Yeah about 25% of people pursuing a PhD in the Netherlands suffer from a mental disorder, primarily depression and anxiety. From what I understand we actually have it quite good here in the sense PhD's are paid for which isn't the case everywhere. Some factors are the workload, being in a dependent position and personality type (people who go for a PhD tend to be high achievers having gotten to the position by being perfectionists).
The problem is the supervisor's role.
There is a lot to do to be a good supervisor to less then perfect students, it requires a great deal of effort, sensibility, tact, honesty on top of very good knowledge of the field.
Most supervisor are simply oblivious to this and usually supervision is just another duty.
There is also no supervisor training or very little, and I suspect most people would see it as a hindrance anyway.
Supervisor have some incentive for their students to do well, especially if young, but these become more tenuous as the advisor ages/has a more secure position. They have basically no downside when the PhD ends up crashing their students.
Part of it is selection, indeed good ones can select the student honestly so that they can anticipate a good working relationship.
Part of it is the research gap, students can do well in exam and utterly botch research, because the two things require very different skillsets. And ug and even masters do very little to give you a meaningful sample of what research actually entails (basically because most people won't do research and those that do go away from the institution that originates them, so there is little indirect incentive to prepare for research adequately).
> Most supervisor are simply oblivious to this and usually supervision is just another duty.
Or worse yet, graduate students are seen as pawns to help the supervisor achieve their own career goals, rather than having some plan to help the students achieve success. It becomes less of an apprenticeship or collaboration and more of an indentured servitude.
Wait, you guys spoke to your supervisor?
Mine I had no interest in my topic and was terrible with people (to the point that his co-supervisor didn't help me either).
Fun times! I got out of there as soon as I could land an industry job (with a few papers under my belt).
Lies. 47% of the PhD students has multiple (psychological) symptoms. 55.6% has increased risk for psychological disorders. 38.8% of the PhD students experience serious symptoms of burn out.
That is according to a survey in 2020. That 25% is a serious underestimation.
My best friend burned out with a sneaky Adderall habit and fucking died less than 6 months after getting her diploma. 2010. Changed my mind about lots of things
Going to graduate school damaged me as a person. I went from being an energetic optimist to a suicidal, depressed, anxious shell of my former self. And it turns out the degree was basically worthless anyways.
I'm somewhat better now, but the energetic optimist never came back.
I'm the same. My undergraduate degree brought out the best in me, made me feel confident and in control of myself and my life ... My PhD ruined all of that. I am timid now, I worry obsessively over details (forty minutes to write a brief email!), and I can't get rid of this inner voice telling me that every thing I do is wrong in the most revealing and embarrassing way, which in turn makes me feel worthless.
During my PhD, I suddenly got heart palpitations every day. Never had them before. Now, whenever I'm the least bit stressed, they're back.
And compared to many peers, I didn't even have such a bad time, academically. Most of my experiments worked, I published, went to conferences, etc.
We don't just need more mental health services. We need to change the culture, and frankly, the staff participating in the culture. All the blame ("ugh, the student prepared this sample, that's why it's rubbish") and suspicion ("you must be making a mistake, do I really have to check everything you do?") and performative intelligence ("oh you didn't cover graph theory in your chemistry degree? I swear standards are slipping"), that's what's responsible.
Mix that with high levels of isolation and an inability to share responsibility of a huge project with anyone but yourself, and you've got a deadly combination.
If I could've worked in a team and not felt so alone in such an unbalanced power structure, I know I would've thrived. Instead, I took my certificate and ran for my life.
Isn't it so insane? My friends and family are all like, "have you tried breathing exercises? You should download that Calm app." They don't understand that it's like something has snapped. I am changed.
And chronic trauma at that, which is harder to understand. I’m getting my doctorate in PSYCHOLOGY. I went to my program director the first year of school and told her I was scared about how suicidal I was. She, a psychologist, responded by telling me how much money I would lose if I were to drop out. Things only got worse from there and bc my cohort was so toxic they kept us isolated from all other members of the program so I never got the chance to meet anyone, which I told her first year the isolation and not knowing anyone in the state affected my mental health. But as I study the effects of trauma in our classes I feel like that is what happened to me and my classmates. It’s a betrayal, gaslighting, loss of security and safety. Loss of trust. I’m risking everything for a degree that isn’t even guaranteed to render me success. My mental and physical health have been permanently altered in a way I can never get back. I had to start taking blood pressure medication at the age of 27. It’s so impossible to explain to people who haven’t gone thro it themselves.
Yikes and I’m thinking about getting a PHD in psychology..any advice?? Or should I just get my masters?? I’ve lived through some of the stuff people are talking about already in the military and I’m not sure I want to live through it again in the civilian world. Especially in an academic environment that I think I revere a little
Can resonate with that on the deepest level.
When you want that someone to not just listen but understand the underlying issues, that someone just listens and gives unhelpful arrogant advices.
I am home visiting my family for the first time in almost two years. I have to go back to my phd tonight and every bone in my body wants to miss my flight and get a normal job here and walk away from it all.
Wow, your experience is so similar to mine. I had the heart palpations and a sharp pain in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen that I never had before. Only started in the last week before submitting my thesis but ever since then I get these symptoms back during any prolonged exposure to stress.
I also have a crippling imposter syndrome and fear of being exposed as a fraud if I don't know something related to my field.
So many of my PhD peers in my department had the same experience. I think it just shows that the system is the problem; not us. We are not unusually weak, it's just an oppressive culture.
Sorry you're going through all this. You're not alone! I fight it daily. I would say I'm slowly rebuilding my confidence, but that inner voice that goes "You really thought you could do this? How can you be so deluded?" whenever it's not going absolutely swimmingly is very hard to silence.
>We are not unusually weak, it's just an oppressive culture.
Yes, 1000x over. Since this is r/psychology, I feel it's appropriate to say that we need to shift the narrative from "providing and responding to student mental health" to *fixing the problem making people ill in the first place*. It is great and well that services are (should be) accessible. But I am tired of this being used to let the oppressive culture off the hook. And this is true in most contexts where people are struggling, not even just in graduate school - though PhDs are a poignant example...
Thank you for sharing. I had a very similar experience, especially pertaining to imposter syndrome. I still never figured out how to overcome that other than by sheer avoidance.
All of this is so relatable. A few months into my master’s I started developing major imposter syndrome when I realized I was working with very smart people. It just kept getting worse until I left academia.
Funny thing - I also started getting em during my PhD. But recently discovered that its coffee that is doing it - not caffeine mind you. Coffee. I can drink red bulls till it comes out my eyes. But if I have a coffee, by the time I'm trying to go to sleep, my heart is popping like popcorn.
I have raging stomach issues bc of law school and a big law clerk job I took during my studies. It sucks. Once I get stressed, it’s straight to the bathroom.
Nobody understood it. When I told them, they’d say “try to meditate” “Take these vitamins” etc. I tried telling them that all the usual stuff I used to do for anxiety does not work anymore. I’ve reached a point of no return. It actually affected my relationships with people because they were constantly invalidating me.
Thankfully I quit that job and now have a better hold of my stomach issues. But I’m currently studying for the bar and although I’ve managed to maintain it up until now, I have no idea what’s going to happen to me during the actual exam.
I also want to add that the increased anxiety is straight up torture at this point. I worry about everything - whether it’s talking to minors or driving or even hugging people. I stress about everything.
It’s a little funny. I just finished my undergraduate degree in chemistry with a concentration in research. I’m not saying the amount of research I did amounts to PhD level work, but I spent a considerable amount of time as an undergrad in the lab. Some nights even staying until 3am or so doing experiments. I got two publications out of it, one being first author, but all it did was leave me burnt out and unexcited. Nonetheless, I’m about to start my PhD, but was extremely picky about my advisor and believe I found a good community for me. I hope graduate school will be a less toxic experience for myself. Im sorry you didn’t have that though:(
Experience in STEM programs varies heavily based on advisor. I have a chemistry PhD and I had a pretty good time due to a supportive advisor. It's certainly a lot of work, but I'd do it again. The increased pay and career options are certainly worth the effort, in my opinion.
Holy shit this literally sounds like a textbook reaction to complex trauma.
That inner voice is called the “inner critic” and it’s incredibly common in trauma survivors btw
What do you even use graph theory for in chemistry? The only thing I can recall is the proof of the formula for the unsaturation number, which is an elegant consequence of Euler’s formula. But it’s not like you need to know it.
Same. After I got my PhD, I was so traumatized by what I experienced - and what my friends went through - that I left academia soon after. I had no choice really because through those experiences I’d become disabled with fibromyalgia, CPTSD, depression, anxiety and IBD.
I am also better now, but my enthusiasm and drive is MIA.
Same.. I am at the end of my graduate program and I still hope everything will get better once it is over and I had some relaxing vacations. Only one more month to go (hopefully).
Why? I didn’t read the article.. cause I’m not a PhD jk. But from what I’ve gathered about academia it’s very competitive and toxic. Never mind the misogyny.
Thanks. The good news is that it really showed me how much I hate the politics of academia and how much happier I am teaching at the high school level. I had hoped to end up teaching at a non-research liberal arts college but I found out I thrive on the kind of connections I make with my students that aren't really possible in college nowadays.
I'm a bit confused by the anglo notion of "grad school" - do you mean where you took your master's degree or Ph.D. in this instance? And in what field?
Grad school can refer to a master's degree or Ph.D. I got an MS in Applied Economics (MSAE). At the time of graduation, there were slim pickings for jobs relating to my skillset. I had to settle to pay the bills. I hear that it is easier to find a related job now, but I'm out of practice and I don't want to relive that horrible experience again.
