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The news article mentions that the student on the paper has passed away. He died of suicide in his lab just a couple weeks after the paper was submitted to Nat

The news article mentions that the student on the paper has passed away. He died of suicide in his lab just a couple weeks after the paper was submitted to Nature [0]. Grad school is hard for a lot of people. Find someone to talk to if you're struggling. [0] https://padailypost.com/2019/02/16/engineering-student-found-dead-at-stanford/ https://padailypost.com/2019/02/16/engineering-student-found...

mikorym 6y ago
I've had an idea for a while, coming from a developing continent, that it would be good to have an alternative for students where they can start working when they are doing an advanced degree, but also simply a place for high school students to acclimate to some of the aspects of the work place. I know it sounds tangential, but this does resonate with my own roundabout way of going from studies -> work and the gross lack of fundamental science companies in Africa as a whole. I did not have depression, but rather my own cocktail of problems as a student, and a lot of it (at least for me) stemmed from clear dissonance between your current situation and an inability to anticipate a future self that is acceptable to your current self. With depression, the situation is similar and more importantly, you become more and more subjective and people outside your situation are needed, as probably is medication, to bring you back to personal assonance with what you want in life. The article doesn't say what the reasons were, so Wang may have had different reasons.
- pritovido 6y ago
  What is needed is removing the source of the problem in the first place. You are in a foreign country, with no friends, no family, working over time, in some places extremely little money. If you are burnout the first thing that you need to do is to stop. Make friends and lovers, travel and work outside for a year or so. To use medication or drugs is not going to solve your problems,if you continue living such an unnatural lifestyle. And I said that having lived that lifestyle myself, but I took my breaks from the toxic system.
  - speeder 6y ago
    Problem is, how? When I went to university I ended in deep debt. Took me years, to pay off that debt, it felt like literal slavery, since I would just take whatever job that could pay the debt that was offered (I had to decline many jobs because their pay was lower than my debt, meaning taking them I would just stay in debt forever), and then I would stay until I was fired or had to quit. Even then, those were not "real" jobs according to our government, in my country my "real" job registry, is empty, I never "worked", because I never got hired full-time legally, I couldn't afford to, whatever people offered that the pay was good enough, I would accept, even if the employer was obviously hiring me as "freelancer" just to not pay taxes. The times I had burned out during this, I had to keep going, travelling for a year? I dunno if I will ever afford that. Making friends? How? When? I am not in a foreign country yet I have two friends at most, and one of them moved to another country and I see him once every 5 years. So it is not like people have a choice after they went to college, I still feel that going to college was the biggest mistake I ever did on my life, I should never have went, and never took that debt, it is paid now, but I am working with Marketing, instead of working with programming, and have little room for error, no debt, but no surplus either, if something goes wrong with the business I am screwed.
    - lioeters 6y ago
      That's too bad.. Sorry to hear about your experience with university and debt. At least, now that it's paid off, you can start building up something, instead of working for nothing. > to pay off that debt, it felt like literal slavery This is what I feel is almost criminal about systematically committing university students to years-long debt. Education shouldn't have to be traded for years of someone's life - especially when most of the labor market expects them to have at least a degree. I think the root of the problem is deeper than education (as a business) though - it's how society is organized. To have a minimum standard of living, one must eat every day and have a place to stay - which is already a kind of debt, a constant need for money. Poor people are essentially enslaved to dead-end jobs, just to be able to survive. Hopefully, in a sensible/utopian future, we will look back on this social arrangement as barbaric, inhumane and uncivilized. Until then, best of luck navigating, adapting, flourishing despite the setbacks.
- jacobush 6y ago
  With depression, the "why" is never easy to suss out, even when something is stated, is that really the reason?
  - edu-ap 6y ago
    Academia can be very toxic and PhD students are the most vulnerable as their Prof holds all the cards. This needs real checks and balances.
    - unishark 6y ago
      Getting a paper into nature and being a top-ranked school almost certainly says it was a high-pressure environment. But there is certainly a process for handling advisor-advisee issues at a big school like Stanford: https://deanofstudents.stanford.edu/who-we-are https://deanofstudents.stanford.edu/who-we-are
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    I have a feeling that depression relies on many pillars of your mind breaking.
mdturnerphys 6y ago
Correction: I missed the year on the linked article. He passed away in 2019, a year before the paper was submitted.
pdfernhout 6y ago
See: "Grad school is worse for public health than STDs" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21749279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21749279 And my comment there. And also my comment here (which links to more): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21629112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21629112 A good resource on suicide prevention: https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/ https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/ "When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible." A Basic Income could make a big difference to make it possible for people to live a graduate student lifestyle without the stress of navigating the social dysfunction of many (not all) graduate programs...

