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8 reasons not to date a statistics graduate student

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

(The title is entirely misleading, because I do not hang out with any statistics graduate students that aren’t me – therefore I really mean ’8 things that I do that are irritating now that I am a statistics graduate student’. That’s not as catchy, though, so … continue.)

1) She will correct you (and your friends) when you use the word ‘probability’ lightly. Probability means something specific, people.

2) She will make you quiz her on the difference between the Cramer-Rao theorem and the Rao-Blackwell theorem. You will not care, because she doesn’t really care.

3) She will endlessly cite ‘this thing I read’ and then spend ten minutes with her smartphone trying to find it, because she doesn’t want to tell you the wrong sample size.

4) She is broke. (This has nothing to do with statistics and everything to do with her being a grad student.)

5) She is cranky. (See parenthetical above.)

6) She will derail every conversation with ‘I wonder how likely that is’.

7) She will watch all of the episodes of Supernatural that are available on Netflix on an endless loop while she studies. (What, I told you I don’t hang out with other stats students. I have no reason to believe this isn’t true for everyone. (<= That is some TERRIBLE statistical inference that I just did there.))

She wants to graduate more than anything else in the world, including more than she wants to be nice.

Ok, fine. This is basically an apology to everyone for me sucking. And me being mean. And also me being boring. And watching all of Supernatural for the third time (Crockett, that one is for you specifically). I’m very sorry.

Tags: graduation is in 37 days 15 hours 30 minutes and 41 seconds, I'm dyin' over here
Posted in I make lists, it's all about me, school, whoops | No Comments »

a person

Friday, March 30th, 2012

I sat down with my tattoo artist (Hi Joy!) on Monday to touch up my arm flowers, and I realized that I made the leap from ‘a person who has a tattoo’ to a ‘tattooed person’. That’s a different thing, I think, although I can’t put my finger on exactly why. I guess because now I have a bunch? Well, three or seven, if you count by actual tattoos or count each area as one.

And then yesterday I went to this thingy… a conference thingy. And I met some very nice people who geniunely enjoy academia. I have had a good two years to become an academic, and I’ve totally failed. I mean, I haven’t failed my classes, but I have yet to embrace the lifestyle in any noticeable way. I presented my poster and then I left at the earliest possible moment. Which, now that I think of it, the academia-lovers did too…

I hate grad school. I do. I mean, I’m not sneaky about it. It’s hard, and I constantly feel judged (because people are judging me!) and I’m constantly working on things that contribute to absolutely nothing (hi, homework!), and I’m basically just over it. I graduate in six weeks, and I have been shouting it from the rooftops. (I should probably stop that before my advisor or someone hears me.)

I wonder if we chose the things that we become ‘a person’ for, or if they chose us. Could I have chosen to become an academic person?

I guess it’s too late now.

Tags: I basically didn't even try
Posted in girl geek, school | No Comments »

Not my job

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Today was Career Day on campus.

Career Day is nothing more than a career fair specifically geared at college students. A buttload of companies (don’t worry, I didn’t say buttload in front of anyone there) show up and set up booths and you talk to them and you hand them a resume and then… I don’t really know. Something happens. They sift through the three hundred resumes at the end of the night and set up interviews for some of them, I guess? I handed out 11, because the number of companies interested in a person with a masters degree in statistics is depressingly low, and I expect to hear from maybe four of them. I will immediately tell one of those calls that I’m not interested – it sounded fun at the time, but now I realize that it’s the quintessential Boulder software company, and I would hate everyone and everything about it inside six months.

It’s good to know yourself.

The most frustrating part of my day, though, went like this:

I wanted to talk to a company that does some sort of television… something. Honestly I don’t remember, because no one ever showed up at their booth and it doesn’t matter anyway. Whoever they were, their empty booth was next to the Navy booth. So I kept swinging by, and every time this dude at the Navy booth caught my eye and I nodded and just kept going…

And then, one time, he caught me. He saw my nametag, which had my name, major, and degree on it, and asked if I was interested in teaching.