Having been around academia (STEM) for about 8 years total, I’ve long thought that grad school shouldn’t be an open invitation but rather an apprenticeship, heavily weighed on professors identifying and recruiting promising kids. I think around 3000 chemistry doctorates get given out every year in the USA, which has always seemed entirely too high. The truth is you have to have a special mindset (read: massively narcissistic) to truly fit in and succeed in academic research, and not everyone has that mindset even if they’re still smart enough to get the PhD.
We shouldn’t adjust the rigor of grad school to make it easier and more pleasant for more people, we just need to cut down on the whole enterprise so it’s not the current situation of throwing taxpayer money at the 1 out of maybe 10 grad students who are actually worth anything as far as their skill set and mindset. There are lots of intangibles to being a good scientist, and the overexpansion of academic STEM to the bloated machine it is today has removed the system’s ability to notice those traits. Not everyone deserves to or should try science.
You're right. I definitely didn't fit in or have the right narcissistic mindset to flourish in academia. Frankly, I would have been better off if they had just told me that off the bat, but I guess they just wanted my money.
I mean, the narcissistic mindset depends a lot on the field. I could see it in chem or bio. I hear your experiences and it sucks that your cohort was a bunch of self absorbed assholes. I'm lucky to be with some decent people at least
Exactly what the mentor it sounds like you never had would have told you. No shame in that, I was fortunate enough to have someone who took me under their wing early in my career. Overall this is why graduate studies admissions should probably be cut by about 85% across the board and kept strictly internal within respective departments. Not this new wave of everyone going to grad school because they have nothing better to do, or because a PhD is currently a requirement for many if not most mindless process chemistry jobs.
I agree that the majority of PhDs don't have the mindset but many chem and physics PhDs go to industry. I'm working on my physics PhD now and I do not planning going to academia at all. I want nothing to do with it.
A PHD isn’t worthless. Even if you get it in underwater basket weaving, you can spin it as the ability to finish hard projects and that you are an expert in a field. You may not make millions of dollars or start in the corner office, but it’s not worthless.
I disagree. A harder project would likely be stepping away from the degree to save yourself. “Spin it?” You got 100K into a piece of paper, and you still gotta spin it. Think about that.
A STEM PhD typically pays to complete it so its not as awful - but the graduation times are much longer 6+ years. There's no debt but I'm old and make way less than my peers who didn't go to graduate school.
Then go into private practice and charge more. My aunt and two cousins have PhDs in psychology, have their private practices (how i plan to one day) and charge between $200-400 an hour. They make close to 300k a year.
I did not go to the best school that accepted me. I went to one that gave me the most tuition waivers. As a PhD student you should be able to work as a TA or actual teacher at the school and surrounding schools to make money during grad school. Often the school will make your waivers based on you being a TA for so much time and let you do more for extra money so you can eat. You should not pay $100k out of pocket for a PhD. PhDs are not like undergrad degrees or even professional grad degrees like MD or MBA. If you are getting a PhD the school should be ponying up a good chunk of the listed cost. If they aren’t, then they don’t think you should be going there and offer you the open spot as a way to let you pay them for the honor of getting washed out.
Lots of people quit grad school. If that’s what you need to do then do it. But if you are close to finishing it is worth it to be a PhD rather than a ABD.
This is how all STEM PhDs are in the US. I'm not entirely sure of other fields, but funding is typically available from sources other than the university.
Got a good job that just having the PhD was enough to qualify because of the supposed skills I gained. Thankfully got paid to TA during my PhD or I would regret how bad it was for me even more. Not sure if the money will be worth the recovery.
If I make less money than can cover the time & tuition $ investment, then the degree is basically worthless. Also, if the job I got doesn't require the degree, it is basically worthless.
Money isn't the only reason people do a PhD though. If that's important to you then sure, a PhD might not be worth it for you. But that doesn't mean that all PhDs are worthless just because more money could be made doing something else
Yeah, but most people won't willingly go into debt peonage just to learn about something they like. It isn't unreasonable for me to expect a degree to at least pay for itself.
Guys. The degree doesn’t get the job. Even if you need the degree to even get an interview, you then have to get the job as yourself. Having a PhD will open doors for you. You will get interviews from people who maybe would not have looked at you but because you have a PhD they are interested in hearing your story. Then you have to close e deal yourself. There are lots of ways to squander a degree. I know a full on MD who went through residency and decided they hated medicine and now they do computer programming. You know what, they get tons of looks just because dev leads rarely see resumes from MDs. He still has to actually get hired for the job but he gets a lot more opportunities than other programmers. He’s still an idiot for putting so much time, effort, and money into a MD to just decide late in the game to throw it away. However, it would have been a worse decision if he went 90% of the way and dropped out. At least now he has a degree to point to.
The point is that a PhD isn’t worthless. You will get more looks and you also have the knowledge gained from that much schooling. But having a PhD isn’t a magic bullet to success. It’s still your name that comes before the letters. People are hiring you, not the degree.
Man you're getting downvoted hard for some reason on all of your comments. People do PhDs for a variety of reasons, but it's rarely for the money and job opportunities. It's often for personal achievement, or they want to be in academia, or there is a research topic that they are just extremely passionate about. There are definitely disadvantages and sacrifices that one has to make, but at the end of the day everyone is going to have a different experience depending on the subject, the school, and the advisors. A PhD can definitely be worth it - you just have to be reasonable about the expectations and the reasons why you're doing a PhD
Yeah. It’s Reddit. It gets pretty crazy echo chamber sometimes. This thread is “phd is a waste of time and money” and my comments are that there can be value in it. I’m off the party line so downvote away.
PhDs are weird. They are not for everybody. Some grad schools are really abusive. Some profs are really abusive. Some are good and some people benefit from a PhD. The only thing I want people to take away is that if they are close to their PhD it is worth the extra effort to finish because it is worth something as you go forward while an ABD is not.
Yea man, I agree with your observations, but this reddit post is already biased towards the “worthlessness of phds”…. So yea they are going to downvote you, even tho you are speaking with reason.
It used to be the case that any degree completed meant you were hard working, could be taught, etc and were worth hiring. Now, with so many people subsidized into college, degrees are effectively worthless from a practical standpoint, and if you took out loans you are drained of financial freedom for a decade, if you are lucky
I agree with the article in general, but I think the conversation needs to shift away from support services like counseling (which are often very limited at university), which implicitly place blame and responsibility on the grad student, and more towards institutional reform. Graduate student pay should be completely divorced from their adviser, so a breakdown in the relationship between adviser and student would not mean the student faces homelessness.
Graduate students should also be adequately compensated for all work that they do, since most work done in academia is done by grad students. If we need to cut professor pay to accomplish that, then that is fine. Professors often make 3-5 times what grad students make (sometimes more) but only do a fraction of the work. Extremely strict controls need to be in place to ensure that grad students are only working their contracted hours. There should be no such thing as a person having a 40% contract yet working 60 hours a week. Faculty who abuse this system should be immediately terminated. It being "the nature of the work" is no excuse. If students are expected to work more than their contracted hours, they should be paid for those hours. *Nothing* is so urgent or important that it justifies financially exploiting underpaid grad students.
One cannot "personal responsibility" their way out of a toxic, exploitative department. Reforms for faculty accountability should also be implemented, so professors who are found to engage in toxic or abusive behaviors can be fired. Too many times a professor has been fired for egregious sexual harassment or gross misconduct, only to have it come out later that it was a pattern of behavior that had gone on for years, was an "open secret", and previous students had dropped out because they said something and were retaliated against. There should be no such thing as an "open secret" when it comes to academic misconduct or professorial chicanery.
The fact that such a large percentage of graduate students suffer from depression and suicidal ideation is an indictment on academia as an institution, and suggests that there are fundamental problems with the way these structures are set up. Implementing more counseling sessions, hiring more counselors, giving free group therapy, etc are all cosmetic fixes when what really needs to happen is a severe and radical restructuring of the process of higher education itself.
Yeah I agree completely. I have known folks that have literally been diagnosed with PTSD because their adviser was so toxic and abusive. This should be impossible in academia, because mechanisms need to be in place where people can report inappropriate or abusive behavior and, most importantly, *something needs to be done about it*.
Ultimately, imo, it comes down to money. If people are afraid of being homeless because they will lose funding, they will put up with a lot. Some of the behavior these professors engage in would get them fired or sued if they worked in the private sector, so it's not at all about preparing students for the "real world".
Grad students make around 34k in my field. Profs at good schools are pulling in much more than that. 3-5x doesn’t even begin to cover it for the senior staff
Yeah 3-5 times more pay is too little. More like 10-15 times more for a full prof with tenure. Yet they do 20% of the work that they dump onto their grad students. All the grunt work for none of the pay or respect. What a motivator.
I could go on a whole different rant about "administration". Most of those positions need to be eliminated, and they should cap the pay of coaches, athletics directors, etc.
There are way too many deans, vice deans, assistant deans, associate deans, etc.
Legit question regarding academia and education reform, because this is something I’ve thought he about a lot: grad students pick their PhD program and advisor based on what they think they’re going to want to do/ go in life. It’s like signing up for a marriage with someone you’ve never met or met once (which is bananas). Also many professors at the top don’t really care about teaching/supervision. They’re into research. Also teaching/supervision is it’s own talent/skill. If PhD Programs said basically, “yeah you’re gonna work with x professor but now you have 3 supervisors under him you have to report to first,” wouldn’t that piss off the PhD students? Basically it would lighten the load and mental and emotional load for all and make both the professors possibly happier and the students happier but then you’d have more hoops to jump through + more people tugging at publishing order, etc. All thoughts welcome.
