10 Suggestions for Becoming a More-Pretentious Graduate Student.

February 27, 2007 at 6:57 pm | | grad life, nerd

10 suggestions on becoming a more-pretentious graduate student.

1) Name drop. How are people supposed to know you’re close personal friends with a variety of Nobel laureates unless you tell them? Frequently. Remember, you don’t actually have to be friends with them to claim them as friends – casual acquaintance (meaning you shook their hands once) is enough.  If you are fortunate enough to correspond with one, carry a copy of the correspondence with you to impress your peers.  Feel free to read it/paraphrase it to friends (by friends, I mean colleagues.  If you’re truly a pretentious graduate student, you don’t have friends).  They may seem like they’re ignoring you/leaving the room, but it’s just to hide their envy.

2) Use and sometimes invent big “chemistry” words in unnecessary circumstances, especially if it ends up making absolutely no sense. In order to maximize the aural impact of the communicative spoken word, an intricate lexicon must be implemented. The principal objective of this is to confuse the listener into thinking you are some sort of genius who has quite a grasp on chemistry. Don’t be afraid to be colligative!

3) Do not be satisfied with only one language. Knowing foreign languages will make you seem travelled and cultured. The more languages you know, the more intelligent you seem (and the more women/men you can theoretically impress – bigger pool of candidates). Try to speak at least four.

4) Don’t be afraid to take credit for the work and ideas of others. Even if you didn’t think it up or work on it yourself, your mere existence probably inspired it.

5) Similarly, make sure you get credit for the work you do yourself. If someone is publishing a paper on trapping single-molecules between electrodes using magnetic fields, demand that your work on Fe-Cu protein mimics is cited. If the author can’t see how the two are related, then just remind him that he’s not a good chemist.

6) Belittle the educational background of your peers as often as possible. If you went to an Ivy-league school, refer to state-schools as “community colleges.” If you went to a state school, refer to Ivy-league graduates as “rich snobs” that have had “everything in life handed to them.” If you went to a small liberal arts college, refer to the products of all other colleges as “socially awkward” and “small-minded.”

7) Be involved in politics, but limit your commitment. Feel free to engage in political discourse and debate, but if you are losing don’t admit defeat. Instead, respond that you don’t have time to think about politics, since you’re thinking so much about science. Advise them that if they were “good chemists” and “serious scientists,” they wouldn’t be thinking so much about politics anyway. Treat sports similarly.

8) Don’t be afraid to brown-nose. If an “important” scientist asks you to warm his seat for him, jump at the opportunity. If you have more than one advisor, decide early on which one is more influential in your chosen field, and latch on to him like a tapeworm onto the lining of the small intestine. Other graduate students may ridicule you for your actions, but gently remind them that your connections are securing you an assistant professorship or prestigious postdoctoral fellowship while they will be struggling to find employment at McDonalds when they graduate. Note – you do not actually need an assistant professorship offer or prestigious postdoctoral fellowship to make this claim.

9) Come up with a few witty catchphrases, such as “have fun” or “get to work” and repeat them. Often. Perhaps use one such as “your mom” as a witty comeback to the insults of others. Example:

Person A) I don’t think your data is reasonable. I just don’t think you can have a negative turnover frequency.

Person B) Your mom thought a negative turnover frequency was reasonable last night!

Although people may stop talking to you and/or ridicule you, they are simply jealous of your unconquerable wit.

10) If you feel as though someone in your group isn’t respecting your research, or is starting a project that may be more influential then your project, then by all means don’t tell them. Instead, visit the advisor and say that you no longer wish to collaborate with your group-mate because he is “not a serious scientist” and “a bad chemist.” Then, approach the student and tell him that you talked to his advisor, and that both of you agreed that you no longer need waste “the time and materials” on the student. Alternatively, you can sabotage the student’s work (for instance, take down a critical instrument for maintenance every time the student needs to use it or hoard resources) to avoid conflict.  Remember, only you can safeguard your graduate legacy.

14 Comments »

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  1. becoming a more pretentious graduate student.” As much as we hate to admit it, chemists can be a little overbearing at times, and this list just describes graduate school struggles soooo accurately. I thought it was hilarious, so I wanted to share it: https://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=434

    Pingback by A Chemist's Laboratory Notebook — March 23, 2007 #

  2. Laboratory “motivation” posters Worst figure ever (good? science): How to tell if your rabbit is dead Worst figure ever (definitely bad science): correlation between fatness and stupidity how to become a pretentious chemistry grad student

    Pingback by Quantum mechanic — May 19, 2007 #

  3. […] holy cow…here’s a late addition to the clippings from Everyday […]

    Pingback by ChemBark » Blog Archive » Clippings Dump: February 2007 — February 27, 2007 #

  4. Where was this information 5 years ago?!?!? I could have used it.

    Comment by Chemgeek — February 27, 2007 #

  5. Poor guy…

    Comment by Andrew Sun — February 28, 2007 #

  6. My secrets are out of the bag!

    Comment by Steve Lippard — February 28, 2007 #

  7. curious, “steve lippard,” i see you ip address as coming from notre dame, not mit…

    Comment by sam — February 28, 2007 #

  8. And if you have non-chemistry friends (preferably from arts or software !), and you happen to have a glove box in your lab (even if it is non functional), make sure you have your hands sticking into it when they visit you. Tell them that there is a highly air-sensitive, explosive intermediate you are working with and can’t really afford to remove your hands from the glove box until the whole reaction is over.
    Rejoice at the awe in their eyes !

    Comment by Lakshmi — March 13, 2007 #

  9. […] 10 suggestions on becoming a more-pretentious graduate student. […]

    Pingback by PurpleCar :: Character Info: 10 ways to be a pretentious grad student — March 19, 2007 #

  10. This is a nice article for a student like me, i hv never thought something like this…

    Comment by rahimi — July 28, 2007 #

  11. […] to be the greatest graduate student ever. Everyday Scientist published a top 10 list, “10 Suggestions for Becoming a More-Pretentious Graduate […]

    Pingback by How to be the greatest graduate student ever. « Surface Enhanced Scattered Thoughts — August 4, 2007 #

  12. Thanx a lot! This is very useful.

    Comment by tłumaczenia angielski — September 23, 2007 #

  13. “10 Suggestions for Becoming a More-Pretentious Graduate Student” – Good work. Cogratulations

    Comment by bilety lotnicze — November 2, 2007 #

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