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[mountainguy]

So I unexpectedly ran into a classmate  (or more of a program acquaintance really, since I finished coursework years ago). This was part of our actual conversation . . .

Me: So what are you up to??
Classmate: I'm writing an e-mail to Professor Whoever about [assignment]. I really don't think it was fair.
Me (eyebrows raised): Why?
Classmate: I don't like that [the assignment] required so much work. It's too hard for people who don't read fast.
Me (eyebrows about to off the top of my head): Are you sure that's a good idea?
Classmate: Why not??
Me: Uhhh . . . it sounds like the e-mails we get from undergrads at the end of the semester.
Classmate: But that's different. Undergrads don't have to read as much. I'm being respectful.
Me: So, what are you doing for winter break??


Share your *favorite* conversations with clueless, funny, or otherwise noteworthy classmates here.

[chaosbydesign]

Oh, I could have used this thread this semester! My classmates (undergrads) are a bunch of snowflakes.

Conversation regarding an online class:

Classmate: I'm so going to complain about this! There's soooo much work!
Me: It doesn't actually take any longer than attending a class each week.
Classmate: But all the reading! The questions! The research!
Me: Which is exactly what we'd have if it were a f2f class. Don't you think it's helpful to have a full set of notes online anyway?
Classmate: But the questions! The research! The reading! It's so unfair!
Me: Maybe you're actually doing more work than is required. How long does each section take you?
Classmate: Oh, I haven't actually read any of it! That's what I mean. There's just too much!
Me: <headdesk> (IIRC I did actually bang my head on the table for real)

Before one of the finals:

Me: Well, at least we know X will be on the test.
Classmate 1: X? What?
Classmate 2: Yeah what's that? I've never heard of it.
Me: You know, X. The one we did a couple of weeks ago. The one [prof] said would be on the exam during the revision tutorial?
Classmate 2: Oh. I never went to that.
Classmate 1: Me neither. So what's X? I need a good mark in this. I didn't do well in the coursework because the instructions were so unclear.
Me: <explains X>
Classmate 1: That's far too complicated for me!
Classmate 2: I'm screwed.

[polly_mer]

It's been awhile since I was in graduate school, but I remember having this wonderful conversation when my office mate showed up after having been MIA for a couple of weeks.

Polly: You  know, you are supposed to be doing about 20 hours a week, right?

Classmate:  Yeah, I study really hard for all my classes and with my TA assignment, I'm definitely doing 20 hours.

Polly:  Um, no.  In addition to whatever you are doing with the classes you are taking and your TA assignment, you are supposed to be doing 20 hours a week of research.

Classmate:  How am I supposed to find time to do that?

Polly:  Well, it's graduate school.  We put in 60-70 hour weeks.  That's how it works.

Classmate:  Pffft!  That's not right.  A work week is forty hours and my TA contract says 10 hours so if I don't have to punch a time card, then I'm not going to.  I'm a highly trained professional and I can do what I like.

[mountainguy]

Classmate:  Pffft!  That's not right.  A work week is forty hours and my TA contract says 10 hours so if I don't have to punch a time card, then I'm not going to.  I'm a highly trained professional and I can do what I like.

How did that attitude work out for him/her?? I'm guessing "not well."

[polly_mer]

Classmate:  Pffft!  That's not right.  A work week is forty hours and my TA contract says 10 hours so if I don't have to punch a time card, then I'm not going to.  I'm a highly trained professional and I can do what I like.

How did that attitude work out for him/her?? I'm guessing "not well."

"Not well" only if you think finished a doctorate in a top 5 program and took a great non-academic job in the city of her preference is not well.  However, she did straighten up considerably after it became clear that that attitude was not working for her and she put her nose to the grindstone to do some very nice work once she was through with classes and being a TA.

[omelas56]

Polly: You  know, you are supposed to be doing about 20 hours a week, right?

Classmate:  Yeah, I study really hard for all my classes and with my TA assignment, I'm definitely doing 20 hours.

Polly:  Um, no.  In addition to whatever you are doing with the classes you are taking and your TA assignment, you are supposed to be doing 20 hours a week of research.

I don't get it. Did this person have a TA-ship as well as an RA-ship? Excuse my ignorance; I'm in the humanities and we have to do 20 hours of TA duties per week (office hours + teaching + grading), but that's all. We do our research in the leftover time, but we certainly don't have to be at the University to do that (I do it at home). (Of course we also go to class for 9 hours per week.)

