Dandy Doctoral Candy

[MissingVandyCandy]

On a less serious note, now that VandyCandy is in to grad school, the social environment of the grad student experience is of some concern/interest on my end. For those of us who are young (I am 25 and not even close to being in a serious relationship), I am curious what dating options are available to doctoral students. Any advice, especially from the somewhat cool guys on what I can expect to encounter would be great. I realize I'm not going to meet Penelope Cruz look-alike who is studying Latin American Politics in my doctoral program, but hopefully something not too far off...

(All of the above should be taken with a little grain of salt)...

[luvalicious]

My best friend is a doctoral candidate, same age, not repulsive...and single as single could be. He tells me that in his department, people starting pairing up from day one. So advice? Uh, start fishing early?

[LaraAnn85]

Hey we're not all married or ugly or dorks! I'm 22, single by choice, fun, cute, etc. and I know plenty of other girls in my situation starting grad school in the fall. Not that I'd want to date someone so concerned with dating.... 8) But if you're such the smooth guy that you say you are, I'm sure you will find the one cute single girl right?

[Minnesotan]

If you're a single male who does not live with his parents, has a head on his shoulders, and is approaching the point of being relatively mature and level-headed, they will seek you out, no worries. I've dated lots of girls since coming to grad school, and I've never had to put forth a jot of effort. They just don't give you a chance, what with the odds the way they are. If a woman wants an educated man, she either needs to date the notorious professor who has the reputation for being with all of his young acolytes, or they have to fight over the very few unattached heterosexual males in grad school.

Maybe it's different at other schools, but there is a huge disparity in the rate of matriculation by gender where I am. My cohort of fifteen had two males, one of whom was single (me). From what I've seen in other programs, this is not all that abnormal.

Luckily all of the women's studies majors date amongst themselves, so you don't have to worry about fending them off. =)

Anyway, make sure to meet your professors down at your university's grad club (or master common room, etc.) at every opportunity. You will meet women galore because, while they serve beer there (yay for me!), it's not technically a bar, and therefore not a threatening atmosphere (yay for them!). you can also strike up conversations with strangers without seeming creepy, or making them think you "want something" out of them (even though you probably do).

[MissingVandyCandy]

I did warn you to read it with a grain of salt... I just want to know whether I need to prepare to target undergrads only or whether there are a few diamonds in the doctoral rough as it were...

[xnormajeanx]

It's an oasis, like few on the face of the earth, where hyper-educated girls are also Vogue cover model material.

Having lived in Nashville, I disagree. Vandy girls are exactly the same in attractiveness as every other top25 college girl, only more likely to go to church and vote for Bush.

Anyway, I find this thread kind of repulsive. If you're such a stud, you can get a girl no matter where you are. You don't have to put down female doctoral students. You're not limited to doctoral students anyway -- there are grad students getting MAs, MBAs, etc. And not all female law students are Hillary Clinton. Maybe you never ventured out of the fratboy scene at Vandy, but in the real world people meet each other frequently at coffee shops, bars, concerts, hell even grocery stores and the library. HTFH.

[MissingVandyCandy]

Why would one want to?

[MissingVandyCandy]

Are you certain?

[JordanJames]

MissingVandyCandy said:

http://igottarant.com/showthread.php?t=1492

Yeah, so are you certain the girls look like this at all top 25 schools?

MIT?

Harvard?

Dartmouth? HA

Penn?

Brown - YIKES... who let the hippies out

So while this post may repulse those who are more egalitarian on questions of looks, I hope the men on the cafe are as pleased as I am to know that the distinguished young women in the Theta photo have an average SAT of 1400 and are coming to a Goldman Sachs office near you.

Good luck finding that in South Bend. I'd suggest that you start lowering you standards right now.

I remember when I moved to the South for undergrad being angry that I couldn't find a decent pizza place anywhere. One day I was complaining while I split a pie from Domino's with some people, and my friend finally got annoyed with me. "Pizza is like sex, even when it's bad it's good; so chill out and just eat the god damned pizza," he said. Cliche? Yes, but from that point on I was fine with ordering Domino's, and I'm pretty sure I never complained again.

Anyways, I think you should mentally transition from MVC to the ND Trough, or you will be pretty unhappy your first year of grad school. As for me, I could be married or single when I start school next year, so I can't even begin to think about this sort of thing.

Also, this issue goes both ways, and I'm pretty sure many women going to grad school are worried about the same thing. If the pairing up thing is true, it's pretty scary considering there are about 10-20 people in each first year cohort in a department at most schools.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

At ND, some of my fellow grad students dated senior undergrads. They do have grad student socials and various events, but they're poorly attended after the first few weeks and people seemed scared to stray outside of their groups. Your best bets for dating in the South Bend area will be to head to the bar.

A mass of law students go to a different bar each week and otherwise party a lot. If you make friends with a few of the more social law students, you'll never run out of things to do. The Linebacker (AKA "the backer") is a small concrete building about a mile from the grad housing complex, which is always packed (and I mean PACKED) with anyone over the age of 21 who likes loud music and dancing (read: bumping into each other, because there's no space to move).

