In Grad School, you know you're in an engineering research group when...
1. the ratio of female to male is typically 3 to 10.
2. there is a considerable number of Chinese, Indians and "other Asians" in the group! ;)
3. the guys in the lab typically talk about "curious stuff", such as pressure and temperature profile along an extruder - so gleefully... and it makes you wonder why their enthusiasm is making you blush (if you were a girl) or, uhm, gleeful (if you were a guy)! =)
4. in parties, there's nachos, beers - in amazingly great assortment, including those brewed in the dorm (hahaha...) - and, uhm, paper plates... and that's it! :)
5. people sleepwalk - in the lab - solving a system of partial differential equations as they do! =)
6. people in the lab view eating as a luxury... that they cannot afford! :)
7. people tend to be in a "state of terrible panic" when they are scheduled to meet with, uhm, "the boss"...
...and then emerge in a "terrible emotional state" after the meeting. (Aah-hahaha...)
8. you find yourself wishing for a "quick death" during lab meetings! (Nya-hahaha...)
9. common sense is a "rare commodity" in the lab... according to "the boss"! :)
10. just about no one in the lab dared talk about graduation - at all! :D
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The photo above was taken in Autumn of 2003 with my labmates in the Food Engineering Group of the Cornell University Institute of Food Science. We were giving one of our labmates his "mandatory" farewell party (after reaching the end of the "long and dark tunnel") in the group's "party/cook-off central" - my apartment. =) Oh, gosh... I miss Grad School! If that is at all possible! :)
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Image credit: Thanks, PHD comics, for the comic strip, the inspiration... and all those years of borrowed sanity!
