Pre-Med students isn't used here as a category label - that is, not all pre-med students are like this (I HOPE!) and not all people who are like this are pre-med students. Rather, it's a state of mind that so many of them fall into. I should go back to what I used to call it in high school: point-grubber.
Please tell me this drives you crazy, too: "Will this be on the test?" "Which part of this will be on the test?" "Will this be multiple-choice, on the test?" "What will the other choices be, on the test?"
Ugh, killer. Hey guys, I'm a big supporter of utilizing minimal work to obtain maximal result, but these people expect not just perfect results from zero work, but they feel entitled to have others do that work for them? Not to mention that this is no way to learn a subject, and I think we both know it. If a slacker like myself or Xian doesn't study the material, at least we don't expect to get A's. People like this expect to not have to study it and will fight for every point that they got marked down, as if it were the teacher's fault that they didn't get 100%.
I'm going to teach those idiots one of these days. I'm not even cut out for teaching, but I may do it. Sign up to teach a course, then put it right there on the syllabus: "YES, everything will be on the test, and the first person who asks that question or argues for more points on an exam will receive a ZERO". Someone's got to teach those morons that real life does not work like that, and people do not appreciate your butt-licking, point-grubbing, money-hungry attitudes.
I'm only especially mad about it right now because it appears that Berkeley does not require a dissertation defense. Now, there are two bad sides of getting a doctorate:
1) Your advisor has final, absolute power over your life. If he feels like stopping you from graduating, he can put a stop to you, officially making a waste of your last 'X' years of life and work.
2) It's viewed as a club or a fraternity, where you receive your hazing, then propagate that kind of elitist behavior.
Those are semi-bad things, but now that Berkeley's done away with them, there are MUCH more serious problems that have arisen, namely, everyone's graduating with PhD's despite having often less than master's credentials.
Let me educate you. The whole point of the doctorate isn't 'ingenious, contributing research', or to be an elitist snob in an ivory tower. The main point (at least in my opinion) is the ability to:
1) be thoroughly knowledgeable in a specific area,
2) conceive of original research,
3) execute independently, and
4) defend your research before a board of your (extremely judgmental) peers.
Harder than you might think. And none of these people appear to be capable of any of those steps. Their 'advisors' are just using them for cheap labor to further their own ideas, and they haven't learned how to do any of those four basic things. You can't just go by the word 'PhD' anymore. How on earth can I separate the real from the useless?
I'm pretty disillusioned. My new co-worker just proceeded with this series of nonsense:
Q: "So, what will I be doing?"
A: "...research. Coding, mostly."
Q: "Oh, and how would I do that?"
A: ".... How about you do this project, to get your feet wet. Insert this functionality into this code."
Q: "Where in the code would it go?"
A: "..... Around here somewhere."
Q: "Ok. What would I type in?"
A: "For real, man?"
Maybe it wasn't that bad, but come on. Really? Did you deserve a PhD?
