15 ms·

Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

119 points by johndcook 12y ago

Balgair 12y ago
How to get the best out of people is a millennial long question. Egyptians used whips and slaves, we have been using money and propaganda lately, but everyone uses something that may or may not be the most optimal method. The issue is that people are individual and respond differently each time you ask them. My condolences on the loss of life (I too have felt like the world was asking far too much of me and I had no way out) but suicide is rarely the answer. Quitting your job, going to live in Montana for a while, having far too many beers, considering that everyone around you is an asshole, those are good options. And yes, I know it is real hard to climb out of those dark mental holes and realize this, but damnit you have to try. If there was 2 things I wish the whole world could know, truly know deep down, they would be that you personally are worth all the stars in the heavens, all the grain in the fields, all the water in the oceans, and that everyone else is worth exactly the same amount; that we are all priceless.
- kleer001 12y ago
  "Best" is a pretty hairy topic. Does it mean "Most fulfilling existance", does it mean "Most benefit to humanity", does it mean "Most benefit to this country/children/etc..." There's no right answer. I submit that "Letting people expressing their freedom in a way that maximally lets others express the same." is more useful/enlightening/profitable than "Getting the best". But that's pedantic and hair splittery, like the rest of my comment. People aren't priceless. If we were industry would grind to a halt. There has to be a reasonable price on human life or there would be no calculating the impact of 1, 10, or 100 deaths, and then to upper limit on the $ spent on safety. The value of a human life is around 50-100K$/year to 100$K-10$Million Total, depending on the application.
  - noobermin 12y ago
    Continuing this pedantry, one could argue s/he isn't claiming that what people _do_ be worth all the stars in the heaven, etc. This guy "getting a house in Montana" is him specifically rejecting that his worth is only his salary or position or career...even his pride. His sanity at least was worth it somewhat for him to take a sabbath to regain it. I guess the next question then is what is it we value in ourselves and how do wee determine it? That's a harder question.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      The question is wrongly phrased: it's not that we value things in people. People are terminally valuable.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  >If there was 2 things I wish the whole world could know, truly know deep down, they would be that you personally are worth all the stars in the heavens, all the grain in the fields, all the water in the oceans, and that everyone else is worth exactly the same amount; that we are all priceless. Which, unfortunately, only tells us that we perhaps ought to trade off human lives against nonhuman lives or nonlives, since we can't actually give everyone all the stars in the heavens, and don't yet even have the power to divide them equally. But the sentiment, at least, is correct, which is far more than we can say for many things.
  - Balgair 12y ago
    thanks (?)
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      That's me agreeing with you, but wishing we could do more about it.
davidmerriman 12y ago
Life is an 'anxiety machine.' Claiming academia killed this specific man is in extremely bad taste. And if we're speaking in generalities, I'd need to see evidence that academic positions correlate with higher rates of suicide.
- aaronem 12y ago
  Come now! Surely you can defend your sacred cow more vigorously than that. You're not starting to entertain second thoughts of your own, are you?
- michaelochurch 12y ago
  If you or I get fired from a software job, it's 2-3 months to find another one. A fired academic is toast. We have more month-by-month job loss risks but they have long-term career risks. One hit on your reputation and you're done as a professor. So, they face a different set of problems. Academia didn't kill him singularly but I'm sure that it was a contributing factor. Was it murder? No. Wrongful death? Yes.
jsnk 12y ago
Going into academia seems like the dumbest thing only smartest people do. Jump into a job market where you compete against the bright and ambitious individuals who will do everything to out-work you to fight for a small prize pool. The ending will most likely not be a happy one.
- Loughla 12y ago
  "Jump into a job market where you compete against the bright and ambitious individuals who will do everything to out-work you to fight for a small prize pool." Isn't that sort of just defining finding a job in the general market? You're competing against other folks who are either more or less qualified than you are for a small prize pool. That's the same thing.
chatmasta 12y ago
My girlfriend is getting her PhD. We are planning a vacation right now. She works in a lab as a researcher, which is not a "real job" since she's getting her PhD. There are no specific regulations for vacation time, or anything for that matter. However, she's unsure how long she can take for vacation, and unsure whether she should ask her P.I. This is an example of the irony of academia. On one hand, the lack of clear policies and regulations governing academia is one of its greatest advantages, because it gives your mind space to explore, and expands creative freedom. If you want to work from 5pm - 3am, nobody will stop you. Ultimately you work for your own advancement, set your own goals, and plan your own schedule. On the other hand, when other people are involved, especially those with "seniority" like P.I.'s and advisors, it's no longer obvious what decisions you should make. You need to consider more than just yourself, but the lack of regulation creates ambiguity in the "politics" of academia. How do you balance the expectations of those with some power over you, with the expectations you have of yourself? I imagine this question is a source of pressure for many academics, especially those who are extrinsically motivated.
- GuiA 12y ago
  "I'm planning on taking a vacation from DD/MM to DD'/MM'. Are there any conflicts in the lab for that time period?". If the answer is no, she can put it on the shared calendar and have her mind at peace. If he says yes, then you can move the vacation to before/after the conflicts. (If the PI is formally opposed to any vacation, then it's a larger problem) I used to be a PhD student (although I dropped out), so I know the ironies of academia too well. But for situations like this, clear communication in advance solves 99% of problems (and this is not specific to academia).
- angersock 12y ago
  Not to pick on your girlfriend but I've seen a variant of this phrase so often that I'm kind of baffled: "the lack of clear policies and regulations governing academia is one of its greatest advantages, because it gives your mind space to explore, and expands creative freedom." Are the folks in academia so creatively stunted that they can't find freedom outside of the ivory tower? It seems like such a silly argument.
mdcpepper 12y ago
I didn't stay in formal education beyond high school so I can't really comment, but from that article: "Unfortunately, some of his colleagues felt that he did not secure sufficiently large research grants. So he was to be fired." However, Imperial College' statement on his passing claims otherwise: "Contrary to claims appearing on the internet, Professor Grimm’s work was not under formal review nor had he been given any notice of dismissal." http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_4-12-2014-18-0-17 http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcolleg...
