To add a drunk mistake I made, never tell the school you’re visiting that it wasn’t your 1st choice – especially if they already know you were accepted to the school that is! I can say with fair confidence that turned me into a total tool asap.

Fortunately, I have a few more where I can NOT be a tool. And I regret that my schedule does not allow me to run into psi*psi even though we do have one weekend at the same location.

Cursed green beer on “unofficial St. patricks Day”

Also, my department is largely dysfunctional because we have too many tools at all levels. Everyone is too good to be genuine, and department activities are hokey as a result. The gossip wheel spins so fast I’m thinking of ways to harness that alternative energy. Ask about such things!

Of course, you could have spent three years in graduate school and then had to retake cumes because your advisor moved. There’s some time you’ll never get back.

The role of a ‘paper synthesis’ is just as easily filled with what we called ‘mechanism monday’, where we worked out mechanisms for reactions in the lit, or, more realistically, hooted at and derided junior students’ attempts to do so. (Then, of course, we had to put up or face even more withering derision from the boss.)

Nothing builds confidence more than working your way through a tricky mechanism with labmates yelling “Sit down!”, “Ouch, ouch!”, ” What the fuck is wrong with you?” and “My eyes!”. It sure made seminars seem like a cakewalk. When I gave my exit, the computer the department supplied seized up in mid-PowerPoint, and I never broke a sweat.