3 ms·

The research into anxiety rates covered all fields though.

• openknot 5y ago
  That is true, though I would assert that future career outcomes should factor in to the author's calculations of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). In specific, from the article: "It’s a bit hard to get an apples to apples comparison with the “moderate to severe” description from the survey above, but let’s be conservative and use the weights for moderate depression (0.396) and moderate anxiety (0.133). That means the average graduate student loses 0.99 disability-adjusted life years to depression, 0.34 years to anxiety, and 6.17 years to studying irrelevant coursework, writing a dissertation no one will read, wandering around looking for free food, etc." Consider an undergraduate student who then struggles in graduate school, but is likely to achieve a respected career with good pay and autonomy in the industry thanks to a PhD in a technical field, which could not have been attained without that degree. That student is set to have secured additional years with a high quality of life by achieving their dreams, after some years of struggle. Contrast this with an undergraduate student who struggles in graduate school in a non-technical field, where opportunities outside of academia open thanks to the degree are more limited. The DALYs in graduate school for this student have a lower chance of securing additional high-quality of life years after graduate school, compared to the student in the previous scenario.