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So tonight I started making a collage of my dreams out of construction paper and had to stop and think, "...so this is grad school?"

Grad school also involves realizing that every topic and conceivable thing one might want research has already been done, and by somebody better than you. The best you can do is hunt for a spinoff so obscure that nobody else would think it important, and then hope that, say, a theory of representation study on Donkey Kong (1) might somehow become academically significant in the future.

So basically you're halfway between retarded and irrelevant.

I think many grad students wrap themselves up in a scholastic straitjacket, getting so involved in the big wide arena of conferences and funding that they lose track of the outside world. It's kind of tricky, convoluted existence, this churn of knowledge, one which doesn't lend itself easily to broader perspectives. I mean, everyone's smart, but they're also not, y'know? The eagerness in the newcomers reminds me of an imploding star when placed beside the general malaise and weary bitterness of upper-year black holes.

Funnily enough, I'm not unhappy. I just write sad because that's what I see.

[grad school]

Posted by Chris at 12:36 AM >> Commentations (1)