Level Up

I think I finally have to give in and admit that I'm a 4th year grad student now. I even went so far as to change it in my description. The new 1st years are starting to show up - the international students this week, the domestic students next week. Not that I'm taking any (woohoo!!), but classes will start in less than 3 weeks, and then I'll really have no excuse for not calling myself a 4th year.

The most recent 1st years (now 2nd years) were eager to promote themselves, so by default in their mind I'd logically be promoted too. I'm not sure why they were so eager to officially be 2nd years, but I'm pretty adamant about not being the next year older until I really have to be. So I've always defined what year I am relative to the newest cohort of grad students around. So the coming academic year's 1st years are arriving? I guess that makes me a 4th year. When do you consider yourself the next year/grade/rank up?

I haven't been particularly eager to "level up" since high school, because it seems that the older I get, the faster time goes by, not to mention the farther you get through whatever tier of education the more responsibility you have. And after being the oldest child in my family, I eventually realized that it's nice to not always be responsible. The farther you get in grad school, the more responsibility you have, not just for yourself, but for lab equipment and younger students. Because of my fellowship situation, I was independent in the lab a lot sooner than most younger grad students, which was actually awesome for a little while, because I could do my own experiments without feeling like I was pestering anybody, but I didn't yet have to fix all the $h!t other people break. At this point in grad school I sometimes feels like all I ever do is trouble shoot instrument problems, fix said instrument problems, help people find things, clean up messes, and restock supplies (that everybody else uses). Most of time I don't mind (too much), especially with first years. Somebody has to teach them, and I was really lucky to have an awesome mentor when I was a 1st year, and the 1st years (well, most of them) deserve to have an awesome mentor too (not saying I'm an awesome mentor, besides I've been teaching/guiding the first years more generally - I'm not so far along that I need to line up somebody to more directly take over my project). What actually bugs me is non-1st year students who didn't take the initiative to learn what they should have when they were 1st years, and now they're taking up my time because they suddenly realize they need to get their $h!t together.

The additional responsibility is an annoyance, but not a freak-out factor. What's freaky about being a 4th year is that means there are relatively few people senior to me in the lab (i.e. relatively few people who can help when I need it). I have three-four labmates that are a year ahead of me, at least 2 of them will graduate next May or August. Those that may not graduate then aren't exactly the most functional, contributing members of the lab. That pretty much leaves me as the senior student in the lab. Which is just plain scary. I have two labmates who are my year, but one of them is a joint student and spends almost all her time in her other lab and the other, while productive and very bright, doesn't really take on any leadership responsibility.

What's even scarier is that being a 4th year means I'm only a year away from being a 5th year, which puts me only 2 years away from graduating and having to figure out what I'm doing next. Lately I've been feeling the itch to move again, to live somewhere new, but I'm the idea of having to figure that out actually being reality is weird.