Facial Hair, Shaving & Grad School

[Geronimo]

I have noticed that professors and doctoral students tend to be one of the few remaining men on the planet who sport significant amounts of facial hair. I am thinking of throwing away the blade and letting it grow out phd student style lol! Please share your thoughts on grad school students and the facial hair trend; especially those who plan to grow it out, please feel free to share your reasons for wanting to. I want to grow it as a symbol of joining an order-- the order of phd students!

[MaximKat]

It's good that someone has started this topic I have dark and fast-growing facial hair. If I shave at the morning, it will already be noticeable at the end of the day and will be several millimeters long the day after tomorrow.

Now I usually shave every 2nd-3rd day. Should I start doing it more often (like every day)? I'm afraid that it may not be very healthy for skin. Do people in US pay a lot of attention to this kind of thing?

[aginath]

Very few of my non-academic friends and colleagues are beardless. That is to say, many have a mustache or a goatee at the very least. Still, I am amazed when I encounter people, usually of an older generation, who comment on facial hair and how it signifies someone who is untrustworthy. :roll: Honestly, I think it's of a regional and social issue. When in Rome...

[LingGrad2009]

If all it takes is a beard to be a grad student then I've been one for five years now!

Hah, no seriously, I think you may be overestimating the rarity of beards outside of academia, or maybe you're just in a region where they don't happen to be the general style. At my workplace, about a quarter of the guys wear beards, a third if you include goatees, and up to a full half if you count moustaches. And I work in an area that's about as least-academic as you can get and not be working a front-loader.

I've actually been considering shaving my beard to change my look for grad school. I like to make major changes like that coincide with a move though, because I hate inane palaver for days over a haircut or new glasses or whatever. Ugh.

[snap]

Good topic here.

I do have a goatee. which I shave everytime I have a job interview.

I made a promise to myself to grow dreadlocks and locks on my beard as well if I get accepted into grad school. Which might have to wait till next year.

The reason why I decided so is that you cant grow it while you are job hunting. Once I am sure I dont have an interview for 4 years I will definitely gorw my hair and beard.

[Stories]

Facial hair is definitely much more common amongst the mid-20's men this generation. Go with the flow. Do what you think looks cool. Unless, of course, you have trouble growing facial hair... (me)

[Joel418]

Grizzly Adams

Professor Emeritus, Insanity in the Membranity, University of Incrediblawesome

[Genomic Repairman]

Friends, Romans, Beardsmen, I beseech the! You may grow a beard in graduate school but you must accept the task at hand. For you shan't just have any beard, it must be a manly beard. A beard which inspires other men to cheer and women to swoon. It doesn't matter if your beard looks like that of Grizzly Adams, Blackbeard the pirate, or one of those half-naked Greeks in 300, the only requirement for the beard is that it must convey your badassness to all. To those of you with patchy, wispy beards, shave that shit off for you cannot compete with the true bearded men, and we True Beards do not take kindly to imposters and shall hold your bitch-ass down and shave that pathetic shit off.

Now throw your razors in the trash and someone fetch me my mid-afternoon beer for it is time for data analysis.

So says the Gospel of the Genomic Repairman.

[AlexM451]

I was considering growing my "patchy" beard out until I was put in my place by the Genomic Repairman. How emasculating.

[boneh3ad]

Shoot, I just subscribe to the practice of not shaving for a week or two at a time regardless of how it looks. I don't really care. Then I shave down to almost being clean when it starts getting annoying to me and repeat the process. This process is what I have lovingly referred to as "I am too lazy to really care."

[UnlikelyGrad]

Shoot, I just subscribe to the practice of not shaving for a week or two at a time regardless of how it looks. I don't really care. Then I shave down to almost being clean when it starts getting annoying to me and repeat the process. This process is what I have lovingly referred to as "I am too lazy to really care."

Hahahaha!

The last guy I worked for was just like this. It was always a bit freaky when he did shave--I'd come in and think, "What's different about him?" You know, the way you do when someone you know gets a haircut.

I personally thought he looked way better about 1 week after shaving, but I didn't dare tell him so--it isn't really kosher for a married woman to tell a married man (who's not her husband) that he looks hotter with facial hair.

[boneh3ad]

Haha, that is funny because I feel like it looks the most normal on me about a week after I shave.

[Genomic Repairman]

I was considering growing my "patchy" beard out until I was put in my place by the Genomic Repairman. How emasculating.

Alex if you promise to supplement your beard with meat and testosterone we will give you provisional acceptance to the Brotherhood of the Beard.

[frankdux]

I usually shave twice a week and I still get students in my discussion sections flirting with me.

[pea-jay]

I have been sporting some form of facial hair (stubble mostly) since my mid 20s since without it I'd look too young. Now in my mid 30s and going back to grad school Im considering going back to the clean cut look again.

[PeaceDoc]

Consider first, how archaic shaving is. You're scraping a blade across your skin... *eeish*

It hurts me, and thus I shave rarely, and incrementally. Perhaps once every two weeks, perhaps once every two months. This may say something about me, but I also get bored very easily. Thus I enjoy mixing it up.

Over the past year I've had a clean shave, stubble, full beard (twice), and both a Chevron (Go Bandit!!) and Handlebar stache.

Go with the flow and relax. You're in grad school to think and learn, not to impress people with your rugged comic-esc jawline. Someday you may be in a job which does not permit you to wear your facial hair as you see fit.

[Genomic Repairman]

Oh the oppression! I am being made to shave my beard and go clean shaven for engagement photos. But then its back to stubble time.

[yacobito]

Wow, this is great. I was working in industry for the past 6 years before coming back to grad school. I was shaving almost every day, at a minimum every other. Now that I am 2 semesters into grad school I have found myself going 3 to to 4 days without shaving. I think for me its a function of being really busy and not really spending a lot of time around people. I spend most of my time in a clean room suit or in a lab by myself. No one to shave for I guess.

Also, I am riding my bike to school in Boston and the extra layer helps keep the cheeks warm in the winter!

Cheers to my fellow scruffy/bearded academics.

[cleisthenes]

[LOLhedgefunds]

Grad student w/ facial hair, taking questions

[amyeray]

Okay, not a guy.. but y'all are cracking me up. BEST. THREAD. EVER. Good luck with the facial hair.

[lovethequestions]

At a party this weekend, the students in my program discussed precisely this phenomenon (preponderance of beardage among grad student men). We determined that most, but not all men can carry them off, and came up with the following rules for growing a beard.

1) It has to be groomed (no Tolstoy beards).

2) It has to grow in evenly (no patchy beards, sorry).

3) It has to not make you look like a complete tool. (This one, I admit, is slightly more subjective. But I'm sure you can all picture the beards I mean.)

On the other hand, I recently moved to the Midwest from the South. And if I were a dude, I think I would grow a beard regardless of whether I could pull it off or not, just to have the extra layer of insulation in the winter...