NFL offensive lineman going for his PhD in mathematics at MIT.

If this doesn't remind you of those six seasons Albert Einstein played linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles, nothing will.

Starting my PhD in math at MIT this offseason!!! pic.twitter.com/vjcSctVx9i

— John Urschel (@JohnCUrschel) January 26, 2016

In other news, Johnny Manziel is one Jägermeister-fueled bad night away from a career at Safeway. We all have paths in life.

Website: "Expand Career Options With a Graduate Degree in Math"

Good lord, why would you torture yourself?














Logically speaking, that is a ridiculous--and lazy--headline to a story. You could technically expand your career options with any graduate degree. Did you complete a grad degree in 13th century southern Norwegian art? It might be slim pickings, but guess what? Technically you expanded your career opportunities. Finish a graduate degree in 19th century Bolivian literature? You expanded your career opportunities there as well.

Maybe the person who wrote the headline should narrow their career opportunities and quit writing them.

Business school professor accidentally shows amputee porn to class.

Umm...that...and...so...yeah...okay.

University of Iowa TA accidentally emails homemade porn instead of math problem answers.

The University of Iowa math TA emailed the class the solutions for two problems that were assigned for homework.

Except she didn't attach the solutions. The TA accidentally attached a homemade porn she created online with her long distance boyfriend. Because a 7,110K file size for two math problem answers wasn't a heads-up apparently. Quantum physics offers shorter answers.

Forget the porn. The real story here is how old school our valiant TA is by still using WinZip. She might be using AOL for all we know.





"I attach"? Is she giving a present tense play-by-play of her life in the email? And why the lack of a comma after "Best"? And don't get me started on grad students and their jonesing to use "Best" habitually in emails...

A handful of people tell CNNMoney why their Master's degree was a waste of time.

It reads like the world's worst OK Cupid dating profiles all cobbled into one.

Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#9: Special TA Edition!

Sometimes teaching assistants at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"I think one of my most frightening BC moments was the end of last semester when I went back to get something out of my office and ALL THE LIGHTS WERE OFF. And it was nighttime. I thought I was going to be murdered."


BAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh, Jesus--no, they were serious. What would you be murdered with? A French baguette? Sarcasm?

Dark rooms > Jack the Ripper.





*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#8

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"I and my TAs are having a fine semester for entitled, importunate students. Get hooked up with the latest academic term of art: "ELF." Entitled little...well, you get the idea."


It's cute when a grad professor says someone is an ELF because of the irony of it all.






*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#7: Special TA Edition!

Sometimes teaching assistants at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!



Me:  So are you going to miss any of your undergrads from this semester?

Teaching Assistant #1:  No.

Teaching Assistant #2:  God, no.

Teaching Assistant #3:  No-no. I'm ready to see them leave me.

Me:  Really? Not even just a couple of students?

TA #2:  Yeah, I don't like a single student in my class this semester. They're just...I can't stand a single one.

TA #1:  Mmm, really, I know.

TA #2:  Always after me with emails. Always asking about assignments. But none of them are bright. No one is really that smart. No one talks much in class.

TA #3:  Oh, I know, I know. No one talks in my class either.

TA #1:  No one talks in my class either!

TA #2:  Yeah, they sit there stone silent, as if I'm supposed to give them the answer. They're just a bunch of--well, I shouldn't say it--guess I should say it nicely somehow--just that my undergrads are all a bunch of brats. I'll be happy to get rid of them. All of them.

TA #1:  Yeah, me too. I can't wait to see them out the door.

TA #3:  Mmmm, me too. I didn't like any of my students either.

Me:  [hesitating]  Huh. That's odd. Maybe it's weird of me to say, but I think I'm going to miss nearly all of my own students. They've been a good bunch.

TA #2:  You probably lucked out, because I don't think any grad student likes the undergrads they have.

Me:  Everyone says that, that I lucked out. But I've always liked my classes every time I teach. They all tried in my class. Most worked hard, even if it didn't pan out in a grade they wanted. I never had any issue getting anyone to talk. I always have a lively bunch of chatty students.

TA #2:  Nah. I hope I never see a single one of my students again. I want them to ignore me if they ever pass me in public. Just walk on by. Don't even look at me. Go away.

TA #1:  Oh, I know! Me, too!

TA #3:  Mmm, indeed.

TA #2:  Like, really, I never want to think of them again.

Me:  Because they felt uncomfortable talking in your class?

TA #2:  YES!



*Not really delightful.

Book Review: The Marrow of Tradition, by Charles Chesnutt

This is part of the continuing series of random book reviews that'll be nothing like a New York Times book review. Gone is the ten thousand word analysis. Instead, here is a book review like you'd tell your friends.