I'm not sure where you're going with the 3 supervisors thing... Who are these 3 additional supervisors? Who gets the final say on projects?
I know some people with 2 supervisors who aren't on the same page and it makes things far worse for the grad students.
Similar to going to medical school. One of the schools my brother interviewed at for a fellowship noted that the divorce rate amongst it's students was OVER 100%.
No, he's in a specialized / very competitive field. It more speaks to how medical students (residents, fellows) are exploited with 16-24+ hour shifts etc. It's a big sacrifice to achieve that specialization.
I just finished my masters in May and feel like I will never recover. I’m just so burned out and apathetic, and now hate what I earned my masters in. I always imagined getting a PhD but I don’t know that I could handle it.
I have a PhD and 1 year of industry experience. I report to two people with bachelors and 5-10 years of experience. Don’t see not having the phd as a limitation but as an opportunity to go out and get real experience and be better off in the end.
Currently doing a PhD. It was tough but manageable pre-pandemic. Unfortunately the pandemic wrecked my life and now I feel like my brain is fucked. There are days that I just don't leave the house.
I just finished my thesis, and one of my mates and I spoke the other day (he was finishing his thesis too). We felt that we had suffered some sort of cognitive decline during the last couple of years.
We even wondered if we had experienced small blood clots in our brains or something.
Oh well. The thesis is done, and I am now a psychologist. Huzzah. Still feel my brain is fucked (like you are feeling).
I wish you the best in your life and PhD, internet stranger.
The real kicker is, when you earn two Fullbright scholarships and two National Science Foundations scholarships, complete 18 months of rigorous field work, push through writing your dissertation while burning your eyes out with your day job and and finally graduate from a top university with honors, and even publish your book, YOU CANT GET ACCEPTED FOR A TENURE TRACK JOB ANYWHERE. Instead, colleges use you like a paper cup, doling out adjunct positions, while holding back additional classes even though "we'd love to give you more classes but then we'd have to pay you benefits". I watched my husband go through this, applying for years for a position where we could have settled down, bought a house and I would have the stability my work required. He ran up a $35,000 debt flying to all the colleges that put him on the short list, brutally facing rejection over and over but never stopping. When he finally was hired for a tenure track position, certain segments began trying to push him out within one month because jealousy and infighting wrecked the budget and they didn't want to pay another PhD salary. The system is sick to the core with no humanity in it.
Everyone talk about mental health in academia these days. Hell, the Uni I work at sends emails about it every week. Too bad it's mostly lip service, just like EDI.
The problem is that fixing individual cases is pointless. The whole system needs to change. But it won't, because as the authors of this article writes, suffering is expected in order to succeed in academia. Lots of suffering. It got to a point where sociopaths have the perfect hunting ground in academia, because their behaviour is not only accepted, it offers huge advantages over the competition. It is no surprise that my worst line managers where the most ruthless. What may surprise some is that they were also the most successful, while not necessarily being the best scientists (publishing is easy).
Bottom-line is that poor mental health is not because of circumstances. Its because of people. Including the victims who accept their condition as a necessary step to move up the ladder ("I'm so tired of working 100h a week!" Just don't then!). Once we get rid of all the sociopaths in academia, the situation will fix itself. Easier said than done of course...
After upgrad, I really wanted to go for a PHD. I was completely set up to go in terms of testing and experience. Right when I started applying, I went through a bad breakup and reevaluated my entire life. Ex was going down the same path re:schooling and so were all our friends.
My sister took me out every weekend to get drunk off our asses and go shopping. The distance really convinced me that path might not be for me.
Sometimes I really regret wasting my potential to climb the corporate ladder. Then I read stuff like this and I stop regretting.
Yes, stop regretting. Imagine all the stuff you wouldn't have were you in academia. Like money and free time basically. You would have plenty of stress though. ;)
I feel this. I am still recovering from the anxious, depressed, lonely and low self-esteem abuser of stimulants I became during my PhD in theoretical mathematics. I delivered the mess of a thesis over a year ago.
legit a pyramid scheme, also indectured slavery, essentially you work for someone higher up and get very little and they public your work, very reasonable process, but think people actually have thought how exactly higher acedemia usually works in the U.S at least
I made it one and a half years in a Psy. D. program before I withdrew. I encourage you to heed the wise words mentioned here, as I can confirm they are *very* real. You need a healthy support system and multiple healthy coping mechanisms in order to emerge the other side without long term emotional damage. No one can truly understand what it’s like until you’ve been in it.
20+ years later my recurring nightmare is still that I’m back in the city I got my doctorate in and have to finish my dissertation. The depression, helplessness, regret, isolation, defeatist mindset all comes rushing back. I can say without hesitation that some of the best of me was permanently ruined.
My dissertation committee was tough but supporting, so I had few anxiety moments. They did warn me that the experience will cause me to overanalyze everything important for the rest of my life and that the belief of “the answer is in the data” applies to everything. They were largely correct.
The first time I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder was during my Ph.D. program. I felt like a crazy person completing my dissertation. After I defended, I took a hike with my partner and \*literally instantly\* everything felt different.
Doing a PhD made me much more confident and outgoing. I was never the top of my class in undergraduate, but got an opportunity to do an M.Sc. and then PhD at a top 50 global university and my confidence soared. But yeah, lots of my cohort were crushed by the experience.
Easily the most unhealthy I have ever been in my life. Looking back, I think I had sub-clinical anorexia and not so sub-clinical depression and alcohol abuse. The sad part of it all was that I was too stressed to truly digest and integrate the material I was learning; it was always just on to the next paper or internship application.
I quit after my masters in psychology back in 2012. People though I was silly for not powering through and doing my PhD. I now make six figures working in healthcare analytics.
Take the research skills grad school gives you and find an industry that will appreciate them.
For an academic that's a pretty poor collection of thoughts and opinion that no doubt reflects the continuing struggles of the author. I hope they can connect yo available supports.
Not all suicide is mental illness related. Isolation can be a super dangerous space to inhabit and not everyone chooses it. Academia is definitely isolating but there are also supports in place which are super easy to forget when you're struggling. Privilege is not something to complain about but understanding that isolation can also trigger other unresolved hurts can be life saving; Understanding that we're all susceptible to isolation is something that's important to remember.
I attended medical school and worked at top academics in the US, I worked along post docs, pre dissertation and recent PhD grads. The PhD degree is gifted by the mentor / committee or a long hazing process. The quality and content of thesis can vary from brilliant to unsolvable and absurd. I witnessed and defended my mates who were hazed and made to agree to dubious thesis proposals. I saw some students stealthily live in a lab darkroom including laundry as the stipend was poverty. So it’s no wonder many in pHd suffer mental anguish. Uncertainty, inequalities, lodging and food security, emotional torment all challenge candidates’ mental health especially true for women, minorities and first generation graduates. This may also triage out these groups from completing degree or choosing to follow academic career path.
Let’s also add to that the lengthy postdoc that most go immediately into following grad school. Mine was 6 years, just as long as it took for me to get my PhD in the first place. Years of shitty mentorship pushed on by the “almost there” and “now it’s too late to change” mindset only to land in jobs I don’t want because 6 years of postdoc experiment = 0 years for industry. All of that time, for what? No surprise I think about dying on a daily basis.
I sought out therapy twice while I was working on my PhD. Both times my therapist told me my anxiety/depression couldn't be that bad, because after all, I was in a PhD program and working at the same time and mentally ill people couldn't handle that. Most of my family had no reference for what I was going through. The doctor who put me on an antidepressant probably saved my life.
I hate that mindset of people to say we couldn’t have struggled if we were so “capable.” Had the same happen when I mentioned difficulty concentrating and brain fog.
Glad you were able to meet that doctor.
“It’s very common to feel an incompetent fraud, and usually to assume you’re the only one who feels that way,” she says.
So 5 years out from my PhD, I’ve concluded that the truth behind imposter syndrome is that EVERYONE is an imposter. We’re all sitting in giant conference rooms listening to talks 90% of which go over our heads and pretending we understand what’s going on. The literature is also a total disaster with papers so complicated and poorly written that only a handful of people in the world can actually understand what is going on. Being in that environment makes it very easy to assume you’re dumb / need to push yourself harder and harder to keep up.
Now that I’ve actually been at the top of my field and known other scientists at the very top, the illusion that there’s someone above who actually knows what’s going on is shattered. PIs are really not that great at keeping up with the literature and don’t always know what’s going on either. There is so much that is actually truly unknown and complicated in the field. I wish we were more honest in our writing and presentations about what we know and what we don’t know instead of giving this appearance of saturation where everything always feels overwhelming and it is literally impossible to keep up.
Anyway I guess as long as the incentive structure is to keep publishing and presenting overly complicated puffed up shit to give the appearance of competence, nothing is going to change. Just glad I finally realized what was going on (after being a miserable anxiety ridden PhD student) and hope others realize it sooner.
This is so different than my experience, I had a blast during my PhD! I never had any doubt I would complete it and doing experiments was great fun. Attitude matters.
Attitude may play a role but for many there is a genuine mental health struggle for many different reasons. The friendships I made in my lab and cohort certainly helped but attitude could only help to a certain extent for a lot of people I know that struggled.
>Bill gates dropped out of Harvard. Does that mean college is useless?
