/sci/ - Science & Math

please commit suicide

Stop being such a pussy. Everyone feels like this in grad school.

>that feel when you choose your grad school so that you'd still be the smartest person around

>>4317552
>confirmation bias detected
Obviously not the ones who are actually the smartest.

>high school
>do pretty well academically, but socially withdrawn
>try out for lacrosse team to make friends, look good on college apps
>dickhead on team constantly makes fun of me, makes me feel like shit
>"fuck him, that dumb jock is going to be grilling burgers for the rest of his life"

>fast forward to college
>physics major, do decent, get social life, relatively happy
>go to MIT for guest lecture with some other students
>find out lax dickhead is going to MIT
>he's studying physics to, only he's got a 5.0 GPA and doing graduate level work
>he ends up fucking the only hot female physics student in my school. she friendzoned me a few weeks before
>mfw

>>4317556
No. EVERYONE feels like this when they get to grad school. Feelings of inadequacy are more common than ramen noodle dinners.

>that feel when in undergrad you will constantly hear about stereotypes that intelligent men get laid less, but brush it off as someone being butthurt and overhyping themselves
>that feel when you finally get to the grad school, and all the intelligent men and women are some of the least attractive bunches you've ever seen, having the "boyish nice guy look" at best, and cannot get a date to save their lives

Well I feel lonelier now.

>>4317560
This is, if true, a very sad tale. On the other hand, who cares. Go bang some of thousands of hot non-physics majors.

>>4317568
Again, confirmation bias and anecdotal evidence. Unlike your /sci/ types, people who go to grad school are smart enough to not give a shit, considering that everyone else is likely a lot less smarter than they are.

You're just pathetic.

>>4317576
>dating women who don't know how2science
>dating women who are not the least bit of intelligent

Why would you degrade yourself like that?

>>4317576
That's one of the oldest copypastas on /sci/...

>>4317579
Pretty sure there's good evidence suggesting that people of higher intelligence are more likely to experience feelings of inadequacy and underestimate themselves.

>>4317582
Yes, but they wouldn't feel inadequate about their intelligence if they were the smartest ones at their school. If they did, then they're simply not intelligent to begin with. The same goes for those who underestimate themselves for any reason.

>>4317556


nah, its true. I read tons of blogs by graduate students:

chemblog (now dead)
carbonbasedcuriosities (the chick goes to my school, I know her)
curlyarrow
etc.

when I was doing my undergraduate research all I heard from these fuckers was bitching about how their shit wasnt working, and complaining about how some douche got an epic grant and doesnt even need to TA for 3 years or similar stuff.

fact of the matter is that graduate students, especially in the sciences, all walk around in little personal bubbles. inside of that bubble the world looks distorted, and it also looks distorted from the outside.


while its true that most human behavior follows a Gaussian, and thus there will always be people on either end of the spectrum, most graduate students are close enough in overall performance and capabilities that the subjective appearance of lacking skill or insight is mostly one of "seeing what you want to see"


either that or OP is truly on the dumb-end of the Bell curve and he is going to "leave with his Masters" and I am going to sing this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY

>>4317581
No, that "don't belong here," "if women are attracted to intelligence," and those Billy Zane posts are the oldest.

>>4317586

You're retarded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imposter_syndrome

>That feel when you don't give a shit about anyone
> That feel when you have couple of friends who you talk science and politics with
>That feel when your school is full of morons you don't care about
>That feel when everything feels awesome

>>4317590
No, you're just not intelligent to begin with, ergo feeling inadequate.

>>4317592

I'm not one of the grad students in this thread. I'm an undergrad and I'm doing really well so I feel pretty damn adequate.

But you, you're retarded. I was hoping you might learn something from the link, but you're a golem made of shit and failure so it was futile to try.

>>4317586


>they wouldn't feel inadequate about their intelligence if they were the smartest ones at their school.


I'm sorry but what school did you go to where you could even know this?


my school had like 14,000 to 16,000 undergraduates, and maybe 200 people TOTAL in my particular major (all class levels).

Even trying my best I could not know which one was the "smartest"

what are you judging on? grades? published papers? which graduate school they got into?

>that feel you meet a girl that's actually intelligent, claims to be attracted to intelligence, and admires you for yours... then she friend-zones you for some lazy, acid-smacking dick that's living off of her money, all because her attraction to him are centred around that he used to play for a few garage bands

She also says they're relationship are not open, it's just that he and she can sleep with any girl they like (she's bi), but she's not allowed to do the same with guys

>>4317603
Grades, published papers, level of credibility, confidence, and high sociability. All of those I'm counting.

