Post Academic

…and one of the top autofill choices you’ll find is “grad students are the worst people.”  Just try it.  I came upon this when trying to–unsuccessfully–search for a column I read a while ago about how graduate students live socially conservative lives, despite their seemingly lefty politics and radically-oriented research interests.  What I discovered instead was “graduate students are the worst” and the 30 Rock clip where the quote came from, which led me to another video from The Simpsons.  It seems appropriate to end a week where we’ve devoted a lot of energy and posts to defending grad students from the way they’re viewed in the popular consciousness to see how they’re viewed in the popular consciousness.  We can take a joke, can’t we?

From 30 Rock–Wait until the end of the clip…

From The Simpsons–There are actually three funny little snippets…

The Utne Reader picks up on quotes from both these clips and adds some commentary under the splashy title “The Case Against Grad School”, but who needs to intellectualize the humor with a bunch of smarty pants explanation?  Uh-oh, better stop here before I go too far with my own.  Enjoy the TV!