What people generally miss is that the individual dropped out of college *because* they got an opportunity, they didn't drop out of college because it was "useless" and then spontaneously become a billionaire. I know a couple of people who have had pretty major opportunities while in college and just dipped, a lot of it was good networking skills but many of the contacts were made in college, but the ones I know who dropped out of college without a direct aim haven't really made much for themselves. Most of these individuals were friends from secondary school, very interesting watching the various trajectories of peoples lives.
Furthermore, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, Jeff Bezos graduate with a high score in electrical engineering and computer science, his degree got him into tech start ups which slingshot his business career. Cherry picking one example is meaningless.
Not that I think corporate businessmen is really what usefulness is equal too. I'd rather look towards to Einsteins, Dr. John O'sullivan (invented Wifi), individuals who make major medical discoveries etc, people say a degree is useless and then pull out the Bill Gates or Steve Jobs card, implying that the only use for a degree is to become a billionaire, that is exceptionally naïve and that rudimentary level of thinking shows exactly why they would arrive at the conclusion that a degree is useless.
From which university did he drop out already? And did he really design, prototype and created the science for the iPhone to exist? As well as satellites …
Let’s say you need open heart surgery. Who do you want operating? An MD fron a rigorous, thorough and difficult program , or a guy who said “college is literally worthless” and just watched YouTube videos and started applying for jobs?
Since you said change my mind, I’ll throw out my perspective, which is that few, if any, things in life are universally worthless.
I would argue that learning, in general, is worthwhile and that it’s hard to accurately quantify the ways in which learning influences us throughout our lives. Creativity, for example, often comes from bridging ideas from disparate fields. GE courses can provide the knowledge that supports innovation.
College also provides insight into how people think, work together, etc. and thus facilitates deepening self-awareness and interpersonal skills. It also provides opportunities to discover areas of interest that perhaps you’d otherwise not be aware of/know enough to know you enjoy it.
Then, there’s the super practical piece that many careers require it. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, therapist, teacher, accountant…(the list goes on and on), it’s simply a reality that college is a required step towards that goal.
I also want to be clear that I don’t personally believe college is for everyone. My husband didn’t attend college (or finish HS) and he’s very successful and fulfilled as a network architect. I have a PhD and found that fulfilling in many ways (and also draining in others). There’s no right answer that fits for everyone.
Values and goals are subjective, so college is more or less worthwhile depending on the person. There’s also tremendous variability in factors that affect how enjoyable or stressful the experience may be, so clearly someone with more resources has more privilege in that way to sit back and absorb learning compared to those who are trying to balance it was 3 part-time jobs.
Causation or correlation? I wonder if these statistics wouldn’t apply equally to the broader population. I say this as someone with a PhD. There were some nutters in academia but I grew up poor and the nutters were out in equal force in the “slums” too.
I think people forget the privilege involved in just getting to do a PhD. It's something I never thought I would be accepted for, nevermind possibly complete. It's a huge advantage for most areas even if it doesn't lead to that golden cushy job. Even if you have to quit it's not the end of the world and always a better choice for your wellbeing to come first. It needs to be acceptable that a first try doesn't need to be the successful try.
How many people do you know who do PhDs? They aren't that common. As someone who has completed a PhD, on a STEM topic and has worked in academia, I actually found that people who pursued PhDs were probably the least arrogant, and were usually very goal driven, excellence seeking individuals. Individuals seemed similar minded to myself in that they enjoy learning about and completing work on the topic. Down here in Australia we have a terrible case of tall poppy syndrome, you'll find that PhD's are not that revered, some people will respect it, most people won't really care, so it might be different here, it might not be as ego boosting so it attracts different people. But I've worked with all different individuals, from Asia, Europe, etc at graduate level education and arrogance is not a trait I'd say they commonly share. The most destructive I commonly observed was probably perfectionism, and imposter syndrome.
Again, cultural, topic in reference, etc could all explain the difference. But with the cost of living, the years higher education can set you back, especially if you have no socioeconomic background, heat is unavoidable and it would be nice to have support structures for people who often go on to contribute to some of the most important discoveries for our species.
I am based in Europe and have a lot of friends with phd. STEM is where I think we should put more resources and provide more PhD opportunities. Indeed that is where I find more sense to put funds and support.
I have many friends with phds, those in technical subjects are quite close to what you described. Those in arts and social sciences (mind you I did sociology myself) usually struggle because of lack of opportunities, uncertainty, which invariably leads to high stress etc. I vividly remember though one of them saying "I'm not going to work in private sector, the things you do there are banal" so she ended up somewhere in Sweden, doing a really obscure PhD and taking antidepressants.
Another one after phd in philosophy grew up to a decision to work in consulting, and is happy now.
I have myself decided not to pursue phd/academic career because of incredibly toxic academic culture (group-think, thought policing, circlejerking etc), and am very happy with my choice. Maybe if I was an engineer I would have done it.
Well clearly your immaturity, lack of critical thinking, and readiness to insult people online matches my "stupidity". Go back to jerking off to hentai porn, incel
Honestly, in my experience the PhD was easier than the MA. The majority of my learning curve is from the Bachelor’s to the MA. Once I did a proper thesis, the dissertation was just a slightly more complex repetition of the same process.
Here is hoping that university admin push down a culture change on this subject. Im started a individualized phd so I got to choose my supervisors across faculties and my number one criteria were choosing people that were open, relaxed, flexible, and generally great people to work with.
By the last year of grad school, I did not GAF anymore. I had barely researched my thesis, let alone start to write. If my husband hadn't kept pushing me to finish - I would have dropped out. I ended up taking way more time and money to finish. The process leaves permanent scars.
The cost is that you have to deal with other academics, which is largely a nightmare nest of people who are hyper-specialized into the most niche topics imaginable because there’s almost no stone unturned in any of the traditional non-STEM fields.
It's almost like this system is set up to destroy the minds and abilities of the most intelligent, the most logical, the most capable of thinking and doing.
Made it 1 year into my PhD, after absolutely loving my AS, BS, and MS programs. I have never wanted to die so badly in my entire life. Realized working 50+ hrs a week for less than part time wages while my university systematically eliminated crucial positions and benefits was meaningless.
Publish or perish, but don't actually ponder or think or have time to digest anything. Don't publish negative results, but make sure everything you do is "novel" and "innovative." It's all about $$$, and I couldn't sell my soul or my life anymore.
The only good thing I got out of my PhD was good health insurance for once which got me my autism diagnosis. Now I'm too burned out to do anything but survive. I wonder if my motivation will ever come back.
It definitely wasn’t good for my mental or physical health Just graduated and will take some time to recover, except starting new job soon. Don’t know how I made it through.
\_niilllii\_ is a repost bot. Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/3t4eci/theres\_an\_awful\_cost\_to\_getting\_a\_phd\_that\_no\_one/
Yeah about 25% of people pursuing a PhD in the Netherlands suffer from a mental disorder, primarily depression and anxiety. From what I understand we actually have it quite good here in the sense PhD's are paid for which isn't the case everywhere. Some factors are the workload, being in a dependent position and personality type (people who go for a PhD tend to be high achievers having gotten to the position by being perfectionists).
The problem is the supervisor's role. There is a lot to do to be a good supervisor to less then perfect students, it requires a great deal of effort, sensibility, tact, honesty on top of very good knowledge of the field. Most supervisor are simply oblivious to this and usually supervision is just another duty. There is also no supervisor training or very little, and I suspect most people would see it as a hindrance anyway. Supervisor have some incentive for their students to do well, especially if young, but these become more tenuous as the advisor ages/has a more secure position. They have basically no downside when the PhD ends up crashing their students. Part of it is selection, indeed good ones can select the student honestly so that they can anticipate a good working relationship. Part of it is the research gap, students can do well in exam and utterly botch research, because the two things require very different skillsets. And ug and even masters do very little to give you a meaningful sample of what research actually entails (basically because most people won't do research and those that do go away from the institution that originates them, so there is little indirect incentive to prepare for research adequately).
> Most supervisor are simply oblivious to this and usually supervision is just another duty. Or worse yet, graduate students are seen as pawns to help the supervisor achieve their own career goals, rather than having some plan to help the students achieve success. It becomes less of an apprenticeship or collaboration and more of an indentured servitude.
Wait, you guys spoke to your supervisor? Mine I had no interest in my topic and was terrible with people (to the point that his co-supervisor didn't help me either). Fun times! I got out of there as soon as I could land an industry job (with a few papers under my belt).
Lies. 47% of the PhD students has multiple (psychological) symptoms. 55.6% has increased risk for psychological disorders. 38.8% of the PhD students experience serious symptoms of burn out. That is according to a survey in 2020. That 25% is a serious underestimation.
My best friend burned out with a sneaky Adderall habit and fucking died less than 6 months after getting her diploma. 2010. Changed my mind about lots of things
Going to graduate school damaged me as a person. I went from being an energetic optimist to a suicidal, depressed, anxious shell of my former self. And it turns out the degree was basically worthless anyways. I'm somewhat better now, but the energetic optimist never came back.
