Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School [Paperback]

This is a book for dedicated academics who consider spending years masochistically overworked and underappreciated as a laudable goal. They lead the lives of the impoverished, grade the exams of whiny undergrads, and spend lonely nights in the library or laboratory pursuing a transcendent truth that only six or seven people will ever care about. These suffering, unshaven sad sacks are grad students, and their salvation has arrived in this witty look at the low points of grad school.

Inside, you’ll find:
 
  • advice on maintaining a veneer of productivity in front of your advisor
  • tips for sleeping upright during boring seminars
  • a description of how to find which departmental events have the best unguarded free food
  • how you can convincingly fudge data and feign progress
 
This hilarious guide to surviving and thriving as the lowliest of life-forms—the grad student—will elaborate on all of these issues and more. A hilarious, and exquisitely thorough, rebuttal for every time your parents bring up 'The G-Word.' --Rob Kutner, writer, “The Daily Show,” “The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien,” author,Apocalypse How
 
 
“The academic world is so full of humorless wonks and pedants, that Ruben arrives like a crazed party-crasher. It's as if a tweedy committee coma has been interrupted by someone from the roller derby. This very funny book also slings many sly arrows into an overstuffed and moribund culture that needs repair and reconfiguration.” -- Compound Calico, Moderator, RateYourStudents.blogspot.com
 
 
Adam Ruben's book is funnier than even the funniest dissertation, thesis, lab report, or legal brief.  I wish my law school casebooks had been 10% as enjoyable to read. - Jeremy Blachman, author ofAnonymous Lawyer