It became clear last week why the grad student felt he needed to grease the academic wheels with things remembered. The kid did his coursework here in Boston, but returned to his home in Houston to work on his thesis. On Tuesday, he sent me the first and only draft of his paper that I'd seen with sincerest apologies for the time I was taking to be his reader. Aware that his deadline was Friday, I asked him how soon he needed my revisions. He ignored that question and informed me that his final draft was in the mail, arriving here Thursday, and would it not be too much trouble for me to drop it off at the registrar for him. So he was essentially asking me to sign off on his project no questions asked. The best part was his resume was attached to the paper which stated that he possessed "excellent time management skills." It also said he was a concert flautist and had experience analyzing semen but who am I to judge. My boss told me he'd probably deny the kid graduation, but also said that most kids in this program do a library thesis, essentially a report, whereas this kid had done actual genetic sequencing lab work. Also, he'd have to pay another semester of student fees and his other committee member, a genetic epidemiologist whose stature in the field dwarfs mine, had already signed off on it. So I told him he'd basically shown bad form but I'd sign anyways. I went to the registrar to drop off his stuff, the women there took a look at the name on the envelope and said, "Oh, this kid isn't graduating because he failed physiology last semester." "Did he know that," I asked? "Yes."
As my boss succinctly put it, "What a dumbass." Turns out the program he was in is a basically a masters program for people who need a little extra ammo in order to get into med school. So who knows how many lives were potentially saved.
I saw a guy biking today with a homemade scrolling, flashing LED sign on his back saying "See Me." He was heading towards MIT.
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