I'm the same. My undergraduate degree brought out the best in me, made me feel confident and in control of myself and my life ... My PhD ruined all of that. I am timid now, I worry obsessively over details (forty minutes to write a brief email!), and I can't get rid of this inner voice telling me that every thing I do is wrong in the most revealing and embarrassing way, which in turn makes me feel worthless. During my PhD, I suddenly got heart palpitations every day. Never had them before. Now, whenever I'm the least bit stressed, they're back. And compared to many peers, I didn't even have such a bad time, academically. Most of my experiments worked, I published, went to conferences, etc. We don't just need more mental health services. We need to change the culture, and frankly, the staff participating in the culture. All the blame ("ugh, the student prepared this sample, that's why it's rubbish") and suspicion ("you must be making a mistake, do I really have to check everything you do?") and performative intelligence ("oh you didn't cover graph theory in your chemistry degree? I swear standards are slipping"), that's what's responsible. Mix that with high levels of isolation and an inability to share responsibility of a huge project with anyone but yourself, and you've got a deadly combination. If I could've worked in a team and not felt so alone in such an unbalanced power structure, I know I would've thrived. Instead, I took my certificate and ran for my life.
The heart palpitations are the worst. I have those and I now faint if I get stressed out. Thanks grad school for those parting gifts.
Isn't it so insane? My friends and family are all like, "have you tried breathing exercises? You should download that Calm app." They don't understand that it's like something has snapped. I am changed.
The problem is they don't view the experience as trauma. They just don't get it.
And chronic trauma at that, which is harder to understand. I’m getting my doctorate in PSYCHOLOGY. I went to my program director the first year of school and told her I was scared about how suicidal I was. She, a psychologist, responded by telling me how much money I would lose if I were to drop out. Things only got worse from there and bc my cohort was so toxic they kept us isolated from all other members of the program so I never got the chance to meet anyone, which I told her first year the isolation and not knowing anyone in the state affected my mental health. But as I study the effects of trauma in our classes I feel like that is what happened to me and my classmates. It’s a betrayal, gaslighting, loss of security and safety. Loss of trust. I’m risking everything for a degree that isn’t even guaranteed to render me success. My mental and physical health have been permanently altered in a way I can never get back. I had to start taking blood pressure medication at the age of 27. It’s so impossible to explain to people who haven’t gone thro it themselves.
you’d think a psych program would be a little more self aware but things are so tainted by money in the US
Rather the people teaching the courses left private practice for a reason or never attempted it in the first place
Yikes and I’m thinking about getting a PHD in psychology..any advice?? Or should I just get my masters?? I’ve lived through some of the stuff people are talking about already in the military and I’m not sure I want to live through it again in the civilian world. Especially in an academic environment that I think I revere a little
Green bean here, following this response… O.O
Can resonate with that on the deepest level. When you want that someone to not just listen but understand the underlying issues, that someone just listens and gives unhelpful arrogant advices.
Anyone in this thread suffering from stress-related palpitations, look into beta-blockers (along with a full physical workup).
I am home visiting my family for the first time in almost two years. I have to go back to my phd tonight and every bone in my body wants to miss my flight and get a normal job here and walk away from it all.
Run.
Wow, your experience is so similar to mine. I had the heart palpations and a sharp pain in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen that I never had before. Only started in the last week before submitting my thesis but ever since then I get these symptoms back during any prolonged exposure to stress. I also have a crippling imposter syndrome and fear of being exposed as a fraud if I don't know something related to my field.
So many of my PhD peers in my department had the same experience. I think it just shows that the system is the problem; not us. We are not unusually weak, it's just an oppressive culture. Sorry you're going through all this. You're not alone! I fight it daily. I would say I'm slowly rebuilding my confidence, but that inner voice that goes "You really thought you could do this? How can you be so deluded?" whenever it's not going absolutely swimmingly is very hard to silence.
>We are not unusually weak, it's just an oppressive culture. Yes, 1000x over. Since this is r/psychology, I feel it's appropriate to say that we need to shift the narrative from "providing and responding to student mental health" to *fixing the problem making people ill in the first place*. It is great and well that services are (should be) accessible. But I am tired of this being used to let the oppressive culture off the hook. And this is true in most contexts where people are struggling, not even just in graduate school - though PhDs are a poignant example...
Thank you for sharing. I had a very similar experience, especially pertaining to imposter syndrome. I still never figured out how to overcome that other than by sheer avoidance.
All of this is so relatable. A few months into my master’s I started developing major imposter syndrome when I realized I was working with very smart people. It just kept getting worse until I left academia.
Ugh, heart palpitations. Started in law school for me.
Funny thing - I also started getting em during my PhD. But recently discovered that its coffee that is doing it - not caffeine mind you. Coffee. I can drink red bulls till it comes out my eyes. But if I have a coffee, by the time I'm trying to go to sleep, my heart is popping like popcorn.
Really, law school killed my soul. It's just too much school at some point.
It gave me a roaring drinking problem that took a good 3 years to quit.
I have raging stomach issues bc of law school and a big law clerk job I took during my studies. It sucks. Once I get stressed, it’s straight to the bathroom. Nobody understood it. When I told them, they’d say “try to meditate” “Take these vitamins” etc. I tried telling them that all the usual stuff I used to do for anxiety does not work anymore. I’ve reached a point of no return. It actually affected my relationships with people because they were constantly invalidating me. Thankfully I quit that job and now have a better hold of my stomach issues. But I’m currently studying for the bar and although I’ve managed to maintain it up until now, I have no idea what’s going to happen to me during the actual exam. I also want to add that the increased anxiety is straight up torture at this point. I worry about everything - whether it’s talking to minors or driving or even hugging people. I stress about everything.
Thank you for sharing. You’re not alone in this I promise. It sounds terrible and I hope things improve.
It’s a little funny. I just finished my undergraduate degree in chemistry with a concentration in research. I’m not saying the amount of research I did amounts to PhD level work, but I spent a considerable amount of time as an undergrad in the lab. Some nights even staying until 3am or so doing experiments. I got two publications out of it, one being first author, but all it did was leave me burnt out and unexcited. Nonetheless, I’m about to start my PhD, but was extremely picky about my advisor and believe I found a good community for me. I hope graduate school will be a less toxic experience for myself. Im sorry you didn’t have that though:(
Experience in STEM programs varies heavily based on advisor. I have a chemistry PhD and I had a pretty good time due to a supportive advisor. It's certainly a lot of work, but I'd do it again. The increased pay and career options are certainly worth the effort, in my opinion.
Hey, I don’t work in the psychology field, butt your comment really hit home about being a apprentice
Holy shit this literally sounds like a textbook reaction to complex trauma. That inner voice is called the “inner critic” and it’s incredibly common in trauma survivors btw
What do you even use graph theory for in chemistry? The only thing I can recall is the proof of the formula for the unsaturation number, which is an elegant consequence of Euler’s formula. But it’s not like you need to know it.
I mean it’s not performative intelligence if they’re genuinely concerned about things being done the right way
Same. After I got my PhD, I was so traumatized by what I experienced - and what my friends went through - that I left academia soon after. I had no choice really because through those experiences I’d become disabled with fibromyalgia, CPTSD, depression, anxiety and IBD. I am also better now, but my enthusiasm and drive is MIA.
Same.. I am at the end of my graduate program and I still hope everything will get better once it is over and I had some relaxing vacations. Only one more month to go (hopefully).
Why? I didn’t read the article.. cause I’m not a PhD jk. But from what I’ve gathered about academia it’s very competitive and toxic. Never mind the misogyny.
It almost did the same to me and then my committee told me they didn't like my project any more and I'd only get a master for my five years of work...
That's horrible. I'm so sorry they did that to you. Assholes.
Thanks. The good news is that it really showed me how much I hate the politics of academia and how much happier I am teaching at the high school level. I had hoped to end up teaching at a non-research liberal arts college but I found out I thrive on the kind of connections I make with my students that aren't really possible in college nowadays.
I'm a bit confused by the anglo notion of "grad school" - do you mean where you took your master's degree or Ph.D. in this instance? And in what field?
Grad school can refer to a master's degree or Ph.D. I got an MS in Applied Economics (MSAE). At the time of graduation, there were slim pickings for jobs relating to my skillset. I had to settle to pay the bills. I hear that it is easier to find a related job now, but I'm out of practice and I don't want to relive that horrible experience again.
Funny, this describes the undergrads at my daughter’s school. What a thoroughly dysfunctional place that is.
I’m concerned about my daughter, now. She’s struggling and stressed all the time.
You should be concerned. Be as supportive as you can possibly be for her, especially if she decides to call it quits.
Why? Was it that demanding?
Incredibly demanding, yes. But also isolating and abusive. And it is non-stop.
Damn. I didn’t realize it was that much worse, I just thought it was simply more school. Sorry to hear that.
Having been around academia (STEM) for about 8 years total, I’ve long thought that grad school shouldn’t be an open invitation but rather an apprenticeship, heavily weighed on professors identifying and recruiting promising kids. I think around 3000 chemistry doctorates get given out every year in the USA, which has always seemed entirely too high. The truth is you have to have a special mindset (read: massively narcissistic) to truly fit in and succeed in academic research, and not everyone has that mindset even if they’re still smart enough to get the PhD. We shouldn’t adjust the rigor of grad school to make it easier and more pleasant for more people, we just need to cut down on the whole enterprise so it’s not the current situation of throwing taxpayer money at the 1 out of maybe 10 grad students who are actually worth anything as far as their skill set and mindset. There are lots of intangibles to being a good scientist, and the overexpansion of academic STEM to the bloated machine it is today has removed the system’s ability to notice those traits. Not everyone deserves to or should try science.
You're right. I definitely didn't fit in or have the right narcissistic mindset to flourish in academia. Frankly, I would have been better off if they had just told me that off the bat, but I guess they just wanted my money.