The book: Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition

Story:

A professor I was working with as a TA in an American Lit class used this book during the semester out of pity for a Ph.D candidate who had spent seven years building his dissertation around Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition. She even agreed to let the Ph.D give a lecture in her class around the book.

The Ph.D candidate--obviously--loved Marrow. The professor hated it, but never told the guy. Again, pity.

So imagine what a book club would be like. One person will make a fuss over the sad/happy ending, while some cynic in the group will argue the race riots are a dated ploy for attention. At one point some book club attendee sitting quietly in the corner will pity everyone reading Marrow, and silently hope next month the group will read The Help.

The Marrow of Tradition is that kind of book. That kind of book everyone either loves or hates, even the academic types that make a career out of such things. You pity someone who loves it, you pity someone who hates it--but everyone feels a little pitiful if they haven't even bothered to read it.





For the record, I side with the Ph.D student, without the slightest hint of pity.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#6

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"Why do you think it's okay to take a contrarian position and disagree? Why not just agree with me and your classmates?"


Uhh...because I didn't think I lived in North Korea?





*Not really delightful

photo: Boston.com

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#5

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"Faculty at state colleges and universities let their students down and fail their educations because they have a higher workload, so they can't read up on the latest research."


Or, put another way: private college and university professors don't work as hard.



*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#4

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"You guys don't understand how the real world works like I do."


 ...said a professor who, according to them, has only held one job their entire life--their current job as professor. Nothing but a college student and grad student at Ivy League institutions, with "care packages" in the form of money from their parents, then got a job at a university with half the required workload of most other colleges and universities.

Man, I wish I lived in a real world like they did. I like the idea of never having to work much. Sounds pretty sweet.



*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#3

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"The humanities will be saved by private universities. Public universities have no use for anything outside maths and sciences, or gimmick classes to sell in advertising because they need bodies in the classroom."


Yeah, how silly of those public universities with all their maths and sciences. What's anyone going to do with that in the 21st century? Dweebs!


*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#2

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"Public colleges and universities create workers, not thinkers."

Cue the Occupy Grad School movement in 3...2...

As someone who came from a public school for my undergraduate degree, I don't even know what to think about that statement.



*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#1

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"You know, when we look over applications to the grad department, we picture what a student might look like. And you...don't...look like what we imagined."

In case you're wondering, I'm 6ft, height/weight proportionate, blondish hair, blue eyes, normal appearance. Maybe they imagined I'd look like Tattoo from Fantasy Island. Common mistake.



*Not really delightful.

And I thought grad school expectations were insane.

College entrance exams in China are a lot like they are in America. For example, take these photos from a high school in Xiaogan, courtesy of Kotaku and China Buzz.

These are Chinese high school students hooked up to amino acid IVs so they can keep studying for their college entrance exams without needing to stop for anything silly, like dinner. Don't ask me what they do if Nature calls. I'm assuming they go full crazy astronaut lady and prep accordingly.

I do the same thing with grad school. Except my IV's filled with alcohol and collected tears of desperation.

The 10 Most Educated Countries in the World...

...are pretty much what you'd expect.

Moving on...

One way of describing the (sometimes) experience:

Hitler in a Youtube ha-ha memes of what it's like to be a graduate student TA. Swap out the History major angle for an English Lit view, and it's a 99% spot-on description of my life:

The movie is Downfall, about Hitler's last days. Goooood movie. Watch it.

Prof or Hobo?

Grad School Grunge afflicts thousands of male grad students (and the occasional female). Symptoms of Grad School Grunge are a lack of shaving, a slovenly appearance, and a delightful tendency to forget deodorant.

As a grad student, I can report I occasionally sport a beard that would win fans among the rural hermits in Montana, with a clothing style channeling the spirit of David Bowie after a bad bender in the Soho district, circa 1974. Deodorant and I are still tight though.

Grad students occasionally become professors. Which is why someone at the University of Toronto created a quiz called Prof or Hobo?

The easiest way to tell the difference in person? Do they mumble nearly indecipherable gibberish about the good ol' days with a tear in their eye? They're probably a professor then.


photo: utoronto.ca

Woman works on getting masters in LOLCat

No, seriously. She's getting a masters in Can I Has a Cheezburger.

Kate Miltner is smarter than all of us. Why? She's getting a masters in internet memes--like the lolcats and anything else that tickles our collective fancy on the internet for about five minutes before we're easily distracted by something new. Look! A chipmunk set to dramatic music!

She's smarter than the rest of us because we didn't think of this first. Anything can be researched in-depth if you put your mind to it (and find a very liberal-minded faculty at a university).

So I'm just putting it out there first: I want to research the complexities of Glee. I've never watched the show, but I assume there's a hundred page paper in there about obsession, bad showtunes, and extensive jazz hand usage that's just dying to be examined.