Readings for Grad Students
Here's a TGIF for graduate students that I found on NPR with three books for preparing for grad school and "the languorous slog of post-baccalaureate education."
Take note that these Three Books To Take You On That Long, Strange Trip are from Adam Ruben who is an actual molecular biologist and a television molecular biologist on Food Detectives, but also a stand-up comedian, and the author of Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School
.
His three eclectic readings for grad students are:
Piled Higher and Deeper: A Graduate Student Comic Strip Collection
If you've gone anywhere near an academic building in the past 10 years, chances are you've seen a photocopied excerpt from Jorge Cham's hilarious comic strip, Piled Higher and Deeper, taped to an office door, probably next to a takeout menu and a photo of some post-doctoral fellow's Labrador retriever wearing a hat. The strip chronicles a nameless grad student's struggle through an engineering Ph.D. program; it has now been published in four volumes that offer insight while hitting horrifyingly close to home.
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
For reassurance that others have undertaken far riskier missions and somehow survived... In 1914, a party of 28 men led by Sir Ernest Shackleton sails for Vahsel Bay, planning to make the first overland crossing of Antarctica. When their ship becomes stuck in pack ice, they decide to camp until the spring thaw, only to watch the boat get crushed rather than released. Much like grad school, Endurance is a tale of optimists embarking blithely on a mission of discovery for discovery's sake, then becoming hopelessly entrenched in a situation that overwhelms them. The story also offers encouragement: No matter how boring you find your department's next seminar, at least you aren't clinging to an ice floe in the Weddell Sea while being attacked by a sea leopard.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Lynne Truss's short but emphatic campaign against improper punctuation encourages and empowers the reader to traipse across the landscape of print media, armed with Wite-Out and a Sharpie, deleting or adding the world's extraneous or missing apostrophes. Full of jokes and anecdotes, and featuring a list of fitting punishments for those who confuse "its" and "it's," this book is perfect for any grad student — and even more perfect for the undergrad who sent you the e-mail that began, "im in ur 10:00 class, can i have xtension
."
Take note that these Three Books To Take You On That Long, Strange Trip are from Adam Ruben who is an actual molecular biologist and a television molecular biologist on Food Detectives, but also a stand-up comedian, and the author of Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School
.His three eclectic readings for grad students are:
Piled Higher and Deeper: A Graduate Student Comic Strip Collection
If you've gone anywhere near an academic building in the past 10 years, chances are you've seen a photocopied excerpt from Jorge Cham's hilarious comic strip, Piled Higher and Deeper, taped to an office door, probably next to a takeout menu and a photo of some post-doctoral fellow's Labrador retriever wearing a hat. The strip chronicles a nameless grad student's struggle through an engineering Ph.D. program; it has now been published in four volumes that offer insight while hitting horrifyingly close to home.
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
For reassurance that others have undertaken far riskier missions and somehow survived... In 1914, a party of 28 men led by Sir Ernest Shackleton sails for Vahsel Bay, planning to make the first overland crossing of Antarctica. When their ship becomes stuck in pack ice, they decide to camp until the spring thaw, only to watch the boat get crushed rather than released. Much like grad school, Endurance is a tale of optimists embarking blithely on a mission of discovery for discovery's sake, then becoming hopelessly entrenched in a situation that overwhelms them. The story also offers encouragement: No matter how boring you find your department's next seminar, at least you aren't clinging to an ice floe in the Weddell Sea while being attacked by a sea leopard.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Lynne Truss's short but emphatic campaign against improper punctuation encourages and empowers the reader to traipse across the landscape of print media, armed with Wite-Out and a Sharpie, deleting or adding the world's extraneous or missing apostrophes. Full of jokes and anecdotes, and featuring a list of fitting punishments for those who confuse "its" and "it's," this book is perfect for any grad student — and even more perfect for the undergrad who sent you the e-mail that began, "im in ur 10:00 class, can i have xtension
."
Comments
No comments