things no one told me a year ago (I'm a better person than you are)

One year down (classes only, assignments pending). Here's what I learned.

1. You can speak more intelligently about a book that you've only read the introduction and conclusion of than one that you read closely, all the way through.

2. Professors don't write how they talk.

3. Professors know the people whose books they assign like 85% of the time, and they're friends with those people about half the time-so read the acknowledgments and make sure your professor isn't in it before you rip a book to shreds in class. Similarly, before tearing into a historical conceit, such as the phrase "the rebirth of europe," be sure the person you're talking to hasn't written a book called "europe reborn."

4. No one reads everything that's assigned, but bragging about how much work you didn't do is no longer cool.

5. Beware of students who think that they're actually doing important work. They're insane. Make friends that share your vices. And your gripes.

6. Understatement opens doors--when you say something small confidently, be it in class, or especially in a paper, people who are smarter than you tend to read in whatever they wanted to hear, and then you get credit for other people's ideas.

7. Presentations: I hate them. The strategy I've adopted involves taking the 5-15 minutes as a way to steer the conversation the way I want it to go--it's the only time people, even the professor, have to sit quietly and listen to your opinions. And half the goal is entertainment, so the bolder the opinions, the better. And, if you've established the reputation of having an ironic, self-deprecating sense of humor, if you say something completely incorrect, it's usually attributed to that, and not idiocy.

8. You will learn the most about everything any time you can catch a professor on like their second glass of wine.

9. Papers: no one does groundbreaking research in their first couple of years of grad school, especially in work for classes. It will not be brilliant, and given all the readers know about everything, it may even be trite. Therefore, it absolutely must be entertaining. It's not what you write, it's how you write it.

10. notable quotations from some of my classes forthcoming.