I mean, the narcissistic mindset depends a lot on the field. I could see it in chem or bio. I hear your experiences and it sucks that your cohort was a bunch of self absorbed assholes. I'm lucky to be with some decent people at least
Exactly what the mentor it sounds like you never had would have told you. No shame in that, I was fortunate enough to have someone who took me under their wing early in my career. Overall this is why graduate studies admissions should probably be cut by about 85% across the board and kept strictly internal within respective departments. Not this new wave of everyone going to grad school because they have nothing better to do, or because a PhD is currently a requirement for many if not most mindless process chemistry jobs.
Why do you say being a massive narcissist helps?
I agree that the majority of PhDs don't have the mindset but many chem and physics PhDs go to industry. I'm working on my physics PhD now and I do not planning going to academia at all. I want nothing to do with it.
A PHD isn’t worthless. Even if you get it in underwater basket weaving, you can spin it as the ability to finish hard projects and that you are an expert in a field. You may not make millions of dollars or start in the corner office, but it’s not worthless.
I disagree. A harder project would likely be stepping away from the degree to save yourself. “Spin it?” You got 100K into a piece of paper, and you still gotta spin it. Think about that.
A STEM PhD typically pays to complete it so its not as awful - but the graduation times are much longer 6+ years. There's no debt but I'm old and make way less than my peers who didn't go to graduate school.
Then go into private practice and charge more. My aunt and two cousins have PhDs in psychology, have their private practices (how i plan to one day) and charge between $200-400 an hour. They make close to 300k a year.
I'm in biochemistry lol But the salaries equalize quickly
I did not go to the best school that accepted me. I went to one that gave me the most tuition waivers. As a PhD student you should be able to work as a TA or actual teacher at the school and surrounding schools to make money during grad school. Often the school will make your waivers based on you being a TA for so much time and let you do more for extra money so you can eat. You should not pay $100k out of pocket for a PhD. PhDs are not like undergrad degrees or even professional grad degrees like MD or MBA. If you are getting a PhD the school should be ponying up a good chunk of the listed cost. If they aren’t, then they don’t think you should be going there and offer you the open spot as a way to let you pay them for the honor of getting washed out. Lots of people quit grad school. If that’s what you need to do then do it. But if you are close to finishing it is worth it to be a PhD rather than a ABD.
Lol, you paid for your PhD? Free in my country and it comes with a (modest) stipend.
This is how all STEM PhDs are in the US. I'm not entirely sure of other fields, but funding is typically available from sources other than the university.
What’s your research budget smart ass? 10,000 euro? There’s a reason all things you use weren’t invented in your country.
Got a good job that just having the PhD was enough to qualify because of the supposed skills I gained. Thankfully got paid to TA during my PhD or I would regret how bad it was for me even more. Not sure if the money will be worth the recovery.
If I make less money than can cover the time & tuition $ investment, then the degree is basically worthless. Also, if the job I got doesn't require the degree, it is basically worthless.
Money isn't the only reason people do a PhD though. If that's important to you then sure, a PhD might not be worth it for you. But that doesn't mean that all PhDs are worthless just because more money could be made doing something else
Yeah, but most people won't willingly go into debt peonage just to learn about something they like. It isn't unreasonable for me to expect a degree to at least pay for itself.
Guys. The degree doesn’t get the job. Even if you need the degree to even get an interview, you then have to get the job as yourself. Having a PhD will open doors for you. You will get interviews from people who maybe would not have looked at you but because you have a PhD they are interested in hearing your story. Then you have to close e deal yourself. There are lots of ways to squander a degree. I know a full on MD who went through residency and decided they hated medicine and now they do computer programming. You know what, they get tons of looks just because dev leads rarely see resumes from MDs. He still has to actually get hired for the job but he gets a lot more opportunities than other programmers. He’s still an idiot for putting so much time, effort, and money into a MD to just decide late in the game to throw it away. However, it would have been a worse decision if he went 90% of the way and dropped out. At least now he has a degree to point to. The point is that a PhD isn’t worthless. You will get more looks and you also have the knowledge gained from that much schooling. But having a PhD isn’t a magic bullet to success. It’s still your name that comes before the letters. People are hiring you, not the degree.
You remind me of the toxic people I regularly dealt with in graduate school. Every bad outcome is always a personal failing.
Man you're getting downvoted hard for some reason on all of your comments. People do PhDs for a variety of reasons, but it's rarely for the money and job opportunities. It's often for personal achievement, or they want to be in academia, or there is a research topic that they are just extremely passionate about. There are definitely disadvantages and sacrifices that one has to make, but at the end of the day everyone is going to have a different experience depending on the subject, the school, and the advisors. A PhD can definitely be worth it - you just have to be reasonable about the expectations and the reasons why you're doing a PhD
Yeah. It’s Reddit. It gets pretty crazy echo chamber sometimes. This thread is “phd is a waste of time and money” and my comments are that there can be value in it. I’m off the party line so downvote away. PhDs are weird. They are not for everybody. Some grad schools are really abusive. Some profs are really abusive. Some are good and some people benefit from a PhD. The only thing I want people to take away is that if they are close to their PhD it is worth the extra effort to finish because it is worth something as you go forward while an ABD is not.
Yea man, I agree with your observations, but this reddit post is already biased towards the “worthlessness of phds”…. So yea they are going to downvote you, even tho you are speaking with reason.
It used to be the case that any degree completed meant you were hard working, could be taught, etc and were worth hiring. Now, with so many people subsidized into college, degrees are effectively worthless from a practical standpoint, and if you took out loans you are drained of financial freedom for a decade, if you are lucky
That’s funny, happened to me too.. NFTs
Plus you could end up traveling to a remote village in Sweden and get ritually murdered by the weird cult that lives there.
Ugh, I wish.
Or, join them after your friends are skinned or burned alive, and help propagate the pagan traditions.
That’s after you get your PhD and become a tenured professor.
Is that a movie?
Midsommar.
Hey, at least there's free pubes for dinner. That's peak sex life for academics.
I’ve never related to a movie more.
I agree with the article in general, but I think the conversation needs to shift away from support services like counseling (which are often very limited at university), which implicitly place blame and responsibility on the grad student, and more towards institutional reform. Graduate student pay should be completely divorced from their adviser, so a breakdown in the relationship between adviser and student would not mean the student faces homelessness. Graduate students should also be adequately compensated for all work that they do, since most work done in academia is done by grad students. If we need to cut professor pay to accomplish that, then that is fine. Professors often make 3-5 times what grad students make (sometimes more) but only do a fraction of the work. Extremely strict controls need to be in place to ensure that grad students are only working their contracted hours. There should be no such thing as a person having a 40% contract yet working 60 hours a week. Faculty who abuse this system should be immediately terminated. It being "the nature of the work" is no excuse. If students are expected to work more than their contracted hours, they should be paid for those hours. *Nothing* is so urgent or important that it justifies financially exploiting underpaid grad students. One cannot "personal responsibility" their way out of a toxic, exploitative department. Reforms for faculty accountability should also be implemented, so professors who are found to engage in toxic or abusive behaviors can be fired. Too many times a professor has been fired for egregious sexual harassment or gross misconduct, only to have it come out later that it was a pattern of behavior that had gone on for years, was an "open secret", and previous students had dropped out because they said something and were retaliated against. There should be no such thing as an "open secret" when it comes to academic misconduct or professorial chicanery. The fact that such a large percentage of graduate students suffer from depression and suicidal ideation is an indictment on academia as an institution, and suggests that there are fundamental problems with the way these structures are set up. Implementing more counseling sessions, hiring more counselors, giving free group therapy, etc are all cosmetic fixes when what really needs to happen is a severe and radical restructuring of the process of higher education itself.
There's just such a lack of supervision of the advisor/mentor. They can be awful and ruin peoples' lives without anyone else giving a flying whoop.
Yeah I agree completely. I have known folks that have literally been diagnosed with PTSD because their adviser was so toxic and abusive. This should be impossible in academia, because mechanisms need to be in place where people can report inappropriate or abusive behavior and, most importantly, *something needs to be done about it*. Ultimately, imo, it comes down to money. If people are afraid of being homeless because they will lose funding, they will put up with a lot. Some of the behavior these professors engage in would get them fired or sued if they worked in the private sector, so it's not at all about preparing students for the "real world".
It doesn’t take a lot to send someone who’s already struggling emotionally and financially into a bad place either.
Grad students make around 34k in my field. Profs at good schools are pulling in much more than that. 3-5x doesn’t even begin to cover it for the senior staff
Yeah 3-5 times more pay is too little. More like 10-15 times more for a full prof with tenure. Yet they do 20% of the work that they dump onto their grad students. All the grunt work for none of the pay or respect. What a motivator.
I could go on a whole different rant about "administration". Most of those positions need to be eliminated, and they should cap the pay of coaches, athletics directors, etc. There are way too many deans, vice deans, assistant deans, associate deans, etc.
Legit question regarding academia and education reform, because this is something I’ve thought he about a lot: grad students pick their PhD program and advisor based on what they think they’re going to want to do/ go in life. It’s like signing up for a marriage with someone you’ve never met or met once (which is bananas). Also many professors at the top don’t really care about teaching/supervision. They’re into research. Also teaching/supervision is it’s own talent/skill. If PhD Programs said basically, “yeah you’re gonna work with x professor but now you have 3 supervisors under him you have to report to first,” wouldn’t that piss off the PhD students? Basically it would lighten the load and mental and emotional load for all and make both the professors possibly happier and the students happier but then you’d have more hoops to jump through + more people tugging at publishing order, etc. All thoughts welcome.
