This is Graduate School.

I'm come to the conclusion that some people don't realize what grad school is about. Or that it's time to at least pretend to be grown up even if you're not really there yet.

To illustrate my point, I'll tell you about my one class. To protect the anonymity of my classmates, I'll change all their names and identifying marks- though come to think about it, I don't even know HER name.

We have a class taught by two professors who alternate turns. We understand they're busy women- they both work for an awesome ngo based in DC- and that the subject matter at hand is difficult to teach (it's an application course, not theory). All of this combined somehow seems to fuel the fury of unnamed girl in my class. We'll call her Ms. Complainer- Ms. C. for short. Every week, she has some snide remark or rude question for the professors, all in this unbelievably disrespectful tone. This week, she managed to say something that didn't sound like that at all. I turned to my classmate and said to her, wow, she's making progress. And then the end of class comes. And there she goes. Her general complains are you didn't explain that thoroughly and where am I supposed to find that?

Let me explain this to you- and the ppl in my poly sci class- and while we're at it- my econ class. This, Ms. C., is graduate school. The professor already went out of her way to post the assignment, explain it, put a sample completed assignment online, and then give us a power point presentation on pointers on things we should be careful of later. What more could you possibly want? To the people in my econ class that wanted to change the midterm because they couldn't make it- this is graduate school. If the professor says your midterm is next week on Tuesday, during class time, you show up next Tuesday, during class time. Don't try to inconvenience me because you have another exam that day. This is grad school. Suck it up. How did you ever make it through undergrad? And poly sci people- the professor sucks, you say? Have you never had a professor that you didn't like? That's awesome, if so. What undergrad did you go to? So I can avoid sending my kids there. I'd hate for them to turn out as whiny as you did. Was it really necessary to spend an hour talking about the finer points of why you didn't like a professor that already quit?

Just wait til you're in the real world and your boss is a moron and there's nothing you can do about it. Or your boss says do this by four and you have no idea what she's talking about but you said, sure, no problem and somehow get it done by four. Three if you're awesome. This, fellow classmates, is graduate school. As John Mayer's song goes, Welcome to the real world. And yes, I did say that condescendingly.