>>4317607
either she's not really intelligent, or damaged goods

>>4317615

You can't know everyone's grades and the number of papers they've publishes, and the rest are completely subjective.

I would be willing to bet cash money that you haven't stepped foot in an institution of higher learning even once. Your posts smack of someone talking down his nose to people more knowledgeable than him. Like insulting people on 4chan is the only way you can feel better about the unending cavalcade of mediocrity, chronic unemployment, and low self-esteem that your life has turned into.

>>4317607
>they're relationship

>>4317626
We talk constantly and socialize like colleagues should. The lesser intelligent ones here are more reclusive and /sci/-like, since they're not capable of anything aside from memorized facts and Sagan quotes. Just popsci losers that only came to grad school just to get away from life a little longer. A true intellectual is smart enough to realize it, and has confidence in himself. If he doesn't, there's no intelligence to ever be found in him, at all.

>>4317560
this never happened

>>4317634
How so?

>>4317634
Indeed, it implies you can find attractive women in MIT, or any science/engineering programs.

>>4317637
Because you will never find a fine woman majoring in a hard science. Also it's copy pasta.

>>4317639
>implying you can find intelligent women anywhere IRL

>>4317639
>>4317644

You can find plenty of hot women in science and engineering majors in the first semester.

>>4317615


>level of credibility
>undergraduate

what in the actual fuck are you talking about?


and let me 'splain something to you:

all science majors are basically BEGGED to do interships and undergraduate research programs.

if you manage to not fuck up too bad, and stay on to do a true "research program," which typically means continuous research for all quarters and summers after your initial start, either until you graduate or until the professor runs out of money to support you, you have at least a 30:70 chance of getting an authorship before you apply to graduate school.

in the long run the chance increases to 50:50, because its likely that at SOME point down the line, they will write a paper with that particular project, and your name will get added to the by line.


its not hard dude. its not like they expect you to have skills that are above your abilities. if you are a chemist, you sit around doing bench chemistry and running instruments, and recording the results in your journal, with sporadic presentations at group meeting.

if you are a physicist, chances are you will spend most of your time building electronics for optics experiments, setting up experiments, programming in C and labview for data collection, or doing "chemistry" type experiments if you are in nanotech or biophysics.

biochem, more bench and analytical

I could go on but you get the point.

its not hard, its not taxing, its really just hard work (because its a lot of time).


you fucked up by not applying.

>>4317652
We're talking grad students here though, not undergrads. 1/10 for shoddy primacy effect.

>>4317648


not in the majors, in the classes

2nd year Ochem, typically the first semester or the first 2 quarters

1st year gen chem (pretty much all science related majors take this)

1st lab of the upper division lab series (analytical chemistry)

and typically also the first class in the requisite "introductory" biochemistry class that all chemists and biochemists take during their 2nd year.

also obviously in physics and math, since they are so widely applicable.

>>4317615
>>4317658


oh really?

>grad student
>grades

wtf is this?

if you get anything but As in all of your classes, you pretty much fail.

Thats how graduate school works in all of the departments I have seen (UC system, UCSB and UCB)

you either pass the class with an A, or you drop the class before the finals week.


Cumes and orals do not contribute to grade.


thus everyone pretty much has a 4.0 or a 3.8 (A- is basically like getting a C or a D)

>>4317695
Yeah, we know, that's why we're using to clarify if a certain grad student is intelligent or not. A true measure of intelligence would be good grades (even in grad school), credibility, papers published, high confidence, and extroversion.

>>4317543
Sorry, OP.

>>4317695

the fuck?

at my grad school, a 3.0 is necessary to remain in good standing. the lowest grade you can get is a B. B would be the equivalent of a C or D.

>>4317729


yeah, I dont know any graduate student who would ever let themselve get a B.


if it came down to the last week of classes (dead week) and they were not 100% sure they were going to get an A in the class, they would just drop the class


thus grades cant be used to judge intelligence because absolutely everyone gets As.

most professors in grad classes either grade P/NP or A, A-, F

there really isnt anything else. Everyone has a 4.0, except people who fucked up and accidentally forgot to drop their class, and even then its typical for the professor to help them drop.

The faculty was very supportive of graduate students (UCSB).

How do graduate classes compare to undergrad classes? Not only in difficulty but in the types and amounts of work expected.

>>4317735

depends.

at my grad school, the classes have some exams but a lot of assignments. take-home assignments.

depending on the prof, the assignments take precedent over the examinations. the work is obviously harder and the breadth of work is exceptional in the sense that everything is expected of you. there's no 'hur dur lets review.' it's pretty straight forward and the profs assume you know shit; otherwise, you wouldn't be in the class.