[infogoon]

From a Corporate Ethics class in my MBA program:

A group of students has just finished a presentation on executive compensation and wage disparity in large corporations, and the professor is surprised that the class isn't more outraged about the unfairness of the difference in pay between executives and lower-level workers.

One student pipes up: "We're in this program to be the next generation of business executives, right? So why would _we_ be upset about this?"

I think he might have missed the point.

[polly_mer]

Polly: You  know, you are supposed to be doing about 20 hours a week, right?

Classmate:  Yeah, I study really hard for all my classes and with my TA assignment, I'm definitely doing 20 hours.

Polly:  Um, no.  In addition to whatever you are doing with the classes you are taking and your TA assignment, you are supposed to be doing 20 hours a week of research.

I don't get it. Did this person have a TA-ship as well as an RA-ship? Excuse my ignorance; I'm in the humanities and we have to do 20 hours of TA duties per week (office hours + teaching + grading), but that's all. We do our research in the leftover time, but we certainly don't have to be at the University to do that (I do it at home). (Of course we also go to class for 9 hours per week.)

Yes, we all had research assistantships because that's how engineering works.  If no one will fund your research, then you don't get accepted into the program.  Very few engineers can do their research at home and this student was no exception. 

This particular program insisted that students also be a TA for at least two semesters for various reasons under the category of departmental needs and good practice for those who might become academics.  We were required to attend 12 credits of class a week (labs and seminars might be more than 1 hour) in addition to our TA, which was officially 10 hours a week to make the humanities-heavy graduate student union happy, but no one who succeeded in the program spent 10 hours a week on that TA work and it was in fact stupid to do so for those of us who only got paid $50 a month for being a TA*, but were making $25-40K/year as an RA.  We had undergraduate graders for the homework and we didn't lecture.  A TA in engineering means holding a one-hour problem-solving session, writing the homework keys for the undergraduate grader, and holding another hour or two of office hours for more problem solving.  Thus, one should be able to successfully TA in under 10 hours a week while meeting the research progress requirements. 

Legally one is only being paid for 20 hours total work a week so for a 10 hour TA and a 10 hour RA, that's topping out.  However, realistically, no one gets enough done to progress in a timely manner without averaging 30-50 hours a week on the research, regardless of what else is on the plate.  Certainly, the advisors have no qualms about bouncing someone from the program for failing to make research progress while people with borderline grades and teaching evaluations, but stunning research would get to stay.  One way to prove that one was trying was to clock 20 hours a week (the official research expectation) and have a notebook filled with things that didn't work, even if "progress" couldn't be made in terms of getting closer to the solution to the problem.

*The graduate student union was dominated by people who were very concerned about making minimum living stipends.  The compromise that was reached with the university was a stipend cap for each level of experience as a graduate student so that departments would be more likely to have a lot of lower-level TA's instead of giving all the money to very experienced ABD's who were still hanging around.  However, in practice, that meant that those of us who came into the university with excellent research fellowships got screwed because we then had to do our TA duties for practically free instead of getting extra money for the extra effort.

[imawakenow]

If I had to list my actual favorite conversations, then I would list the many times members of my department ended up at a bar talking about research, our program, life, etc. Those were some good times, but my guess is that mtg emphasized *favorite* for a reason, so here's mine:

We had a student in our program who was famous for disappearing for weeks at a time.

This person would show up one day and invariably start a conversation by saying: "I haven't seen you around lately. Where have you been?"

This would put other grad students on the defensive until this exchange:

Person to me: I haven't seen you around much. Where have you been?

Me: Sitting right here working. Where you have been?

Person: Uh, I've been busy.

Last I heard the person was working on the dissertation proposal but in danger of exceeding the program time limit.

On preview: I think you probably had to be there.

[omelas56]

Yes, we all had research assistantships because that's how engineering works.  If no one will fund your research, then you don't get accepted into the program. 

Very interesting. Thanks for the explanation!

[zarathustra]

Classmate and I were in the same seminar, and he was describing his project to me, which involved listening to two different recordings of the same famous composition with the same famous conductor, but many years apart.  One of his recordings was on LP.  Now...classmate is also a musician and even older than I, so the workings of the LP shouldn't have been any kind of surprise.

Me: So, what did you discover?  

Classmate: I thought I had found some huge contrasts in tempo and mood, and I had this great theory as to why, and I was able to correspond the aesthetics to this conductors life events...but I realized I had the turntable's speed too low.

Me: Oh, hahaha, that must have been funny.  At least you didn't listen to the whole symphony that way.