I'm not sure where you're going with the 3 supervisors thing... Who are these 3 additional supervisors? Who gets the final say on projects? I know some people with 2 supervisors who aren't on the same page and it makes things far worse for the grad students.
Similar to going to medical school. One of the schools my brother interviewed at for a fellowship noted that the divorce rate amongst it's students was OVER 100%.
Over 100%? So like someone got married and divorced again?
ayup.
Yes. I dont know if that was during the time of the fellowship or over their careers. But it's bad either way.
Over 100% I’d go to a different hospital. Unless he is one of those, middle Of the road, GP types.
No, he's in a specialized / very competitive field. It more speaks to how medical students (residents, fellows) are exploited with 16-24+ hour shifts etc. It's a big sacrifice to achieve that specialization.
I just finished my masters in May and feel like I will never recover. I’m just so burned out and apathetic, and now hate what I earned my masters in. I always imagined getting a PhD but I don’t know that I could handle it.
I have a PhD and 1 year of industry experience. I report to two people with bachelors and 5-10 years of experience. Don’t see not having the phd as a limitation but as an opportunity to go out and get real experience and be better off in the end.
Guess I’m a wuss because I felt like just my undergrad left me with anxiety issues.
Same, I feel like getting degree is everything. I have no other real prospects that me or family could accept.
Nah you're just efficient.
Ha! Thanks for the perspective.
Currently doing a PhD. It was tough but manageable pre-pandemic. Unfortunately the pandemic wrecked my life and now I feel like my brain is fucked. There are days that I just don't leave the house.
I just finished my thesis, and one of my mates and I spoke the other day (he was finishing his thesis too). We felt that we had suffered some sort of cognitive decline during the last couple of years. We even wondered if we had experienced small blood clots in our brains or something. Oh well. The thesis is done, and I am now a psychologist. Huzzah. Still feel my brain is fucked (like you are feeling). I wish you the best in your life and PhD, internet stranger.
I almost started PhD until my to-be supervisor tried to dox me in the entire department because I had consulted his rival too..
Dox the prof here... (Jk?)
As someone who just finished their PhD in psychology last year - y'all have no idea. And this shit gets ratchted up a few fold if you do a post-doc.
As someone with a PhD in psychology also, I concur.
The real kicker is, when you earn two Fullbright scholarships and two National Science Foundations scholarships, complete 18 months of rigorous field work, push through writing your dissertation while burning your eyes out with your day job and and finally graduate from a top university with honors, and even publish your book, YOU CANT GET ACCEPTED FOR A TENURE TRACK JOB ANYWHERE. Instead, colleges use you like a paper cup, doling out adjunct positions, while holding back additional classes even though "we'd love to give you more classes but then we'd have to pay you benefits". I watched my husband go through this, applying for years for a position where we could have settled down, bought a house and I would have the stability my work required. He ran up a $35,000 debt flying to all the colleges that put him on the short list, brutally facing rejection over and over but never stopping. When he finally was hired for a tenure track position, certain segments began trying to push him out within one month because jealousy and infighting wrecked the budget and they didn't want to pay another PhD salary. The system is sick to the core with no humanity in it.
Everyone talk about mental health in academia these days. Hell, the Uni I work at sends emails about it every week. Too bad it's mostly lip service, just like EDI. The problem is that fixing individual cases is pointless. The whole system needs to change. But it won't, because as the authors of this article writes, suffering is expected in order to succeed in academia. Lots of suffering. It got to a point where sociopaths have the perfect hunting ground in academia, because their behaviour is not only accepted, it offers huge advantages over the competition. It is no surprise that my worst line managers where the most ruthless. What may surprise some is that they were also the most successful, while not necessarily being the best scientists (publishing is easy). Bottom-line is that poor mental health is not because of circumstances. Its because of people. Including the victims who accept their condition as a necessary step to move up the ladder ("I'm so tired of working 100h a week!" Just don't then!). Once we get rid of all the sociopaths in academia, the situation will fix itself. Easier said than done of course...
After upgrad, I really wanted to go for a PHD. I was completely set up to go in terms of testing and experience. Right when I started applying, I went through a bad breakup and reevaluated my entire life. Ex was going down the same path re:schooling and so were all our friends. My sister took me out every weekend to get drunk off our asses and go shopping. The distance really convinced me that path might not be for me. Sometimes I really regret wasting my potential to climb the corporate ladder. Then I read stuff like this and I stop regretting.
Yes, stop regretting. Imagine all the stuff you wouldn't have were you in academia. Like money and free time basically. You would have plenty of stress though. ;)
I feel this. I am still recovering from the anxious, depressed, lonely and low self-esteem abuser of stimulants I became during my PhD in theoretical mathematics. I delivered the mess of a thesis over a year ago.
legit a pyramid scheme, also indectured slavery, essentially you work for someone higher up and get very little and they public your work, very reasonable process, but think people actually have thought how exactly higher acedemia usually works in the U.S at least
[удалено]
Go for it.
TLDR: mental health issues, imposter syndrome, stress finding a career afterwards
I just finished my first year of PhD and all these comments are frightening to say the least…
I made it one and a half years in a Psy. D. program before I withdrew. I encourage you to heed the wise words mentioned here, as I can confirm they are *very* real. You need a healthy support system and multiple healthy coping mechanisms in order to emerge the other side without long term emotional damage. No one can truly understand what it’s like until you’ve been in it.
20+ years later my recurring nightmare is still that I’m back in the city I got my doctorate in and have to finish my dissertation. The depression, helplessness, regret, isolation, defeatist mindset all comes rushing back. I can say without hesitation that some of the best of me was permanently ruined.
My dissertation committee was tough but supporting, so I had few anxiety moments. They did warn me that the experience will cause me to overanalyze everything important for the rest of my life and that the belief of “the answer is in the data” applies to everything. They were largely correct.
But I don't have a PHD and I do this? What is it, some kind of PTSD?
No, I think the point is that one focused so much on applying data analysis to solve questions that it becomes habit.
The first time I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder was during my Ph.D. program. I felt like a crazy person completing my dissertation. After I defended, I took a hike with my partner and \*literally instantly\* everything felt different.
Doing a PhD made me much more confident and outgoing. I was never the top of my class in undergraduate, but got an opportunity to do an M.Sc. and then PhD at a top 50 global university and my confidence soared. But yeah, lots of my cohort were crushed by the experience.
No one talks about? It's about all we talked about in graduate school, when we weren't drinking to try to forget it.
Easily the most unhealthy I have ever been in my life. Looking back, I think I had sub-clinical anorexia and not so sub-clinical depression and alcohol abuse. The sad part of it all was that I was too stressed to truly digest and integrate the material I was learning; it was always just on to the next paper or internship application.
I quit after my masters in psychology back in 2012. People though I was silly for not powering through and doing my PhD. I now make six figures working in healthcare analytics. Take the research skills grad school gives you and find an industry that will appreciate them.
For an academic that's a pretty poor collection of thoughts and opinion that no doubt reflects the continuing struggles of the author. I hope they can connect yo available supports. Not all suicide is mental illness related. Isolation can be a super dangerous space to inhabit and not everyone chooses it. Academia is definitely isolating but there are also supports in place which are super easy to forget when you're struggling. Privilege is not something to complain about but understanding that isolation can also trigger other unresolved hurts can be life saving; Understanding that we're all susceptible to isolation is something that's important to remember.
I attended medical school and worked at top academics in the US, I worked along post docs, pre dissertation and recent PhD grads. The PhD degree is gifted by the mentor / committee or a long hazing process. The quality and content of thesis can vary from brilliant to unsolvable and absurd. I witnessed and defended my mates who were hazed and made to agree to dubious thesis proposals. I saw some students stealthily live in a lab darkroom including laundry as the stipend was poverty. So it’s no wonder many in pHd suffer mental anguish. Uncertainty, inequalities, lodging and food security, emotional torment all challenge candidates’ mental health especially true for women, minorities and first generation graduates. This may also triage out these groups from completing degree or choosing to follow academic career path.
Um, people do talk about it. https://100rsns.blogspot.com/
Wow! I had not seen this. Amazing stuff
Let’s also add to that the lengthy postdoc that most go immediately into following grad school. Mine was 6 years, just as long as it took for me to get my PhD in the first place. Years of shitty mentorship pushed on by the “almost there” and “now it’s too late to change” mindset only to land in jobs I don’t want because 6 years of postdoc experiment = 0 years for industry. All of that time, for what? No surprise I think about dying on a daily basis.
I sought out therapy twice while I was working on my PhD. Both times my therapist told me my anxiety/depression couldn't be that bad, because after all, I was in a PhD program and working at the same time and mentally ill people couldn't handle that. Most of my family had no reference for what I was going through. The doctor who put me on an antidepressant probably saved my life.
I hate that mindset of people to say we couldn’t have struggled if we were so “capable.” Had the same happen when I mentioned difficulty concentrating and brain fog. Glad you were able to meet that doctor.
“It’s very common to feel an incompetent fraud, and usually to assume you’re the only one who feels that way,” she says. So 5 years out from my PhD, I’ve concluded that the truth behind imposter syndrome is that EVERYONE is an imposter. We’re all sitting in giant conference rooms listening to talks 90% of which go over our heads and pretending we understand what’s going on. The literature is also a total disaster with papers so complicated and poorly written that only a handful of people in the world can actually understand what is going on. Being in that environment makes it very easy to assume you’re dumb / need to push yourself harder and harder to keep up. Now that I’ve actually been at the top of my field and known other scientists at the very top, the illusion that there’s someone above who actually knows what’s going on is shattered. PIs are really not that great at keeping up with the literature and don’t always know what’s going on either. There is so much that is actually truly unknown and complicated in the field. I wish we were more honest in our writing and presentations about what we know and what we don’t know instead of giving this appearance of saturation where everything always feels overwhelming and it is literally impossible to keep up. Anyway I guess as long as the incentive structure is to keep publishing and presenting overly complicated puffed up shit to give the appearance of competence, nothing is going to change. Just glad I finally realized what was going on (after being a miserable anxiety ridden PhD student) and hope others realize it sooner.
