Over the past few days, I’ve had one-on-one conversations with about eight people in various stages of their graduate education (we were going over problem set answers, talking about bitchy advisors, not wanting to do our work, etc.). In each of these conversations, we somehow got around to talking about how we felt about grad school in general, and in each case, every person said something to the effect of, “promise not to tell anyone, but…” and then proceeded to explain how inadequate and unworthy of grad school they felt, how stressed out they were, and how they thought everyone else was much further along in their research and doing much better in their programs then they were.

In short, I’ve deduced that we’re pretty much all neurotic, perfectionistic, school- and grade- and career-obsessed weirdos who have nothing better to do on a Friday night then get together and talk about the Regression problem sets (I kid you not).

I think it’s interesting how everyone, in their own way, has had that feeling of “oh shit, I shouldn’t be here, I’m so far behind all these other people…they’ve all probably got their thesis ideas in mind, their advisors probably love them, I want to quit…” etc., etc.

I think it’s even more interesting that no one seems to think that anyone else gets this way. “Promise not to tell anyone, but…” But what? You’ve felt the same inadequacies that it seems like everyone else here has?

It’s a very strange environment. And we voluntarily chose this insanity.

Today’s song: Remedy by Little Boots