- Chinjut 12y ago
  More fully: "Contrary to claims appearing on the internet, Professor Grimm’s work was not under formal review nor had he been given any notice of dismissal. It is standard practice at Imperial to conduct both informal and formal performance management. Professor Grimm’s line manager met with him on a number of occasions to see how the College could help him to develop more competitive grant applications, for example through internal peer-review, collaborations and letters of support. Discussions included talking about the best place for him to do his science, both inside Imperial and outside, and, with Professor Grimm’s permission, his line manager made enquiries about opportunities on his behalf." So this may still be a situation of pressure being brought to bear, just in some manner other than via formal review.
  - analog31 12y ago
    Wow, that sounds a lot like the first stage of progressive discipline. In other words, as I see it, he was in the process of getting fired.
  - kghose 12y ago
    A line manager for academics. We're not in Kansas anymore.
freshhawk 12y ago
"There is no trace of evidence that you can get the best out of people at high-level tasks through pressure and competition. The opposite is true. Worried people get dumber. They may be faster at carrying rocks… but they do not get smarter." That last sentence is a great turn of phrase.
- scott_karana 12y ago
  You reminded me of a fantastic video about positive and negative motivation, especially with how they relate to blue-collar vs white-collar work: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc)
dang 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687714
alevskaya 12y ago
The worst consequence of this insecure, anxious, hypercompetitive culture is the near-impossibility of sincere collaboration. I speak from my experience as a very successful grad-student and postdoc in synthetic biology and neuroscience. Unlike equity in a startup, the kudos credit for publishing a high-impact paper is really only split between the first author and the lab PI, removing any incentive for trainees and labs to work together on larger projects. Of course, a great deal of noise is made in grants and PR about academic collaborations, but they are always paper affairs of convenience in securing funding, never truly incentivized joint missions, at least not in the biological sciences. I can't count the number of attempted collaborations that I've seen collapse in heated acrimony. As a result, most academic science is a very lonely affair, and the ambition of what can be achieved today in experimental biology is completely constrained by what one poorly-trained young researcher can do in a few years of hard labor with only a modicum of outside help and advice.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  This is one of the things that struck me most about moving out of academia and into various other things: how collegial in the best sense of the word most of the engineering teams I've worked on have been. In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You try to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your closest colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openings in your field this decade... there are limits on how collaborative you can be. In the business world, if you're any good, you're a resource and people want to work with you. It's pretty awesome, actually, although there are obviously bad situations as well. They're just fewer and further between.
  - NotOscarWilde 12y ago
    > In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You try to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your closest colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openings in your field this decade... there are limits on how collaborative you can be. There are many "academias", but this is not my personal experience of it. Yes, I think most of us PhDs realize the bleak situation we are in, but still, we usually work together at the university as well as across universities. Whenever I see a PhD student that has a better track record or just more talent, I am very happy for him -- after all, he's got a bigger chance than me for making it in academia. There might be some politics and bickering among researchers/employees within a university, but that's something that happens in every community.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
> This is not, I shouldn't have to say, how academia works. Peter Higgs, of Higgs Boson fame, said that there was 'no Eureka moment' to his work, and he only has 4 papers listed on Google Scholar: but what papers! Science rarely has a Eureka moment: it's rather a series of careful, thoughtful developments of work done by one's forebears and peers. A management which demands a Eureka a day is one which doesn't just not 'get' academia, it's a management which contradicts the academic method and it's one which has forgotten that it's meant to serve the needs of science, the arts, students and researchers, not the insatiable maw of attention seeking 'Leaders' (that's the word they use now) and the PR office. It's also a management that kills. slow applause
mathattack 12y ago
"One of the reasons academic infighting is so vicious is that the stakes are so small" - Kissinger
- saraid216 12y ago
  He's not wrong, but he's not right either. The stakes aren't so much small as they're impossible to wrap your head around. They tend to be something like, "understanding something we don't even know exists yet". Compared to something like global politics, where a stake is often at least quantifiable ("1 country", "500 million children", etc.), it does help explain the viciousness: it's not clear what's lost when there's a casualty.
  - mathattack 12y ago
    I've seen academics fight harder for a new filing cabinet than bankers for a 500K bonus.
cerrelio 12y ago
I left in the middle of a PhD for mostly this reason. I was introduced to politics of the department very quickly because I learned my advisor was not popular with most of the rest of the faculty. Only two of them would collaborate with her. She had a big fight with one of the more established researchers over patent rights a few years back. I had met her as an undergraduate five years prior to when I became her grad student. She was pleasant, albeit a little pushy, but nothing offputting. She had changed in the interim. She would yell at me (and her other students) in her office for the slightest mistakes. During a meeting with other researchers and my colleagues she accused me of not completing my work. It took all my strength not to tell her to fuck off and walk out. Mind you, this woman gave me a rare A+ in her course just a few years before because I did stellar work. She's certainly infected by the anxiety of academia and she passes it on to her students and subordinates. When I saw how being a university researcher transformed her I decided to give up my chosen route. It didn't seem worth it to me if there was a significant risk of becoming a bitter asshole. I became a software engineer. So I probably make double what she does, I have a fraction of the anxiety and I'm not a bitter asshole.
svedlin 12y ago
Professor Grimm's death is a horrible tragedy and a major blow to the community. He will be greatly missed by those who were fortunate enough to know him. Perhaps institutions that issue grants should require that the receiving organization ban "quotas" from their internal policies. Condolences to Prof. Grimm's family and friends.

