My advice: Never Graduate

["mark a. foltz" <mfoltz@>]

As I prepare to leave the hallowed halls of this fine Institution,
younger students have asked me to share with them the Wisdom of the 
Elders.  Although Olin Shivers' fine writing [1] leaves little else to 
be
said, I will try to make my own small contribution in this regard.

My advice is simple and direct: never graduate.  It's just more trouble
than it's worth for everyone involved.

Look into the sunken eyes of any senior grad student deep in `thesis 
mode'
and receive only a vacant stare in return.  Observe his Pavlovian 
drooling
at the sound of the lunch trucks screeching to the curb at 11:30 am.
Note his involuntary twitching at the mention of the words `committee,'
`draft,' or `defense.'  Those lucky enough to survive face a desolate
employment market, filled with slave-wage software shops where the 
favorite coding techniques are `copy' and `paste.'

Don't put yourself or your loved ones through it.  Find a cheap 
apartment,
crank out a conference paper every few years, and find out how to build 
a
career as a graduate student at this week's

           +-                                                 -+
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[1] http://www.ai.mit.edu/~shivers/grad-advice.html