Grad Quotes

In 1975 I decided that there was no future in flying (airline jobs were impossible to get, and who wants a job where you are judged only by seniority?) and headed off to grad school.

This made him a grad student, and grad students existed not to learn things but to relieve the tenured faculty members of tiresome burdens such as educating people and doing research.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

I did a lot of theater in college, and I knew that not many people make it, but I just figured, ‘Well, I really want to try acting while I’m young, and I don’t ever want to look back and say that I never gave it a try.’ I fully figured I’d be back in grad school – probably for psychology.

My odyssey to become an astronaut kind of started in grad school, and I was working, up at MIT, in space robotics-related work; human and robot working together.

I was trying to release emotions, exercise emotions, and then I entered the art world. Even after grad school, some of [the earlier works] were still lingering in my head. I realized there were some pieces where I felt that I had to respond to the criticism.

If you can dream it, you can make it so.

Name it… and if you can dream it… you can achieve it.

I went to college, grad school. I got an M.B.A., had a really cush corporate job. But I was just bored stiff. I didn’t fit that mold.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Upper education used to open doors. Not so true anymore. The degree used to be a screening tool, but that is falling by the wayside as there are a glut of college grads on the market.

Nothing worth knowing can be taught.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.

Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.

I studied at UC Santa Cruz before going on to do a grad program at UCLA. Santa Cruz was like an awesome hippie summer camp. I got to take a vacation from reality and hang out on beaches and in forests.

I was hugely impressed… was the ultimate example of a man who knew what he didn’t know, was perfectly willing to admit it, and didn’t want to leave until he understood. That’s heroic to me. I wish every grad student had that attitude.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself.

When I finished grad school, I sort of fell into journalism. Someone mentioned that there was an entry level job at the Reuters News Agency. I applied, and, to my amazement, I got the job.

I always wanted to live in L.A. The other thing that always inspired me was movies; that’s why I’m here. I always wanted to be a part of the movie business and make movies. That’s why I went to AFI grad school for filmmaking.

I think we’d all hate to be the one who gets declared undateable by one’s entire grad-school population based on a couple of told and retold stories.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

If start-up activity is the true engine of job creation in America, one thing is clear: our current educational system is acting as the brakes. Simply put, from kindergarten through undergraduate and grad school, you learn very few skills or attitudes that would ever help you start a business.

I feel like no matter what happens in my career endeavors after today, going to grad school is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I’d say I’ve gone to grad school for comedy being on “Community.”

You know what I’m great at? Trivial Pursuit. What good is that gonna do you in life? It has the word ‘trivial’ in the name. The game is basically telling you that you pursue trivial things. Trivial – as in not important. Trivial – as in maybe you should’ve gone to grad school.

Compared to the typical Zim/Chomsky-spouting grad school clown, a trucker with a screaming eagle hat is a paragon of political nuance.

As an actor I kind of do. I started out doing voice overs in the mid 80s when I was in grad school.

Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.

Let’s face it, I like Stanford grads. I’d always hear about this campus, and everybody is riding bikes, and people hopping into fountains.

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

I want to qualify for the Tour Championship. Being a Georgia Tech grad, playing at East Lake would feel like home.

I first tried a novel when I was 14. First finished one when I was 16. First started working on stuff that had a chance of being salable in my early 20s, then didn’t write much fiction at all because I was in grad school.

I wish I had the luxury of time to read and write like grad students do. That sounds pretty awesome. When I was writing my first book one of my friends was going to grad school at the same time and I heard a lot of stories about drinking, too. I feel like everyone was having affairs.

Some Poor grad student pressing on the flanks of a hamster and out comes a doctorate on the other side

Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.

It’s the uncertainty, the challenge and the willingness to put it all on the line that draws a lot of people to climb mountains. That can also apply to a lot of other challenges in life, whether it’s running for office, starting a family, going to grad school or taking all of your cash and assets and starting a business.

As a freshman in college, I was having a lot of trouble adjusting. I took a meditation class to handle anxiety. It really helped. Then as a grad student at Harvard, I was awarded a pre-doctoral traveling fellowship to India, where my focus was on the ancient systems of psychology and meditation practices of Asia.

In this knowledge-worker age, it’s now increasingly tied to doing well in school so you can get into better grad schools so you can get better jobs – so the pressure to do well is really high.

I thought that I wasn’t an essayist because I just didn’t see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That’s why I joined the poetry program in grad school.

Hire inexperience. This year we plan to hire 200 engineers – half of whom are recent grads. Young people are not burdened by years of experience. They haven’t learned – or been told – what is right or wrong. With engineering, there is no tried and tested path. You try, and fail, and fix, and fail again.

Competition in rowing doesn’t just come from other countries. It comes from Wall Street, med school, law school. You think Harvard and Princeton grads want to live in Chula Vista?

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

I got into [acting] so late because of sports. And then when I was in grad school, I sort of got lulled into basically forgetting I was black, in – meaning that everyone you play at a conservatory, 95 percent of the characters are non-black.

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

If you can dream it, you can achieve it.

My family couldn’t be more supportive. They’re worried and they’re always in my business, and my mother does send me grad-school applications every now and again.

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

There are the relationships you make. All of the friends I made in grad school are the closest ones that I have.

Out of grad school, I worked as a tech writer for a while before going into computer coding for a living.

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.

Other people do better going on to grad school and others yet are naturally inclined and do just fine without any formal training at all. Everyone is different. The only things I think are imperative are focus, determination and hard work.

The Thanksgiving meal should not be treated as a grad school exam or an Olympic dive. Whatever you cook will be good enough – unless you make that Twinkie turkey stuffing we’re suddenly hearing too much about.

Perhaps the best reason to consider the hard sciences is that, well, one study suggests science, engineering, medicine, and dentistry graduates live longer than arts graduates (or law grads). So whatever money you make you can keep a bit longer.

I remember getting out of grad school and coming to New York and not wanting to get a teaching job because I wanted to work on my own, to develop my own ideas. There isn’t that time now. Artists are exhibiting while they are still in grad school. There isn’t that safety cushion.

I was a grad student at UC Berkeley when I bought my Apple II and it suddenly because a lot more interesting than school