You when you say something like “The RecA:ssDNA complex induces autocatalytic activity of the LexA repressor, causing derepression of the SOS regulon. Duh.”
Or sometimes you don’t know what you’re saying. But you still sound cool.
2. Your whole life is battling those pesky red lines on Microsoft Word, because your computer doesn’t recognize Latin or scientific jargon.
Come on, Microsoft, I’m 99% sure I know how to spell “Enterobacteriaceae” by heart.
3. The Google searches you make while studying only bring up really dense scholarly articles.
4. You find yourself talking about really gross things in public places while you are studying, too late to realize that it’s not a normal topic of conversation.
Everyone in this coffee shop should know the difference between dysentery and diarrhea, right?
5. Walking through the library is like a tour of all of the freshman-level classes you took, and hearing them complain about how hard they are fills you with pure exasperation.
Aww, look at these guys going over Chem 1, that’s so cute. I’d give my left leg to be to be oblivious to the woes of organic chemistry.
6. You’re always giving advice to your friends about the professor and the tests for classes that you’ve already taken, and you occasionally decide to bless them with one of your old tests.
7. And you’re always begging your friends who’ve already taken the class for their old tests.
8. Your computer is an endless store of lab reports of various sciences, and reading back over them makes you all sorts of confused.
9. You and your science friends are always cracking up at super-hilarious science-related jokes that you made.
10. But your non-science friends hate you for your incredibly hysterical and punny sense of humor.
11. You know how to rock a lab coat like nobody’s business.
12. You have a certain amount of nerdy pride in the projects or research you do.
That scientific poster about polymicrobial infections on the wall in the life science building is my sweet and precious little baby.
13. Non-science people spread around false science and you can’t help yourself –you have a compulsive need to correct them so they know how wrong they are. Even if that leads to Facebook arguments with your hippie aunt.
14. And a lot of the things that you think are common knowledge that everyone with any form of scientific education should know are actually really complicated.
You mean most people don’t know how to balance a chemical equation? Hm.
15. You have an incredibly intense frustration with the classes that don’t relate to your major.
Why am I writing a paper about Shakespeare when I could be memorizing all 20 of the amino acids?!
16. And you have a different sort of intense frustration with the classes that do relate to your major.
Why does this professor hate us so much?
17. Sometimes it’s the night before the test, and you’re still not sure how something works, so you just attribute it to magic and go with it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clarke
18. All of your tests fall on the same week, every single time. And it makes you want to freak out, crawl into a hole and wither away into nothing.
19. Sometimes your tests look like complete, absolute gibberish despite the ridiculous amount of time you spent in the library with your study group.
20. You think about switching to a different major every time you leave a test for one of your hard classes.
There’s got to be a major in wine tasting, right? That’s got to be easier than this!
21. But at the end of the day, you know you’re right where you’re supposed to be.