[materialgirl]

Are you serious? You're looking for a highly educated girl who takes care of yourself and as an example you put up a group of sorority girls wearing pasties? You are obviously very confused. I'm so sorry if the females going into grad school don't pole dance enough for your taste. We'll get right on that! Look, the pickings are slim for either side in grad school, but it's okay because most people only need to find one great person. And to be honest, for most of us grad school will be the place we're most likely to find a compatible partner-- we're largely there for the same reasons, after all. I know you're proud of Vanderbilt, and that's great...but really, the complaining about females in grad school gets really old. I mean, in all fairness, we have to deal with you . If you really want what you say you want (someone intelligent and beautiful), chances are you won't get a date with her by trolling around for undergrads wearing pasties and complaining about lack of MVC. So maybe before you complain about the situation around you, you should own up to what you really want.

[MissingVandyCandy]

May I refer you to my disclaimer: (All of the above should be taken with a little grain of salt)...

[materialgirl]

I realized levity was intended...actually I was really responding to the kernel of truth! No hard feelings, I was just reciprocating.

I absolutely agree that you are going to have a hard time finding what you're looking for. But really, as anyone raises his or her standards, the pickings are going to get slim. Being at Vanderbilt or any well-ranked school, it's easy to forget that you aren't living in a representative population. It's also a fact of life that people going to grad school are going to give up on other aspects of our lives (to varying degrees). For example, I'm choosing to play the viola less, but I'm going to try not to give up working out--all because I'm choosing to make my career a priority for now. We're all making these choices, and it's going to be hard to find someone who runs marathons, is gifted with natural beauty, and uses her intelligence. From what you've said, whether she actually uses her intelligence seems to be a lower priority than what she looks like. Unless you get lucky, you might end up having to compromise somewhere, so maybe you'll end up going for someone who isn't as interested in intellectual pursuits (but has natural intelligence). Let's face it, until you're a size 0/2/4, a creme brulee master, and a marathon runner (or something analogous), you should be more accepting of women who aren't the same. And between you and me, I do know women at top schools that have at least two out of the three...depending on whether you believe in the halo effect or the balance principle, you might just have a chance.

Just to be clear, when I speak of intelligence I mean natural intelligence. I consider an intellectual someone who is interested in learning and knowledge--I consider this trait to be correlated with, but not affirming intelligence.

[xnormajeanx]

http://igottarant.com/showthread.php?t=1492

Yeah, so are you certain the girls look like this at all top 25 schools?

Actually, those girls look exactly like the Tridelt, Kappa and Theta girls at my school.

[MissingVandyCandy]

Where do you go to school?

[xnormajeanx]

Lucky 4 You... where do you go to school? I've only seem similar per capita quality at Ole Miss, Pepperdine, SMU, and UVa...sure the bigger state schools have more in raw numbers, but the bell curve is a lot more flat at Wonderbilt.

I go to Northwestern. There are plenty of hot girls in the sorority quads. Sure, maybe they're not as hot "on average" as big party schools, but there are still PLENTY of good looking co-eds.

Point is, if you're really such a stud, there are girls out there to party with no matter where you go. There are hot girls at Stanford and Harvard. And there are definitely plenty of hot girls at other top schools like UCLA, UNC, UW-Madison, Duke. It's not like you're really going to get around to all of them and run out.

On the other hand, it sounds like you only want to ogle.

[MissingVandyCandy]

The whole point of my post was to get a handle on whether Doctoral students can date underclassmen because I suspect they will pique my interest more than the doctoral students.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

The stereotype in South Bend is that the most attractive women on campus actually go to St. Mary's College (the women's college across the street from ND), but there are plenty of attractive women at ND. Dating between grad students and undergrads isn't uncommon, as long as the age gap isn't that big, but there are rules against any sort of relationship if you're TAing for the undergrad's class (I'm sure most schools have this). While that rule makes sense, if you read the grad student handbook, you'll find all sorts of arcane rules that are unenforced.

From the sounds of it, you'll fit right in with most of the guys out there.

[MissingVandyCandy]

Hey Undrafted... thanks for the info, but per our last back and forth I'm probably not going to ND

[Minnesotan]

Actually, those girls look exactly like the Tridelt, Kappa and Theta girls at my school.

They are the same girls. The sororities make sure to clone enough for each campus every year, so the world is fully stocked with vacuous party girls. =)

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

Hey Undrafted... thanks for the info, but per our last back and forth I'm not necessarily going to ND...

I think I knew that at some point, but I remembered you talking about ND, and it just latched on to my brain.

[JordanJames]

but there are plenty of attractive women at ND.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

I'd heard those complaints too, but I really don't know what they were talking about. I think people just hear a stereotype and then walk around with that bias in their heads. Not like it really matters from November to March, when no one can really tell what anyone else looks like anyway.

[MissingVandyCandy]

lol

[Minnesotan]

pale, white, fleshy cottage cheese cellulite

And here I was about to get lunch. *ralf*