Classmate: [silence]

Me: Uh, you did hear the totally different pitch right away, right?

Classmate: [sheepish shrug, embarrassed smile, much blushing]

Me: Dude...no...seriously?

Classmate: I didn't realize it until I played the LP for someone else, after I turned the paper in.

[polly_mer]

Classmate and I were in the same seminar, and he was describing his project to me, which involved listening to two different recordings of the same famous composition with the same famous conductor, but many years apart.  One of his recordings was on LP.  Now...classmate is also a musician and even older than I, so the workings of the LP shouldn't have been any kind of surprise.

Me: So, what did you discover?  

Classmate: I thought I had found some huge contrasts in tempo and mood, and I had this great theory as to why, and I was able to correspond the aesthetics to this conductors life events...but I realized I had the turntable's speed too low.

Me: Oh, hahaha, that must have been funny.  At least you didn't listen to the whole symphony that way.

Classmate: [silence]

Me: Uh, you did hear the totally different pitch right away, right?

Classmate: [sheepish shrug, embarrassed smile, much blushing]

Me: Dude...no...seriously?

Classmate: I didn't realize it until I played the LP for someone else, after I turned the paper in.

Oh, wow, Zarathustra, that's pretty bad.

[punchnpie]

A work week is forty hours and my TA contract says 10 hours so if I don't have to punch a time card, then I'm not going to. 

I had to do 20 hrs a week. Over my time in the program I worked in the research center, a couple of special projects in the program, and 1 term of TA-ing. Most of my time, I worked for my advisor, a dyed-in-the-wool socialist. She'd always talk about not exploiting the worker. As a capitalist myself, I didn't want to be exploited. We got along fine. There were never any issues about my 20 hours. Now, I wouldn't get up in the middle of something and leave because my 20 hrs were over, but there was no exploitation. And yeah, I'd say that the expectation that a student is going to work more than the contracted hours is exploitation.

Toward the end of my doctoral program, grad students from the humanities lobbied for and got a union. I dislike unions intensely and didn't join. One of the reasons some students were pushing for the union was exploitation. I wasn't exploited and felt I could talk to my advisor if there were any problems. Obviously these other students couldn't resolve their issues without a union stepping in to save them. And as usual with unions, even though I didn't join, they still got money from my check. Way to go, bloodsuckers! I'm making a pittance as a GA and you've got the nerve to take money from me? Blech!

[grasshopper]

A work week is forty hours and my TA contract says 10 hours so if I don't have to punch a time card, then I'm not going to. 

Now, I wouldn't get up in the middle of something and leave because my 20 hrs were over, but there was no exploitation. And yeah, I'd say that the expectation that a student is going to work more than the contracted hours is exploitation.

I think that Polly's old classmate was including his own doctoral research in his figures.

Heck, Polly! With an attitude like that, I'm surprised he didn't put in a claim for overtime!

[polly_mer]

A work week is forty hours and my TA contract says 10 hours so if I don't have to punch a time card, then I'm not going to. 

Now, I wouldn't get up in the middle of something and leave because my 20 hrs were over, but there was no exploitation. And yeah, I'd say that the expectation that a student is going to work more than the contracted hours is exploitation.

I think that Polly's old classmate was including his own doctoral research in his figures.

One of the oddities of graduate school in engineering and the physical sciences is that one is technically paid for X hours of work on someone's project as an RA, but usually one is also using a good bit of that project as one's own dissertation research.  Thus, while no one ought to be made to work 70 hour weeks (that is exploitation and that does happen), realistically, one usually must be doing a whole lot more than the contracted X hours in order to be making proper progress on that project. 

Treating project work that functions both as technical employment and dissertation research as mere clock punching is a distinct no-no.  If one is registered for X credits of research (one easy way to get around the "must be registered for 12 credits every semester" requirement even as a first-semester grad student), then one ought to be spending 3X-4X hours a week on that research just as one would be doing 3X-4X hours of work on the class between homework, attendance, and studying.  However, treating project work that is mere employment separate from the dissertation research as clock punching is considered acceptable if,  for example, one is feeding the animals in the biology lab for money, but one's dissertation research is on volcanoes in Russia (true example of someone I knew).

Heck, Polly! With an attitude like that, I'm surprised he didn't put in a claim for overtime!

I don't think she knew about overtime.  She was raised in Moscow, was an immigrant to the US for her undergraduate degree, and then had a salaried position for a few years between undergrad and grad school.