>>4317738
What? Really? Homework? I thought I was done with homework when I finished high school...

>>4317739

it isn't ''homework'' in the usual sense. the problems are normally very difficult and cannot be solved in an examination time period.

depending on the grad school you go to, you have an oral exam to pass, a comprehensive written exam to pass, etc. all of that shit applies. have to score well on them, of course. if you don't, i think you're given a second chance by taking over some courses and doing extra studying.

>>4317740
>>4317739
>>4317738

Grad classes at shit schools are like that. In decent schools, what you end up doing is a research project. What this basically means is that you can take at most 2-3 such classes per semester. Usually 2, if you're doing thesis.

>>4317740
>it isn't ''homework'' in the usual sense. the problems are normally very difficult and cannot be solved in an examination time period.

Yeah, that's what's called a usual undergrad homework at my school.

>>4317747
>Grad classes at shit schools are like that.

:(

>>4317735

graduate classes don't always have homework. a lot of times you will be asked to basically take a journal article and explain everything in the paper related to the subject of the class.

like, in an organic chemistry class, you might be given a journal article published that week in JACS ASAP, and have to give a mechanism for the reactions used in the paper.

the only way to do that would basically be to do your own literature research, including studying that research group's previous work on the same topic and other groups work on that topic, look at their results and the different model compounds they used to study the particular chemistry under equestion, etc. in order to elucidate possible reaction mechanisms.

if you are in computational fields, you will do a lot of programming homework, and may be required to submit a lot of it to school-use clusters (like if you are taking a class on DFT, you might need to submit lots of Gaussian files).


if its a class on experimental techniques its typically a survey of literature and textbooks.


math and physics classes will typically involve difficult problems that require you to look at multiple textbooks.
you will also have to get your balls and go and talk to the professor. You cannot take graduate classes and just show up for class and nothing more.

at the very least because there is no structure in graduate glasses, the questions (not the content) can sometime be odd, so you may need to get clarification on what the professor wants to see.


in terms of grading you typically will have a very simple scheme.

50% mid term, 50% oral final given directly (in private) to the professor.

or possibly

40% mid term, 40% final (oral or research project or "project" like a big computational program) and 20% homework.

homework is typically minimized because graduate students have lots of other stuff on their plate.

>>4317750

yeah, but no. i appreciate what you're attempting to imply, but it's not at the same level.

even if someone is going to a shit level grad school ( ... ._. ) the work is exceptionally on a different level than undergrad. there's a certain standard that needs to be met. even at the shitty grad schools.

>>4317747


>What this basically means is that you can take at most 2-3 such classes per semester. Usually 2, if you're doing thesis


confirmed masters fag


>2012
>"leaving with your masters"

I seriously hope you guys don't do this.

>2012
>be a graduate student (aka a PhD student)
>taking classes after your 2nd year

I seriously hope you didnt fuck up that bad

how rigorous is it to get past grad school for astronomy/astrphys?

>>4317747
maybe, just maybe, it also depends on the subject.
First year math/theoretical physics grad students are unlikely to be jumping into research

>>4317753


yeah this is true.


an undergraduate difficult homework would be use of stuff you are expected to know from a different class, as well as stuff from lecture, but NOT stuff from the textbook, and difficult at the same time.


graduate difficult == stuff that is not in any textbook at all because the professor's research group is actually doing research on this very problem and he doesnt even know how to solve it.

yeah. like there literally is no "right" answer, only "right" methods/approaches. Totally subjective.

>>4317755
>>4317752

are you Based ChemGuy?

i gave you that name, btw. i consider you one of the most knowledgeable non-trip/non-namefags. i remember when /sci/ first started and how you gave several tutorials on how-tos regarding chemistry. i also remember you helping a lot of people and being brutally honest with a lot of shit. crazy smart, too. you eat and shit chemistry, from what i remember.

>>4317757


astronomy? do they even have graduate programs in that?

astrophysics..... probably depends on what your focus is.

if its experimental astrophysics my guess is that its easier than theoretical astrophysics.


thats the difference between endless amounts of what amounts to analysis of spectral data, and endless amounts of quantum gravity and standard model lagrangian density calculations.


note: Standard model lagrangian density (pic related)

>>4317762

yeah, I would assume that was me. I was definitely here since the first few days of /sci/, though I stopped coming here regularly a few months ago.

I'm "that guy who spaces his posts out." It mostly pisses people off, so maybe it is like an anonymous tripcode.

I knew someone would recognize it in the long run, lol