I find Bob's little outburst ignorant and offensive not only to his colleagues but PhD students everywhere who I generally find work hard and have a good command of their subject. After all, do you really think they would get accepted for a PhD place if they were totally clueless ?

Maybe you should stop being so stuck up and take time to actually get to know them. Perhaps you would find that they're not so utterly clueless as you suppose

I find Bob's outburst very patronising. But I'll add that over the years it has become obvious how little science they teach in schools thesedays. I've had new PhD students MSc who don't know how to make a 1 Molar solution. That used to be in the GCSE Chemistry "in my day", ditto the "A" Level so everyone took it for granted. Not knowing stuff like that is not the fault of students if they've not been taught it.

....and one last little point from me to Bob. "Knowledge of the real world" gets you knowhere in academia. Believe me, it's an odd world where the blind lead the blind and fools become kings (mixing metaphors). No amount of life experience will get you a grant. Infact, very often, no amount of science will either. Ahhh the ramblings of an embittered academic. Please ignore me, for I jest!

And I thought that I was clever because I knew the formula for water, well thanks Bob, you have ruined my day

Clara van der Akker: you are totally right about the fools becoming kings bit....i totally 100% agree with u. Have a pickle and cheese sandwich