First In STEM, Last In Savings

Walking past "Interest in Science" like she doesn't exist, but stopping dead in your tracks for "Math"? Classic academic betrayal! The irony is delicious - trying to separate math from science is like trying to separate peanut butter from a PB&J sandwich. Math isn't just a science, it's the language science speaks. Without math, physics is just philosophy with cooler explosions. Next thing you'll tell me is that you love water but hate H₂O!

Ever notice how the universe delivers truth in pill form? That moment when your advisor finally breaks it to you that string theory won't pay the bills. Sure, I could accept my limited mathematical prowess and terrible lab skills... or I could just reject reality entirely! Who needs experimental evidence when you've got stubbornness? The academic job market is just a social construct anyway! *continues scribbling equations while ignoring mounting student debt*

The "How to Physicist" guide perfectly captures the existential crisis of academic physics! While non-academics think physicists spend their days unraveling quantum mysteries or smashing particles, the reality is much more... mundane. Shopping for ties, making pasta, exercising, and vacuuming—all while having an existential crisis about your citation count. The punchline hits hard: despite your impressive academic pedigree, the brutal "publish or perish" culture of academia means your dream of becoming a tenured professor remains frustratingly elusive. The only solution? Make memes about your academic suffering! Because if you can't get citations, at least you can get upvotes.

The chemistry student's emotional journey is TOO REAL! 😂 Biochemistry starts you off with the warm fuzzies of learning about life processes. Then inorganic chem teaches you "patience" (code for countless hours balancing equations while questioning your life choices). But organic chemistry? That's where dreams go to die with its 5,000 reaction mechanisms and impossible naming conventions. Physical chemistry isn't even mentioned because those survivors have developed selective amnesia from the trauma of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics! Every science major knows that emotional damage scale all too well!

Nothing quite captures the existential despair of synthetic chemistry like getting a 5% yield while your lab mate smugly reports 6%. Those stone faces perfectly embody the judgmental silence that follows your presentation at group meeting. That single percentage point might as well be the Grand Canyon of competence. Meanwhile, your PI is wondering why they didn't accept that industry job offer instead of babysitting a lab full of underperforming grad students who can't even crystallize water. The hierarchy of stone faces judging your synthetic failures is the perfect metaphor for academic pecking orders—silent, immovable, and eternally unimpressed.

The duality of midnight thoughts. Math majors drift off to sleep calculating limits and mentally shouting "just use L'Hôpital's rule" at complex fractions, while everyone else just wants the moon to shut up and let them sleep. Nothing says "I've made poor life choices" quite like finding comfort in calculus theorems at 2 AM while normal people are having existential crises about their ex.