I’m sorry, I don’t know anything. I’m a grad student.

“Excuse me,” the woman asked. “Do you know where the campus tours start?”

I paused on my way from the lab to my Tae Kwon Do class. I pondered the question. Of course I know where the campus tours start. I mean, I must know. How could I not know where the campus tours start? I thought about it logically. They must start from the admissions building, right? But… which building is the admissions building?

Having searched my memory banks and come up dry, I had to tell the woman that I had could not tell her where the campus tours started from, and I could not even hazard a guess. I could have told her where to go for the campus tours at my undergraduate institution. I could have even told her what time they started. But at my grad school? No idea.

You see, grad students are different from undergrads. Undergrads get to know their campus inside out. They have at least one class in almost every building at some point in their time there. They know where all of the dining halls are and they root for the sports teams. Grad students, on the other hand, know their building inside out. We have at least one class in almost every room in our building at some point in our time there. We know where all of the Coke machines are, and we couldn’t care less about the sports teams. I was at my grad school for five long years, but I couldn’t tell you where the English department was located. Hell, I couldn’t tell you where the math department was located, and I was an engineer.

Yes, grad students are different from undergrads.