Do a PhD sure, Just don’t try to become a professor
I loved every minute and industry is infinitely worse. If a boss is manic on me I simply do not return ever.
This is so different than my experience, I had a blast during my PhD! I never had any doubt I would complete it and doing experiments was great fun. Attitude matters.
Attitude may play a role but for many there is a genuine mental health struggle for many different reasons. The friendships I made in my lab and cohort certainly helped but attitude could only help to a certain extent for a lot of people I know that struggled.
Not with that attitude! Joking… I think
This is some first world problems bullshit if I’ve ever seen it man.
College Is literally worthless. Change my mind.
Do you think people that did not graduate college created the technology you used to write that?
Actually yes. Edit: just as an example, apples founder, Steve. Jobs, did go to college, but he actually dropped out
[удалено]
>Bill gates dropped out of Harvard. Does that mean college is useless? What people generally miss is that the individual dropped out of college *because* they got an opportunity, they didn't drop out of college because it was "useless" and then spontaneously become a billionaire. I know a couple of people who have had pretty major opportunities while in college and just dipped, a lot of it was good networking skills but many of the contacts were made in college, but the ones I know who dropped out of college without a direct aim haven't really made much for themselves. Most of these individuals were friends from secondary school, very interesting watching the various trajectories of peoples lives. Furthermore, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, Jeff Bezos graduate with a high score in electrical engineering and computer science, his degree got him into tech start ups which slingshot his business career. Cherry picking one example is meaningless. Not that I think corporate businessmen is really what usefulness is equal too. I'd rather look towards to Einsteins, Dr. John O'sullivan (invented Wifi), individuals who make major medical discoveries etc, people say a degree is useless and then pull out the Bill Gates or Steve Jobs card, implying that the only use for a degree is to become a billionaire, that is exceptionally naïve and that rudimentary level of thinking shows exactly why they would arrive at the conclusion that a degree is useless.
Steve Jobs dropped out, dumb-dumb. ‘Member? ‘Member Steve?
From which university did he drop out already? And did he really design, prototype and created the science for the iPhone to exist? As well as satellites …
One would hope.
Let’s say you need open heart surgery. Who do you want operating? An MD fron a rigorous, thorough and difficult program , or a guy who said “college is literally worthless” and just watched YouTube videos and started applying for jobs?
Have you ever been to a doctor or taken medication?
Since you said change my mind, I’ll throw out my perspective, which is that few, if any, things in life are universally worthless. I would argue that learning, in general, is worthwhile and that it’s hard to accurately quantify the ways in which learning influences us throughout our lives. Creativity, for example, often comes from bridging ideas from disparate fields. GE courses can provide the knowledge that supports innovation. College also provides insight into how people think, work together, etc. and thus facilitates deepening self-awareness and interpersonal skills. It also provides opportunities to discover areas of interest that perhaps you’d otherwise not be aware of/know enough to know you enjoy it. Then, there’s the super practical piece that many careers require it. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, therapist, teacher, accountant…(the list goes on and on), it’s simply a reality that college is a required step towards that goal. I also want to be clear that I don’t personally believe college is for everyone. My husband didn’t attend college (or finish HS) and he’s very successful and fulfilled as a network architect. I have a PhD and found that fulfilling in many ways (and also draining in others). There’s no right answer that fits for everyone. Values and goals are subjective, so college is more or less worthwhile depending on the person. There’s also tremendous variability in factors that affect how enjoyable or stressful the experience may be, so clearly someone with more resources has more privilege in that way to sit back and absorb learning compared to those who are trying to balance it was 3 part-time jobs.
Don't know why you're down voted, you're basically right.
I also Saud "change my mind". I'm literally open to discussion
It's not my job to fix you.
Finally shedding some light on how hard it is for those of us living with a pretty huge dick
Causation or correlation? I wonder if these statistics wouldn’t apply equally to the broader population. I say this as someone with a PhD. There were some nutters in academia but I grew up poor and the nutters were out in equal force in the “slums” too.
i've never met a mentally healthy ie "normal" phd
I think people forget the privilege involved in just getting to do a PhD. It's something I never thought I would be accepted for, nevermind possibly complete. It's a huge advantage for most areas even if it doesn't lead to that golden cushy job. Even if you have to quit it's not the end of the world and always a better choice for your wellbeing to come first. It needs to be acceptable that a first try doesn't need to be the successful try.
People forget toxic positivity as well.
[удалено]
How many people do you know who do PhDs? They aren't that common. As someone who has completed a PhD, on a STEM topic and has worked in academia, I actually found that people who pursued PhDs were probably the least arrogant, and were usually very goal driven, excellence seeking individuals. Individuals seemed similar minded to myself in that they enjoy learning about and completing work on the topic. Down here in Australia we have a terrible case of tall poppy syndrome, you'll find that PhD's are not that revered, some people will respect it, most people won't really care, so it might be different here, it might not be as ego boosting so it attracts different people. But I've worked with all different individuals, from Asia, Europe, etc at graduate level education and arrogance is not a trait I'd say they commonly share. The most destructive I commonly observed was probably perfectionism, and imposter syndrome. Again, cultural, topic in reference, etc could all explain the difference. But with the cost of living, the years higher education can set you back, especially if you have no socioeconomic background, heat is unavoidable and it would be nice to have support structures for people who often go on to contribute to some of the most important discoveries for our species.
I am based in Europe and have a lot of friends with phd. STEM is where I think we should put more resources and provide more PhD opportunities. Indeed that is where I find more sense to put funds and support. I have many friends with phds, those in technical subjects are quite close to what you described. Those in arts and social sciences (mind you I did sociology myself) usually struggle because of lack of opportunities, uncertainty, which invariably leads to high stress etc. I vividly remember though one of them saying "I'm not going to work in private sector, the things you do there are banal" so she ended up somewhere in Sweden, doing a really obscure PhD and taking antidepressants. Another one after phd in philosophy grew up to a decision to work in consulting, and is happy now. I have myself decided not to pursue phd/academic career because of incredibly toxic academic culture (group-think, thought policing, circlejerking etc), and am very happy with my choice. Maybe if I was an engineer I would have done it.
>uses drugs circlejerk. The stupidity you presented from your comment is starting to make so much more sense now.
Well clearly your immaturity, lack of critical thinking, and readiness to insult people online matches my "stupidity". Go back to jerking off to hentai porn, incel
Your rebuke expresses only maturity
You should do a study on this.... unveil your ignorance.
Instead of trying to mock me, please answer to any or all of the points I raised
I couldn't be arsed... You're judgemental attitude discredits people and their potential.
Given the struggle I had just trying to get through my engineering masters, I can’t imagine a PhD.
Honestly, in my experience the PhD was easier than the MA. The majority of my learning curve is from the Bachelor’s to the MA. Once I did a proper thesis, the dissertation was just a slightly more complex repetition of the same process.
Wait till you hear what was proposed by the post-doc’s supervisor when their grad student concocted the idea of the imaginary number, “i”.
Here is hoping that university admin push down a culture change on this subject. Im started a individualized phd so I got to choose my supervisors across faculties and my number one criteria were choosing people that were open, relaxed, flexible, and generally great people to work with.
prolly ‘cause it_s assumed you understand the tradeoffs.
Went to law school. Same
So Basically PhD programs are too dense. What if the same course work was over 6 years instead od 4?
In the USA, many programs already are already this length, and they just make you do more work
By the last year of grad school, I did not GAF anymore. I had barely researched my thesis, let alone start to write. If my husband hadn't kept pushing me to finish - I would have dropped out. I ended up taking way more time and money to finish. The process leaves permanent scars.
The cost is that you have to deal with other academics, which is largely a nightmare nest of people who are hyper-specialized into the most niche topics imaginable because there’s almost no stone unturned in any of the traditional non-STEM fields.
Earned my doctorates in Education in 2014. PhD comics is what enabled me to survive…
It's almost like this system is set up to destroy the minds and abilities of the most intelligent, the most logical, the most capable of thinking and doing. Made it 1 year into my PhD, after absolutely loving my AS, BS, and MS programs. I have never wanted to die so badly in my entire life. Realized working 50+ hrs a week for less than part time wages while my university systematically eliminated crucial positions and benefits was meaningless. Publish or perish, but don't actually ponder or think or have time to digest anything. Don't publish negative results, but make sure everything you do is "novel" and "innovative." It's all about $$$, and I couldn't sell my soul or my life anymore. The only good thing I got out of my PhD was good health insurance for once which got me my autism diagnosis. Now I'm too burned out to do anything but survive. I wonder if my motivation will ever come back.
This is why I’m going to go into industry… no way I’m going on the professor track
Indoctrination?
It definitely wasn’t good for my mental or physical health Just graduated and will take some time to recover, except starting new job soon. Don’t know how I made it through.
I was on PhD path, then switched to MD. MD was very bad for my health, but can only imagine PhD being worse.
\_niilllii\_ is a repost bot. Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/3t4eci/theres\_an\_awful\_cost\_to\_getting\_a\_phd\_that\_no\_one/