Graduate Students and Other Annoyances...

It would seem that La Lecturess isn't the only one with students who are trying to pull fast ones on her...

I have two graduate students that I supervise that, to put it politely, are disasters. My university has been working hard to try and improve the quality of graduate students in general, but coming from a much bigger university with a much more well-established graduate program has really put this problem into stark relief: without good graduate students, advisors in the sciences and engineering get very little accomplished.

I never remember myself being this *lazy* when I was a grad student! If my advisor asked for something, I damn well better have had it done by the next time that I saw her, if I knew what was good for me. My students have this "whatever" attitude that just flabbergasts me. I have tried both the carrot and the stick here. I have tried to be really enthusiastic about stuff and get them into building the lab up and telling them what a great job they are doing. I have tried to be stern with them and tell them, "Hey, this is your first priority for the next few years, so get with it!" Nothing seems to work.

Case in point: we started a journal club in group meeting to try and keep everyone on top of literature in the field. This was at *their* request. I took the first week, because I wanted to show them how it was done, and what my expectations for discussion and analysis were like. It didn't go particularly well, mostly because they hadn't read the article, even though I had sent it out days ahead of time.

The analysis I wanted to focus on centered on two elementary polymerization reactions. Based on the spectroscopic data that was presented, I wanted them to tell me the mechanism of polymerization. Undergrads with an organic chemistry course under their belts should have been able to tell me how to start the analysis, but these two, who are graduate students, had no idea. So, I carefully led them through the first reaction, with much teeth-pulling, but told them that for the second reaction, they were on their own, and I wanted to see them have it for me next week.

Well, of course, that was yesterday, and of course, they didn't have the analysis done. Nor did they choose another article for discussion, saying they had 'forgotten'. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy, and it was a short group meeting.

I can't wait to either A.) Graduate this group or B.) Get a new job myself, whichever comes sooner.

In other news, the house is being cranky again right now. There is piece of flashing on the roof that has blown loose with all the wind and rain this past week, and it is flopping lazily against the gutter in the front of the house. This means that I will either need to rent or find an extension ladder this weekend, buy some galvanized roofing nails, and nail the damn thing back down. Don't get me started about our antiquated heating system that likes to put steam wherever it feels like. At least it works, I guess.

At least tomorrow is Friday, and there are already plans afoot with G-Fav and J-Fav. It will be good to see G - it feels like too long since we hung out.