students. Notice that no one calls the course by its actual name, "Classical Electrodynamics": they refer to it by the name of the author of the famous textbook, noted for its difficulty, especially of its homework problems. When you meet classmates again in later life, you can feel the camaraderie of heroes, years after the war. And of course, that's the class where you really learn how to be a professional scientist. Most grad students are over 21, and so can legally drink, unlike in most of college. Most grad students don’t have time for drinking, though.

Many grad students also do their first teaching, often as teaching assistants running labs for undergraduates. There is no more rewarding profession than being a teacher, but it’s not all fun. Your students look very different from the other side of the classroom. A great disappointment can be just how mean, childish, and seemingly deliberately stupid some of your students can be. Some of them act like outright weenies, one reason being they surmise you are not much older or different from them, and therefore are vulnerable. Complaining about student misconduct far too often gets a response of “Don’t spend so much time teaching” from faculty. This is because a department that has graduate students probably wants them primarily to help in research, on which faculty often are judged exclusively.

Some old professors say, “Enjoy your time in grad school. They’re the best years of your career!” This struck me much like the old state trooper at the driver license office who would say, “Enjoy your time in high school. They’re the best years of your life!” It always good to enjoy any time in your life, but if that’s the best you can do, you’ve had a dull career or life.

--Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno