YOU JUST MIGHT BE A POSTGRADUATE STUDENT IF…

• you can identify universities by their internet domains.
• you are constantly looking for a thesis in novels.
• you have difficulty reading anything that doesn’t have footnotes.
• you understand jokes about Foucault.
• the concept of free time scares you.
• you consider caffeine to be a major food group.
• you’ve ever brought books with you on vacation and actually studied.
• Saturday nights spent studying no longer seem weird.
• the professor doesn’t show up to class and you discuss the readings anyway.
• you’ve ever traveled across two state lines specifically to go to a library.
• you appreciate the fact that you get to choose *which* twenty hours out of the day you have to work.
• you still feel guilty about giving students low grades (you’ll getover it).
• you can read course books and cook at the same time.
• you schedule events for academic vacations so your friends can come.
• you hope it snows during spring break so you can get more studying in.
• you’ve ever worn out a library card.
• you find taking notes in a park relaxing.
• you find yourself citing sources in conversation.
• you’ve ever sent a personal letter with footnotes.
• you can analyze the significance of appliances you cannot operate.
• your carrel is better decorated than your apartment.
• you have ever, as a folklore project, attempted to track the progress of your own joke across the internet.
• you are startled to meet people who neither need nor want to Read.
• you have ever brought a scholarly article to a bar.
• you rate coffee shops by the availability of outlets for your laptop.
• everything reminds you of something in your discipline.
• you have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event.
• you have ever spent more than $50 on photocopying while researching a single paper.
• there is a microfilm reader in the library that you consider “yours.”
• you actually have a preference between microfilm and microfiche.
• you can tell the time of day by looking at the traffic flow at the library.
• you look forward to summers because you’re more productive without the distraction of classes.
• you regard ibuprofen as a vitamin.
• you consider all papers to be works in progress.
• professors don’t really care when you turn in work anymore.
• you find the bibliographies of books more interesting than the actual text.
• you have given up trying to keep your books organized and are now just trying to keep them all in the same general area.
• you have accepted guilt as an inherent feature of relaxation.
• you reflexively start analyzing those Greek letters before you realize that it’s a sorority sweatshirt, not an equation.
• you find yourself explaining to children that you are in “20th grade.”
• you start referring to stories like “Snow White, et al.”
• you frequently wonder how long you can live on pasta withoutgetting scurvy.
• you look forward to taking some time off to do laundry.
• you have more photocopy cards than credit cards.
• you wonder whether APA style allows you to cite talking to yourself as “personal communication”.

Yes – this might be Americanised, but do you realisise JUST how true some of this is! (My postgraduate project)