The Atlantic - Graduate School Can Have Terrible Effects on People's Mental Health

Graduate School
21

There is indeed a lot of stress and not everyone deals with it well. Personally, my experience was generally positive throughout my graduate program even though my advisor was often away from the university and sort of left us to our own devices. Fortunaately the research group was large and I found a mentor in one of the postdocs and colleagues in the other students. The biggest stress was having to finish in a rush when my advisor died and trying to find a postdoc position without his help.

As a faculty advisor, I have learned over the years to be supportive of my students but also to give them the freedom to develop their research program themselves. I think that the key to avoiding the issue of solitude is to be in a research group where collaboration is encouraged. Of course, I can only speak for my own area which is physics and materials science. It is certainly true that other fields will tend to have a more solitary existence.

To the OP, your D should take these 2 years to figure out how she wants to balance her personal life and work and to decide if graduate school is really necessary for her ultimate goals. I have two sons, one decided early on that he wanted to pursue research and has taken a long but interesting path to his PhD and now a postdoc looking for an academic position. The other is an engineer whose professors were encouraging to think of graduate school. He realized that he was not willing to deal with the stress of taking more courses and decided to take a job after graduation. He has done very well, enjoys his work but does not let it dominate his life 24/7. A good choice for him.

22

The problem with saying that certain fields require total commitment is that many societal groups get completely left out of those fields entirely and the fields are poorer for it - parents of infants and small children, people who have to take care of elderly family members, people who have to work vs. people who have independent wealth or support while pursuing degrees. Any profession can be part-time - there are part-time lawyers, part-time professors, etc. But the structure of training does not even allow for normal full-time hours, sucking more and more out of those in training right at the height of their adult financial, community and childrearing responsibilities. On the other hand, people need to realize the worth of their own contribution in terms of societal interest and support - it’s easy to get blinded to the fact that maybe we don’t need one more dissertation to make the world go round.

23

Going to graduate school, particularly when stepping out and going for the PhD, is stepping out of the norm of adult life. I remember my relatives being initially “impressed” that my husband and I were pursuing PhD programs, but after a few years with degrees a couple more years away came the, “you’re still in school?!?” questions (many discouraging times). Then there are the many points along the way asking oneself or each other in our case, “why are we doing this?” We went to grad school during a strong economy, our peers making decent money, buying houses, having babies, etc. There were so many points when losing perspective and falling into a desperate mindset could have happened. Now that grad school is a distant memory, loans long paid off, and the benefits of having the degrees and experience that give us credibility and a good working life now, it was all so worth it.

I think the things that could help to mitigate mental health risk in graduate school are the same things that mitigate risk in life in general. Graduate school was so hard, but it was also an exhilarating and stimulating time in my life that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

24

My SO and I got our PhDs at the same time. It was nice to have a source of support, yes, but writing our dissertations at the same time nearly sank our relationship. It’s an extremely stressful experience, and we were both perpetually on edge for that long, long year we were finishing our dissertations and going on the job market. We made it through, but I don’t miss grad school at all.

Yep. The mental health issues that grad students struggle with are no secret. Unfortunately, grad students often fear being stigmatized for going to counseling or admitting to struggling with depression. One woman in my cohort was encouraged (read: pushed) to take a year off when she told her advisor that she’d been going to counseling for mental health, which caused at least a couple others to stop going to counseling out of fear their advisors would do the same. Hardly the healthiest environment, needless to say.

25

Advisors who encourage their PhD students to take a leave if they are struggling with depression are being responsible - grad school can be a long hard slog and it isn’t for everyone. If your cohort felt they were in an unhealthy environment, in my opinion it was of their own doing and not because their advisors encouraged leaves.

We’ve had 2 PhD students commit suicide in the building in the last 15 years. We faculty are not trained in suicide prevention. The best we can do is encourage any PhD students who are struggling with depression to separate temporarily from the stress of graduate research and focus on managing their health issues.

When I had PhD students suffer from mental health issues, I encouraged them to step away and focus on health first. One student came back, found a way to manage the stress, and flourished. Another did not find a solution, decided to abandon research (left the program with a “consolation MS”), and found a different fulfilling career path. Both made the right decision, both are now happy: one is a tenured faculty member in another university and the other has a government regulatory position.

When our undergraduate students struggle due to mental health issues, we also typically advise them to take a leave. If they perform poorly enough, they are separated and forced to take a leave. It may appear punitive in the moment, but it is not intended to be - we are trying to encourage them to focus on health first.

26

I read this article with some concern and its theme surprised me. My S is in a PhD program and he seems to be doing fine but we do have mental health issues in our family.

He is by nature an introvert so I am concerned in general that he spends a lot of time alone. He spends a lot of time grading papers and teaching and he goes to the gym a lot. He’s not too excited about classes but he can’t wait to do research.

