Quantum Buckyball

Ramen takes 3 minutes. 
Chips, you just open the bag. 
Easy Mac. 
Beer 

There are plenty of applicants willing to take your spot :-) Believe it or not, you're really not that special.

There are plenty of applicants willing to take your spot :-) Believe it or not, you're really not that special.

There are plenty of applicants willing to take your spot :-) Believe it or not, you're really not that special.

There are plenty of applicants willing to take your spot :-) Believe it or not, you're really not that special.

I swear to god some of the prospective students were so arrogant and smart-ass, almost made me want to leave their ass in the middle of no where....

I swear to god some of the prospective students were so arrogant and smart-ass, almost made me want to leave their ass in the middle of no where....

I swear to god some of the prospective students were so arrogant and smart-ass, almost made me want to leave their ass in the middle of no where....

Making in-person connections with POIs/Departments is really important. Visit before you apply, introduce yourself to POIs at conferences. You'd be surprised at the difference it can make to your application success.
 
Industrial research experience really impressed some of the POIs I spoke to: if you can get a summer internship at a big pharma company or the like then I would say to go for it.

I swear to god some of the prospective students were so arrogant and smart-ass, almost made me want to leave their ass in the middle of no where....

super rare with young faculty. their career depends on the blood, sweat, and tears of their students and why the hell would they let their best workers go when they're at the peak of production??? 
 
an older PI might give less of a shit.
 
i'd venture to say that the majority of folks who leave after 4 years do so with a Masters... and that is not really where you wanna be
 
final thought: if you are entering grad school with even the smallest shred of expectation/hope that you'll be a PhD in four years - DO NOT GO TO GRAD SCHOOL!

I took the algebra based pchem when I was in undergrad, and now I have to teach the calculus based pchem, i was like oh hell no

My professor wanted me to get undergrads to participate in Q&A more often during recitation by making PowerPoint slides interesting and interactive.
 
I was like, "puhleaze..."

I know a couple of professors in my program that were looking to take in new students and changed their mind in the end. They didn't have any funding issues, it was because they weren't satisfied with the students who were interested in joining their group. The students were lack of necessary skills (i.e. programming, advanced level of math and physics) and background to take over an existing project(s), .

how about a full range rainbow color highlighters ....

The link was very informative. Make sure to talk to the current students, especially the senior-level students. You'll get a better/accurate information from them than from professors and first years.

I'm sorry to hear that you're not enjoying your first year, first year is usually the toughest, and I personally know a couple of people decided to leave the program after their first or second semester. If your end goal is to get a job in the industry then a Masters degree is sufficient, and a PhD program's rank might not be that important as long as you are productive.    You may   (1) stick with your current program and leave with an external Masters degree and get a job at a pharmaceutical/chemical company   (2) apply to a PhD program with 3+ research groups that you find interesting or in a better location   (3) get a MBA degree, a business and a hard science degree would make you pretty marketable   (4) if you don't mind sick people, then you could get a nursing degree from a community college, or physician assistant degree    (5) if you don't like people in general, then you could go into Computer Science and learn about programming and become a programmer.

I'm not sure if I should feel insulted or not because I just found out someone from my cohort class got accepted to my program with UG 2.8 GPA, M 3.0 GPA, 1100 GRE (on the old scale), no publications/internships/fellowships/industrial experiences and failed all the ACS diagnostic exams.   If the admission process was truly merit-based, then an applicant with that kind of porfolio should never gotten accepted in the first place  . 

I assumed the person had a comparable background as me since 2012, I did not know about his stats until recently. I started having a doubt about his credentials about six months ago because of his poor performance (Q&As) during group meetings and working on the same group project for a class. My PI has assigned 2 undergrads to him/her to help his/her project progress faster, but both of them quit after about 2 weeks. Yes, I agreed that he/she is a hard worker but that is expected for all grad students. His/her research committee decided to make him/her to give his/her research proposal a semester early for some reasons, whereas my other colleagues and I were given roughly 12 months to prepare for it.

My PI is fully aware that I have a very strong personality (the pre-med gunner mentality), and I will most likely take over the whole project myself. The problem is that I have tried to get my colleague to participate in designing experiments which could lead to a paper, brainstorming for new ideas and novel techniques and assays etc. So far, it hasn't worked out as I wanted. I think he/she could be an excellent lab technician but doesn't have "it" to become a legit, whole-package researcher.

Because I got assigned to the same projects as him and now I have to carry most of the weight -.-. In addition, it wasn't just me. Some of my peers (upper-class) in my division also agreed that most of the people from the division he's in are very incompetent (i.e. lack of critical thinking skills, creativity) which could make the program, as a whole, and the school look real bad.

Because I got assigned to the same projects as him and now I have to carry most of the weight -.-. In addition, it wasn't just me. Some of my peers (upper-class) in my division also agreed that most of the people from the division he's in are very incompetent (i.e. lack of critical thinking skills, creativity) which could make the program, as a whole, and the school look real bad.

I assumed the person had a comparable background as me since 2012, I did not know about his stats until recently. I started having a doubt about his credentials about six months ago because of his poor performance (Q&As) during group meetings and working on the same group project for a class. My PI has assigned 2 undergrads to him/her to help his/her project progress faster, but both of them quit after about 2 weeks. Yes, I agreed that he/she is a hard worker but that is expected for all grad students. His/her research committee decided to make him/her to give his/her research proposal a semester early for some reasons, whereas my other colleagues and I were given roughly 12 months to prepare for it.

My PI is fully aware that I have a very strong personality (the pre-med gunner mentality), and I will most likely take over the whole project myself. The problem is that I have tried to get my colleague to participate in designing experiments which could lead to a paper, brainstorming for new ideas and novel techniques and assays etc. So far, it hasn't worked out as I wanted. I think he/she could be an excellent lab technician but doesn't have "it" to become a legit, whole-package researcher.

I'm not sure if I should feel insulted or not because I just found out someone from my cohort class got accepted to my program with UG 2.8 GPA, M 3.0 GPA, 1100 GRE (on the old scale), no publications/internships/fellowships/industrial experiences and failed all the ACS diagnostic exams.   If the admission process was truly merit-based, then an applicant with that kind of porfolio should never gotten accepted in the first place  .