Friday, September 28, 2007

Perceptions

A lot can be said about undergraduates' perceptions of grad students. I read somewhere that they refer to some of us as "trolls" - a term that is supposed to illustrate grad guys chasing after undergrad girls. I had heard this and similar stories, but thought, honestly, how bad can their perceptions be?

Well, fast forward to the Argentine tango class that I am taking this semester. At one point I am dancing with an undergrad student and he asks me, "What year are you?" "Grad student, first year," I reply. He gives me this semi-confused, semi-"I-feel-sorry-for-you" type of look and says, "Oh, I thought grad students only studied." (And he was totally serious.)

Hmmm, so, in case you don't already know, I am a boring, trolling graduate student who only studies.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh man... If you guys in master's programs have such a dubious reputation, I wonder what the undergrads think of us the uber-geeky PhD folks... By our standards, you have proven to be extremely outgoing and super stylish if you make an effort / have the time to take tango classes :P

trol said...

ahahaha
imagine then the comments i get for my nickname

bonjour and have a great week!!

DJ said...

gok: yeah, well, I think its the PhD students that bring down our reputation with theirs ;)

trol: hahahahahaha--i am laughing pretty hard right now :) That is a wrong choice of name (at least as far as Princeton goes)