  "there is a dysfunction amongst graduate students" we had a stimulating discussion in our AI class (not about AI) on thursday about the state of courses in my faculty. i was really pleased to be able to make a contribution and provide some insight from my own experiences that come from coming from a different faculty. there is some imbalance when it comes to course offerings in the last year of undergrad studies that i never noticed before - mostly because i never had to select a fourth-year curriculum for myself and just skipped along to grad school (cool). that was when i realized that the CS faculty as a whole doesn't offer cross-listed 4rth-year/grad courses like those i experienced (6 of them) in my last year of biochem.
in biochem/chem they were a tailspin that i fondly remember these days. in three courses, grad students and undergrads did exactly the same work. in a lab techniques course and organic reaction mechanisms, that was just the way of the syllabus. in bioinformatics, it was an accident due to the month-long strike in the winter term. in proteins, grads had to write two extra essays over the four the undergrads did. in x-ray crystallography, grads had more challenging assignments to tackle. finally, in organic spectroscopy, grads actually did less when they did not have to take part in the lab sessions using the spectrometers!
these days when i'm really feeling under pressure, i remind myself that i've been subject to this level of study and work before and with hard work that sometimes i cannot remember myself putting in, i got past those times with decent marks so i can certainly do it again! it's the end of term and so once again some fretting about selecting courses for next term. funny how it was nearly a brain-dead decision in undergrad.
i knew what i was interested in and it was there. i got into the classes i registered for. the former-chair of graduate studies is the AI prof and said the above about us very carefully. he meant to say that grad students will sign up for the maximum number of courses they can take a term, fill up all the slots in tiny grad classes as soon as you are allowed to start registering online and hog five spots in five classes when they only intend to take three in the end.
grrr. i was seriously slammed in the beginning of this term by this kind of mentality but it's the way of the shark pond so you gotta do the same to keep your space! china there is some guy's urlLink recap of his recent trip to china (look for entries Nov. 19 & 20). in a succint way, it was quite a funny read - and some pictures, too! ~sigh, if i could go, there'd be a visual feast afterwards! urlLink read more.... 