119 points by johndcook 12y ago

How to get the best out of people is a millennial long question. Egyptians used whips and slaves, we have been using money and propaganda lately, but everyone uses something that may or may not be the most optimal method. The issue is that people are individual and respond differently each time you ask them. My condolences on the loss of life (I too have felt like the world was asking far too much of me and I had no way out) but suicide is rarely the answer. Quitting your job, going to live in Montana for a while, having far too many beers, considering that everyone around you is an asshole, those are good options. And yes, I know it is real hard to climb out of those dark mental holes and realize this, but damnit you have to try. If there was 2 things I wish the whole world could know, truly know deep down, they would be that you personally are worth all the stars in the heavens, all the grain in the fields, all the water in the oceans, and that everyone else is worth exactly the same amount; that we are all priceless.

kleer001 12y ago
"Best" is a pretty hairy topic. Does it mean "Most fulfilling existance", does it mean "Most benefit to humanity", does it mean "Most benefit to this country/children/etc..." There's no right answer. I submit that "Letting people expressing their freedom in a way that maximally lets others express the same." is more useful/enlightening/profitable than "Getting the best". But that's pedantic and hair splittery, like the rest of my comment. People aren't priceless. If we were industry would grind to a halt. There has to be a reasonable price on human life or there would be no calculating the impact of 1, 10, or 100 deaths, and then to upper limit on the $ spent on safety. The value of a human life is around 50-100K$/year to 100$K-10$Million Total, depending on the application.
- noobermin 12y ago
  Continuing this pedantry, one could argue s/he isn't claiming that what people _do_ be worth all the stars in the heaven, etc. This guy "getting a house in Montana" is him specifically rejecting that his worth is only his salary or position or career...even his pride. His sanity at least was worth it somewhat for him to take a sabbath to regain it. I guess the next question then is what is it we value in ourselves and how do wee determine it? That's a harder question.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    The question is wrongly phrased: it's not that we value things in people. People are terminally valuable.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>If there was 2 things I wish the whole world could know, truly know deep down, they would be that you personally are worth all the stars in the heavens, all the grain in the fields, all the water in the oceans, and that everyone else is worth exactly the same amount; that we are all priceless. Which, unfortunately, only tells us that we perhaps ought to trade off human lives against nonhuman lives or nonlives, since we can't actually give everyone all the stars in the heavens, and don't yet even have the power to divide them equally. But the sentiment, at least, is correct, which is far more than we can say for many things.
- Balgair 12y ago
  thanks (?)
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    That's me agreeing with you, but wishing we could do more about it.

