For those of you who are living under rocks (or in a lab/the library) and aren't aware, last week was graduate student appreciation week. The University shelled out for yoga classes, wine tastings, and reasonably funny Ph.D. comedian Jorge Cham. Gee, University, that's nice of you. But I say it's not enough! Firefighters and doctors get the respect of millions, and for what? Saving a few measly little lives?
Graduate students, when on their game, save thousands of lives with a single chemical equation. And think of how many lives would have been lost if no one had written a dissertation on Freudian symbolism in Hamlet. I can think of at least one. English. major.
See? We save lives! We face danger! Maybe not at, you know, exactly the same time, but we deserve a paean to our unsung valiances just as much as everyone else. Thus, in honor of grad appreciation week, I think it's about time the dangerous reality of being a graduate student was revealed to society at large.
To begin, research is perilous. One might accidentally stab oneself with a needle full of cancer cells, or slip and cut one's wrist open on one's Coke-bottle glasses. Not to mention the danger of eternal damnation upon writing a thesis and coming to the conclusion that there is, in fact, no God. Also, I hear carpal tunnel syndrome is incredibly painful.
Many of the research-dedicated buildings on campus are also fraught with peril. Take the LSRC. For months, my basement lab has been plagued by a mysterious swamp gas that smells like rotting eggs. Although my neurotoxicology professor assures me that most harmful gases are actually scentless, he mentioned in class a few weeks ago that sometimes a sulfur odor is added to let people know they are being intoxicated so they can escape. Incidentally, sulfur smells like rotting eggs.
There's also the danger of spending late nights in basements of buildings on campus, most of which have an obligatory sinister hallway that is far too long and creepy to serve any possible purpose, but is just long and creepy enough to serve as the setting for a death scene in the next "The Ring." Starring you.
Then there are the consequences of making no money. Such as, for instance, that eating nothing but free pizza, Chinese food and fried appetizers at random club functions might lead to obesity and heart disease. Or the more immediate danger of selling your reproductive materials, blood and sanity for dough or getting inoculated against herpes for $450 with a vaccine that may or may not eventually be determined to cause cancer, death, or even. herpes (The study's at UNC in case you just ran out of food).
Also, being poor means you probably have a roommate you met since you got here, and sometimes new roommates are of questionable sanity. Enough said.
Oh yeah, and stress is neurotoxic and prevents the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus, which you are most likely to need. while in grad school. In short, advanced degrees are terrible for you in every aspect of life except the impressing-your-parents, looking important and one-day-making-money aspect. But you probably already knew that.
Finally, amid downing copious amounts of coffee and having no time to buy fresh groceries, you may not have had time to actually watch the news for weeks on end. Sometimes I think we could be in the midst of a catastrophic environmental crisis in which the polar ice caps melt and life on earth dies, and I would have no idea. What's that? We ARE?
Jacqui Detwiler is a graduate student in psychology and neuroscience. Her column runs every Wednesday.
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