mikorym 6y ago

I've had an idea for a while, coming from a developing continent, that it would be good to have an alternative for students where they can start working when they are doing an advanced degree, but also simply a place for high school students to acclimate to some of the aspects of the work place. I know it sounds tangential, but this does resonate with my own roundabout way of going from studies -> work and the gross lack of fundamental science companies in Africa as a whole. I did not have depression, but rather my own cocktail of problems as a student, and a lot of it (at least for me) stemmed from clear dissonance between your current situation and an inability to anticipate a future self that is acceptable to your current self. With depression, the situation is similar and more importantly, you become more and more subjective and people outside your situation are needed, as probably is medication, to bring you back to personal assonance with what you want in life. The article doesn't say what the reasons were, so Wang may have had different reasons.

pritovido 6y ago
What is needed is removing the source of the problem in the first place. You are in a foreign country, with no friends, no family, working over time, in some places extremely little money. If you are burnout the first thing that you need to do is to stop. Make friends and lovers, travel and work outside for a year or so. To use medication or drugs is not going to solve your problems,if you continue living such an unnatural lifestyle. And I said that having lived that lifestyle myself, but I took my breaks from the toxic system.
- speeder 6y ago
  Problem is, how? When I went to university I ended in deep debt. Took me years, to pay off that debt, it felt like literal slavery, since I would just take whatever job that could pay the debt that was offered (I had to decline many jobs because their pay was lower than my debt, meaning taking them I would just stay in debt forever), and then I would stay until I was fired or had to quit. Even then, those were not "real" jobs according to our government, in my country my "real" job registry, is empty, I never "worked", because I never got hired full-time legally, I couldn't afford to, whatever people offered that the pay was good enough, I would accept, even if the employer was obviously hiring me as "freelancer" just to not pay taxes. The times I had burned out during this, I had to keep going, travelling for a year? I dunno if I will ever afford that. Making friends? How? When? I am not in a foreign country yet I have two friends at most, and one of them moved to another country and I see him once every 5 years. So it is not like people have a choice after they went to college, I still feel that going to college was the biggest mistake I ever did on my life, I should never have went, and never took that debt, it is paid now, but I am working with Marketing, instead of working with programming, and have little room for error, no debt, but no surplus either, if something goes wrong with the business I am screwed.
  - lioeters 6y ago
    That's too bad.. Sorry to hear about your experience with university and debt. At least, now that it's paid off, you can start building up something, instead of working for nothing. > to pay off that debt, it felt like literal slavery This is what I feel is almost criminal about systematically committing university students to years-long debt. Education shouldn't have to be traded for years of someone's life - especially when most of the labor market expects them to have at least a degree. I think the root of the problem is deeper than education (as a business) though - it's how society is organized. To have a minimum standard of living, one must eat every day and have a place to stay - which is already a kind of debt, a constant need for money. Poor people are essentially enslaved to dead-end jobs, just to be able to survive. Hopefully, in a sensible/utopian future, we will look back on this social arrangement as barbaric, inhumane and uncivilized. Until then, best of luck navigating, adapting, flourishing despite the setbacks.
jacobush 6y ago
With depression, the "why" is never easy to suss out, even when something is stated, is that really the reason?
- edu-ap 6y ago
  Academia can be very toxic and PhD students are the most vulnerable as their Prof holds all the cards. This needs real checks and balances.
  - unishark 6y ago
    Getting a paper into nature and being a top-ranked school almost certainly says it was a high-pressure environment. But there is certainly a process for handling advisor-advisee issues at a big school like Stanford: https://deanofstudents.stanford.edu/who-we-are https://deanofstudents.stanford.edu/who-we-are
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I have a feeling that depression relies on many pillars of your mind breaking.

mdturnerphys 6y ago

Correction: I missed the year on the linked article. He passed away in 2019, a year before the paper was submitted.

pdfernhout 6y ago

See: "Grad school is worse for public health than STDs" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21749279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21749279 And my comment there. And also my comment here (which links to more): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21629112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21629112 A good resource on suicide prevention: https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/ https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/ "When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible." A Basic Income could make a big difference to make it possible for people to live a graduate student lifestyle without the stress of navigating the social dysfunction of many (not all) graduate programs...