I am interested in teaching, so I was like …. ok, what up, yo. He tells me about this instructor position that they have at a nuclear school in Charlotte, NC. (The school isn’t nuclear, they just teach nuclear stuff). Apparently they have a need for math instructors. He gave me the full sale – the benefits, the wages, the fact that you leave after four years with experience. And then he asked when I got my bachelors degree, and I told him, and then he asked how old I was.

I’m 31, I say.

He drags me to every other navy person there (and there were quite a few) asking if I could get a waiver for being 31. I was a little insulted, honestly. He never told me what was wrong with being 31, just that it was something that needed to be waived. Finally, someone tells him that yeah, it can probably be waived. Everyone else in the vicinity of the booth at that point was aware that I was probably the oldest person at the career fair, but hey – that can be waived.

That established, he looks down at my arm and asks if my tattoo is real.

No, I drew purple flowers on myself for Career Day.

Yes, it’s real.

Again with the waiver – except this time everyone needs to look at the size of my hand in comparison to the size of my tattoo.

This fellow was working very, very hard to recruit me, and I appreciated that.

I also left the booth feeling like an ancient painted lady.

I will not be joining the Navy.

Tags: ancient painted lady my ass
Posted in it's all about me, school, work | 2 Comments »

paris

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

When things are going badly for me (as they are right now in school), I have dreams about going to Europe.

Not daydreams of walking through Parisian streets – actual dreams in which I’m part of some group that has a trip planned.

In these dreams, I never even make it on the plane, much less all the way to Europe.

In last night’s version, I packed a bag but forgot pants, and then followed a GPS thing to the airport and ended up in Colorado Springs – more than 100 miles from DIA.

Sometimes I arrive at the airport and can’t find a place to park. Sometimes the airport is a maze.

Sometimes, I have an out of body experience where I watch everyone else milling around the gate, getting on the plane (which is always luxurious), and generally not caring where I am.

I can’t imagine what these dreams might mean.

Maybe I should just go to Paris.

Tags: sometimes I'm even naked in the airport which is no good at all
Posted in school, tellin secrets, travel | 3 Comments »

I bleed

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

Tonight I proctored our first exam of the semester in Prob Stats.

My hands shook. My stomach hurt. Now that it’s over, I feel drained and a little nauseous.

Lest you think ‘proctoring’ is more complex than it really is, here’s what I did. I handed out tests. I told the class how to deal with a typo in the final problem. I answered individual questions, most of which were very straightforward. I collected the tests when the hour and a half was up.

Oh, I also announced when we had 45 minutes left, then fifteen minutes left, then 5 minutes left.

It’s not really a taxing job.

And yet – I was a wreck.

I so very badly wanted my students (I call them mine and I’ve lectured all of twice) to do well. I needed them to have learned something from me. I wanted the time I’d spent with them, during office hours or class or over email, to have cleared up any lingering questions that remained for them.

I really really wanted them to nail it.

When I had any reason to think that one of them was having a hard time – asking me a questions I couldn’t answer because it would be cheating, or staring really sadly at their paper – I wanted to help. I wanted to say “I’m so sorry that I didn’t, somehow, make sure that this was clear to you”.

Grading the tests just now was even worse. I kept thinking ‘damn it, I KNOW you know this – you answered it in class or on the homework or …’. I want to email certain students and say, look, I see exactly what you did here. I know why you thought this was the right answer, and here’s the part of the problem statement that you missed. Why don’t you take another look.

Of course I can’t do that.

Crockett says this makes me a good teacher – wanting success for all of my students. I think that it makes me a person who is not capable of becoming a teacher. I can’t feel this wrung out all the time.

Maybe it gets easier – but is that a good thing? Should you bleed for your students, or not?

(The moral here? Actual teachers (people who do this for a living and not just as an assistant for tuition) are under appreciated and underpaid. You know me – always saying things that everyone already knows.)

Posted in girl geek, school | 1 Comment »

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