Adam Ruben

Harvard Book Store hopes you’ll take a night off from studying to join us as we welcome ADAM RUBEN, a comedian with a PhD in Molecular Biology, who will discuss his light-hearted look at the perils of life as a graduate student.

Ruben’s new book, Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School, is for dedicated academics who consider spending years masochistically overworked and underappreciated as a laudable goal. They lead the lives of the impoverished, grade the exams of whiny undergrads, and spend lonely nights in the library or laboratory pursuing a transcendent truth that only six or seven people will ever care about. These suffering, unshaven sad sacks are grad students, and their salvation has arrived in this witty look at the low points of graduate school.

Inside, you’ll find:
 
  • advice on maintaining a veneer of productivity in front of your advisor

  • tips for sleeping upright during boring seminars

  • a description of how to find which departmental events have the best unguarded free food

  • how you can convincingly fudge data and feign progress