An undergrad student comes in for advising. It's always a dance, at first, deciding what language we will do it in. Some students are nervous about speaking in English, while other students relish the opportunity to try out their English. Actually, it is not a dance at all, I just ask: "Shall we do this in English, 아니면 한국어로 할까요?"
He opts for Korean, so it will be in Korean. Except for the words I don't know. This seems like it doesn't work, but generally the students, even if uncomfortable with English, have a good English vocabulary.
"So you are in your fourth year, I see." I start, having looked at his grades, "And your grades are good, have you started thinking about your next step? Are you looking for a job, or thinking about grad school?"
"I haven't started looking," he says, "I don't know where to look."
Damn! It is hard to advise students about jobs. I just stayed in academia because I had a bit of an aptitude, and so it was the easiest decision– the path of least resistance– where you end up when you avoid the hard decisions.
"What kind of work would you like to do?" I feel out. Of course if they know, they are not asking advice, but they have to start thinking about what they want.
"I think I would like to work in a lab." he says.
Not the usual path of a math student.
"What kind of lab?" I ask.
"An evil lab." This takes a while. I don't know '사악'. I expect it is some technical field, and I ask him about it. Eventually we just look it up.
"Like for a super-villain?" I finally confirm, having seen the word for villain when we were looking up evil.
"Yeah," he says, "Or just a regular villain with big ambitions."
"Why do you want to work in an evil lab?" I ask the obvious question. His answer surprises me.
"It's where the prettiest women work."
Do they? I wonder. The only evil labs I know are from movies.
"It probably looks that way," I say, "because most of your exposure to evil labs is from movies. I don't think the people in a real life evil lab are any prettier than say, the people in your average dentist office."
It has come out unconsciously, but I guess I know now why I insist on going to the dentist that my wife thinks is ripping me off. They put a mask over your face when they are scaling your teeth, but you get glimpses through the crack next to your nose.
"They wear prettier outfits in the evil labs." he elaborates.
This is probably true. Evil people tend to be a bit more revealing in their dress. Looser morals.
"You want to wear pretty outfits?" I ask.
"I want the people I work with to wear pretty outfits."
I think that a job in the fashion industry might be a better option, but looking at the list of classes that he has taken, he is much less prepared for a job in fashion.
"Well, I guess if you want to work in an evil lab, the best thing is to probably start developing a core of evil skills." I start. "You should probably pick up some chemistry classes. I see you have some applied math, that's a good start, but maybe you should also try to get some data science."
He is taking notes.
"And an accent." I'm about to suggest a German accent, or a Japanese one, but I realise my frame of reference might be a bit dated. And maybe not so applicable in an evil lab in Korea. "How is your North Korean accent? Or your 사투리?"
He says something back, but I guess it is in a good evil dialect. I can't understand any of it.
"And you might what to talk to Professor Do." I suggest. "He's the closest we have to a villain here in the Math department."
"An evil genius," the student agrees. "Lots of pretty students in his lab."
"Well," I wonder if that is true. "He certainly has the evil."
"I've heard," says the student with admiration. I don't know that I like that. Even working in a lab, one needs a healthy suspicion of evil.
I wonder if Do is a bit too much.
"Or you can try evil Mark, in the Stats department." Then upon reflection, I continue. "Probably anyone in the Stats department has some good evil contacts."
I look at his info again.
"You'll definitely want to pick up some stats classes."
