To my mind, the main source of stress is the huge investment one makes in doing grad-level research/training for entering a field with few jobs, and few stable jobs. That’s the crux of it. If so, the biggest difference that could be made to this is to broaden the nature of the training a PhD offers so that the PhD isn’t just straightforwardly useful for the academic job market. It should be clearly useful for acquiring skills that can be used outside of academia. So clear that those doing the PhD can see that this is obviously true. Then PhD students would know that there’s value in what they’re doing even if they never enter academia. Their identity needn’t be so closely tied to that and therefore so threatened by not going on into academia. They’d know they’re not suffering a huge opportunity cost if they don’t go into academia.

Did you happen to see Alexandra’s (Toronto) Twitter thread yesterday?

https://twitter.com/alexxguss/status/1582067200617512960?s=20&t=tCCglupdfo6tqC-Gtl3RwA

It has been a while since I was in graduate school, but one pattern that I saw over and over again (and succumbed to myself) was this: struggling grad students isolating themselves out of shame–withdrawing from their department, avoiding their advisor/dissertation supervisor, etc.

I did this for almost 2 full years in grad school. After suffering some academic setbacks (including but not limited to profound difficulty developing a viable dissertation topic, some revise-and-resubmits that turned into brutal rejections, etc.), I felt completely lost. I started avoiding departmental functions, interactions with other grad students, faculty, etc.

This is, I think, an entirely natural defense mechanism–and I know that my case was far from unique. I’ve known more than a few grad students who did more or less the same thing, not only in philosophy but in other disciplines too. It can be hard to face others, let alone seek people out and be happy and congenial around them, when you feel like a failure and that everyone around you ‘who matters’ (your fellow grad students, grad faculty, etc.) probably thinks so too.

The problem then is this: when you are increasingly (self-)isolated, feeling like you are failing, like you have no job prospects (with some real justification), and like you have no other options (because your grad studies did not prepare you for non-academic jobs)–all the while racking up debt (if only because you can only afford to pay your credit card minimums)–well *of course* you’re going to feel hopeless, depressed, anxious, etc.

I remember very, very well what this felt like. I can only describe it as (1) the most hopeless period of my entire life, and (2) learned helpessness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness. And the problem is that grad school (particularly in philosophy) seems systematically conducive to it. How can one *not* feel hopeless (and depressed and anxious) in these kinds of situations, ones that many grad students predictably (and perennially) face?

I share this story not merely because it happened to me and a number of other grad students that I knew, but because it seems to me something that–to extent that it still occurs (and I suspect that it does)–graduate departments very much can and should take steps to prevent and address compassionately when it does happen.

If a student appears to be struggling and has withdrawn from departmental life, don’t just let it go on for months or years on end, don’t just “write the student off”, and don’t confront it by judging that the student can’t make it, pushing them out of the program, or suggesting to them “maybe they’re not cut out for philosophy/academia.”

These all things that I have either experienced first-hand or seen other grad students face–and in my experience they only make things worse. Imagine that you already felt like a total failure, that you had wasted 6-8 years of your life with no career prospects…and someone–particularly a faculty member–just said to you, “You know, maybe you’re just not cut out for this.” If there’s anyway to further destroy an already-hopeless person’s psyche, that’ll surely do the trick. You may be well-meaning (you may really think they don’t belong in academia), but seriously, that’s not what someone in that position needs (and, as an addendum, I would add: I’ve seen more than a few grad students who “nobody thought belonged” end up going on to have fine careers after struggling in grad school, everyone’s expectations notwithstanding).

Instead of making students feel worse or pushing them out (hardly or softly), departments should take proactive steps to prevent struggling students from isolating themselves to begin with, and when it does happen, to reach out to students who are struggling and isolating with kindness, compassion and support. Show some faith in them (they got into your program for a reason), and try to help them through–either through the program or into a good non-academic career (without judgment).

In my case, I think I only survived graduate school “in one piece”, as it were, because after a few years of falling down a deep hole, some people in my program actually did some of these things for me. I will forever be grateful to them, and all grad students should have that kind of support. It really can make all the difference, as it were.

Fwiw

Departments can do a better job of advocating for their students by becoming more aware of their school’s resources. Most often grad students are not included in the mailing lists/listservs and rely heavily on their department for navigating through university systems. Schools are aware that there is a crisis and are putting resources out there for students but their main concern is undergrads (I will not go on that rant here) and likewise rely on departments to guide their graduate students. The resources are for STUDENTS and grad students count. The information exchange is severely lacking.

This is just one move every department should be making – it means supporting all your students.

There are a couple more things I want to say, so I’ll do them in a separate comment.

First @Justin – I completely agree about the community bit. And @everyone – I’m curious. If people are still following this thread, could you chime in with things that your department does / you’ve heard departments of doing that help with building this community?

Second, and a bit in the reverse direction. Hard things are hard. Academic life, especially as an early-career academic, is nasty, brutish, and short. Anxiety, stress, sadness, fear, burnout … these are all actually very reasonable reactions to the situation of many early-career academics.

What I want to say with that is that while mindfulness is helpful, it’s also helpful to recognise that the situation is sh** for many people and that it’s valid to find it hard to cope. It’s not mental illness, it’s a reasonable response to reality. I have found such recognition – both receiving and giving it – to be helpful.

I’m going to offer a left-turn take: consider a less demanding job that is more demanded. I did. Here’s what I mean.

Many people today believe that they should have a career, and also that this career should be impressive. Often, this impressiveness is thought to come from the fact that someone built a career they are uniquely qualified for, that identifies them as special in some way, as having ‘gifts’ that others do not have (the ‘be a professor only if you cannot imagine being anything else’ bullshit is closely related to this…).

These expectations almost killed me; they also made me miserable and anxious, and I found myself disgusted by the bubble of busy-body over-achievement in academia (and elsewhere in professional society), as well as by the largely avoidable psychological crises endured by those working in a system that is stacked against them.

So I dropped my goal to get a permanent job in academia. Then I dropped my expectation to have a career that would impress others (so, no more talk about going to law school for well north of 100k; no more talk about applying to consultancies; no more talk about getting that fancy job in tech; no more dreams that I would be the one to ‘breakthrough’ on the alt-ac, and be interviewed by some alt-ac chronicler on Twitter).

Instead, I took a job that has no status, that requires only a grade 12 education, that does not make me much money (though enough). Undoubtedly, others look down on me when I’m working, and think to themselves that they are glad they are not me (just like I used to, and sometimes still catch my self doing, when looking at others working). Perhaps they think I am a deadbeat, or too dumb to do anything else. Sometimes I think these things about myself. So this isn’t a story of back-to-basics tranquility.

But my job is also unimpeachably useful to society; is absolutely necessary for a vast number of social goods; and it is in high demand, largely because most people think they are better than it. So I have no concerns about unemployment or precarity. And each day I come home knowing exactly what I did to make my contribution that day, and exactly why I was paid to do it.

My mental health has improved considerably. I also have less guilt, because I am no longer labouring under the secret illusion that I deserve something exceptional because I am exceptional.

Academia can colonize your soul. But it takes just as much resilience to walk away and get a job that pays you reliably precisely because the service you perform is absolutely essential to society, each and every day. And there is no shame, and much pride, in doing that very work and then coming home still feeling interest in and a desire to participate in your intellectual interests. It’s shown me that I was in academia because I liked philosophy, but that this is not enough to stay there.

Also, no more grading. Fuck that shit.