At some point in your life, you will come across people who, despite landing a job after college, are using their hard-earned money to study again. You might smirk at the idea of these graduate students (whether they are in med school, law school, MA or PhD) “wasting” their resource, time and effort on having a college life after college is already over, but the truth is that many people try to better themselves in this way. Here are 12 things that only a graduate student would understand.
1. We’re still friends, but I can’t come with you tonight for a drink.
You know what I’m talking about—those friends who incessantly invite you for a drink on Friday or Saturday night. While it’s tempting to enjoy a hearty dinner and booze with our dear friends, we can’t help but consider that studying for our recitation the next day is better than saying “yes” for the meantime (and meantime means a lot of time). This is no longer a stage where we can just go out and feel at ease the next morning, since usually, we have something to recite in front of the class.
2. When I say I am broke, it means that I. Am. Really. Broke.
Most graduate students are actually struggling in life with balancing full-time time work and studies. While some rich kid grad students have the luxury of both money and time to lean on, we working graduate students are paying rent, bills, books and for our own sumptuous dinner after finals. So if you try to invite us for a movie and we say we’re broke, just buy what we’re saying. We really are broke.
3. The office is a warehouse of our research papers.
C’mon! Come clean now. At some point in our life, we asked our manager to print something for us, whether it is a research paper, a proposal or a PDF of our lesson for the semester—whatever it may be, we are very thankful to our quite-understanding managers who help us print it for free. Anyway, we work hard while we’re at work, don’t we?
4. We take bedtime as seriously as study time.
We are not just party-deprived—we are also sleep-deprived. We feel sleepy while studying, so we try to sleep, but then we just obsess over everything we’re nervous about, so we can’t sleep! It’s a vicious cycle. As a grad student, it really takes a lot of courage to embrace sleep as we did when we were children. ‘Nuff said—I am going to sleep. Bye!
5. There’s no such thing as a weekend.
I have known weekends as a 2-day phenomenon where you can do just anything and enjoy yourself. But entering grad school made me erase “weekend” from my vocabulary. What’s the point of having this so-called weekend when all we can do is finish our paper work? So what does our usual work week look like? Mondays through Mondays.
6. Expect the unexpected with your mediocre classmates—they usually do great later!
In grad school, your peers will all be wearing costumes. It’s quite hard to pinpoint who’s who, and it’s especially difficult to pinpoint the winners. Don’t judge your peers too early—they might remove their masks and emerge as winners.
7. Our backpack is our home and our smart phone is our office.
The world is totally fast-paced right now. If you combined that with a full-time job and being in grad school, you will surely find yourself praying that days are longer than 24 hours so that you can sleep for eight. But the Earth’s axis cannot grant our request, so we are more likely live the life of a turtle, having everything packed in our bags and in our smart phone. I didn’t even know I have a cake in my bag for almost a week.
8. Is there food in that seminar?
Are we suppose to be ashamed of this? Well, I think not. With seminars and classes piling up one after the other, grad students would probably ask there if there is food in that seminar. I mean we are going to allot our precious time on a quite long seminar so please give us a consolation of food that we can munch on once we’re bored. Make it two helpings, please.
9. Health is wealth. But I’d rather sleep.
Talk about health? I would really love to but you know…I am kinda….but seriously….zzzzzzzzzzzz
10. Graduating with flying colors doesn’t guarantee success.
We are no longer undergrad students where a Latin Honor will hype us in the so-called “real world.” But what comes after is nothing more than the real world with a twist. Once you’re in grad school, having a special color robe during graduation is practically meaningless. It’s just another attempt to prove one’s worth; the secret to success is to be humble.
11. We are not on track with other 20-somethings.
While many of my mates on Facebook (and why am I even online when I’m supposed to be studying) are posting their photos of being married, having their second baby, or opening their online store, here we are still grappling with our books when we were supposed to be done with this like 2 years ago. But this is the road we’ve taken, so let it be.
12. We are not just students; we are GRADUATE students.
We don’t earn our crazy eye bags just for nothing. So please understand that we won’t let you get away with saying we are just students. We are undergrad students and we are now embarking on being graduate students. Again, we are not just students. We. Are. Graduate. Students. Although it can be difficult, we certainly love what we are doing. After all, partaking in graduate school is already written in our plans and decisions as adults. Oops! I have to go work on my assignment now.
Featured photo credit: back of graduates during commencement. via shutterstock.com
