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Nature published "A PhD State of Mind" in 2018, with this blurb: Recent surveys have linked academia and PhD studies to a risk of experiencing mental health is
by andrewl 7y ago
Nature published "A PhD State of Mind" in 2018, with this blurb:
Recent surveys have linked academia and PhD studies to a risk of experiencing mental health issues. Despite the lack of extensive data, the negative impact of the stresses of lab life should not be underestimated, and PhD students and research trainees should be supported.
It was discussed here at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19322834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19322834.
Repeating a comment I made in the above discussion, here are a couple of relevant quotes from Freeman Dyson (who does not have a PhD):
“Well, I think it actually is very destructive. I'm now retired, but when I was a professor here [Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton], my real job was to be a psychiatric nurse. There were all these young people who came to the institute, and my job was to be there so they could cry on my shoulder and tell me what a hard time they were having. And it was a very tough situation for these young people. They come here. They have one or two years and they're supposed to do something brilliant. They're under terrible pressure — not from us, but from them.
So, actually, I've had three of them who I would say were just casualties who I'm responsible for. One of them killed himself, and two of them ended up in mental institutions. And I should've been able to take care of them, but I didn't. I blame the Ph.D. system for these tragedies. And it really does destroy people. If they weren't under that kind of pressure, they could all have been happy people doing useful stuff. Anyhow, so that's my diatribe. But I really have seen that happen."
- andrewl 7y agoAlso, The New York Times Magazine published "Lethal Chemistry at Harvard" in their November 29, 1998 issue, detailing the suicide of chemistry grad student Jason Altom: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/magazine/lethal-chemistry-at-harvard.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/magazine/lethal-chemistry...
- VvR-Ox 7y agoI have heard something similar about a grammar school in Germany. Every 2nd year a student killed himself and also drug abuse and other things like that are more commonplace there compared to other types of schools in the city. It seems that many similar institutions cannot cope with the development of young people and then the pressure rises until some of them see no other choice but to end this or try to escape. Also mental health problems seem to increase in young people. Somehow I think they should get more attention from really skilled people with social skills and also the education system(s) need to change to allow them to grow up before putting too much pressure on them.
- pm90 7y agoI think you make a very good point in your last statement. The reason for encouraging young people to succeed within institutional frameworks can be easily explained as a direct outcome of the needs of modern states to churn out skilled people for “The betterment of the Nation”. Schools were originally meant to train the population in skills that would greatly assist them as soldiers or workers in a factory. Life expectancies were different then and so were social conventions around eg marriage. Today, most nations are at peace and life expectancy is generally large and fertility rates and marriage are declining. This means that there isn’t the urgent need as it was then to train early. Institutions should be changed with these new circumstances in mind.
- code_code 7y agoI forget the name of the other famous physicist (not Dyson) who said it, but the quote was: "I've seen more [persons] destroyed by Physics than by drugs". I don't regret my Ph.D., but I still remember the monotone voice in which I defended my dissertation. Listen to advice here. Powerlessness is quite something to experience when one is (has been) locked in for years.