He’s always been the type to sit around and think Big Thoughts about physics, math, and philosophy. I thought grad school would be perfect for him because he’d be allowed to be thinking about physics 24/7 as a job.

I’ll have to show him this article and see if any of it rings true to him.

27

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181210150610.htm

‘Dropout’ rate for academic scientists has risen sharply in past 50 years, study finds

Summary:
An analysis has found that half the people pursuing scientific careers at institutions of higher education will depart the field after five years – a sharp contrast compared to 50 years ago

**
Maybe folks are being forced/lured to work in the industry.

28

Dropping after 5 years looks like they aren’t getting tenure (or are deciding to give up on trying for tenure). Industry looks just plain relaxing after dealing with a tenure struggle.

29

This has always been true.

I think the authors missed a couple of key tectonic shifts: 1) number of approved tenure track jobs is declining precipitously; 2) number of PhD’s being produced is increasing. (#2 is a really bad response by the Academy to #1; it’s borderline immoral, IMO.)

30

The use of adjunct faculty is going way way up in Colorado. That means less academic jobs, but PhDs do not have to get an academic job. I also see Georgia Tech, U of Colorado and other schools expanding and hiring like crazy in STEM fields, and shrinking in humanities and social sciences. Its a bad trend in my opinion.

I guess it really depends on what the PhD subject is, as to career options.
, in STEM fields, there are plenty of jobs for PhD. I got a PhD in materials science about 29 years ago and found a variety of jobs such as industry R&D, quality supplier manager, prior art searching, government lab manager and US patent examiner, where my PhD was at least mildly useful.
Many many people love grad school. Once the qualifying exam is passed, and many students have no trouble passing this exam, its rather like a very very nice job with a lot of freedom. Most people in the sciences feel their PhD time was like heaven, its not all that stressful, until year four five, six, (seven and eight???!!!) There is the stress of getting out, but really year 2, 3 and 4 are very very fun. Lots of travel, conferences, and collaboration in many science and math PhD programs.

Its totally KEY to get along with your research advisor. If you do not, change advisors.

Stress comes from conflict with the advisor. If you fail your qual, get out and find a job. Its not the end of the world,
and maybe you saved yourself six more years of agony and lack of money. PhDs never pay off with retirement. The best years of your life are being wasted at very low pay. Stay in it, IF you love it.

31

I love that comment, @Coloradomama, stay in it, IF you love it. Go into it with eyes wide open. If you don’t end undergraduate school hungry for more, it could very well end up being a real depressing slog. You have to do it for the right reasons, and that’s very personal.

32

At least in my field, it would definitely be more of a “lured” scenario. Industry is much more lucrative than academia in the overwhelming majority of cases, and the work-life balance implications can’t be overstated, either.

I (so far) stick with my academic job because I like being able to work on anything I can convince someone to fund and I like having close contact with students (though they certainly try my patience at times).

I think there are a couple key points here. Usage of adjuncts is on the rise, but many universities, realizing this is not sustainable, are exploring “career-track” teaching professors as an alternative. My university is doing this, for example, so that a faculty member who really just wants to teach has more job stability and a more competitive rate of pay.

I think it’s also important to note that PhDs don’t have to get academic jobs in some fields (STEM fields in particular) but in others, there aren’t a whole lot of jobs that require a PhD outside of academia. In other words, I can see how the lack of tenure-track jobs could really destroy the mental health of humanties PhDs, but I’d be surprised if it had much effect on STEM PhDs considering most of them are targeting industry anyway.

Based on my experience, I think there are more fundamental forces at work here. PhD students are in an environment where an outsize weight is placed on one’s intellectual abilities and where every one of their peers are high-achievers as well. There is likely also a fair bit of self-selection of students who internally place a high value on their own intellectual and academic accomplishments. Inevitably, when these students have to confront failure, many times for the first time, it can be incredibly jarring.

This happened to me when studying for the quals in my program where, for the first time, I had to seriously confront the very real possibility that I just wasn’t up to the task and that failing this test would mean that I had to leave the program and abandon my career goals. In the end, it turned out I was far more worried about it than I needed to be, as I passed the quals just fine and could have certainly gone to get a different job in industry paying a perfectly respectable salary. Just the act of confronting those feelings and anxieties, though, led me to seek a therapist and to take some medicine for about a year.

Another factor in more modern times is, I think, social media. I know it was sometimes hard for me to see friends of mine on Facebook who I knew worked a fraction of how hard I did going on fancy vacations and buying homes and having a family and all sorts of these big life milestones that I had to put on hold. In the end, it was worth it and I am very happy with how my life has gone, but at the time, it’s a nontrivial thing to deal with.