davidmerriman 12y ago

Life is an 'anxiety machine.' Claiming academia killed this specific man is in extremely bad taste. And if we're speaking in generalities, I'd need to see evidence that academic positions correlate with higher rates of suicide.

aaronem 12y ago
Come now! Surely you can defend your sacred cow more vigorously than that. You're not starting to entertain second thoughts of your own, are you?
michaelochurch 12y ago
If you or I get fired from a software job, it's 2-3 months to find another one. A fired academic is toast. We have more month-by-month job loss risks but they have long-term career risks. One hit on your reputation and you're done as a professor. So, they face a different set of problems. Academia didn't kill him singularly but I'm sure that it was a contributing factor. Was it murder? No. Wrongful death? Yes.

jsnk 12y ago

Going into academia seems like the dumbest thing only smartest people do. Jump into a job market where you compete against the bright and ambitious individuals who will do everything to out-work you to fight for a small prize pool. The ending will most likely not be a happy one.

Loughla 12y ago
"Jump into a job market where you compete against the bright and ambitious individuals who will do everything to out-work you to fight for a small prize pool." Isn't that sort of just defining finding a job in the general market? You're competing against other folks who are either more or less qualified than you are for a small prize pool. That's the same thing.

chatmasta 12y ago

My girlfriend is getting her PhD. We are planning a vacation right now. She works in a lab as a researcher, which is not a "real job" since she's getting her PhD. There are no specific regulations for vacation time, or anything for that matter. However, she's unsure how long she can take for vacation, and unsure whether she should ask her P.I. This is an example of the irony of academia. On one hand, the lack of clear policies and regulations governing academia is one of its greatest advantages, because it gives your mind space to explore, and expands creative freedom. If you want to work from 5pm - 3am, nobody will stop you. Ultimately you work for your own advancement, set your own goals, and plan your own schedule. On the other hand, when other people are involved, especially those with "seniority" like P.I.'s and advisors, it's no longer obvious what decisions you should make. You need to consider more than just yourself, but the lack of regulation creates ambiguity in the "politics" of academia. How do you balance the expectations of those with some power over you, with the expectations you have of yourself? I imagine this question is a source of pressure for many academics, especially those who are extrinsically motivated.

GuiA 12y ago
"I'm planning on taking a vacation from DD/MM to DD'/MM'. Are there any conflicts in the lab for that time period?". If the answer is no, she can put it on the shared calendar and have her mind at peace. If he says yes, then you can move the vacation to before/after the conflicts. (If the PI is formally opposed to any vacation, then it's a larger problem) I used to be a PhD student (although I dropped out), so I know the ironies of academia too well. But for situations like this, clear communication in advance solves 99% of problems (and this is not specific to academia).
angersock 12y ago
Not to pick on your girlfriend but I've seen a variant of this phrase so often that I'm kind of baffled: "the lack of clear policies and regulations governing academia is one of its greatest advantages, because it gives your mind space to explore, and expands creative freedom." Are the folks in academia so creatively stunted that they can't find freedom outside of the ivory tower? It seems like such a silly argument.

mdcpepper 12y ago

I didn't stay in formal education beyond high school so I can't really comment, but from that article: "Unfortunately, some of his colleagues felt that he did not secure sufficiently large research grants. So he was to be fired." However, Imperial College' statement on his passing claims otherwise: "Contrary to claims appearing on the internet, Professor Grimm’s work was not under formal review nor had he been given any notice of dismissal." http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_4-12-2014-18-0-17 http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcolleg...

Chinjut 12y ago
More fully: "Contrary to claims appearing on the internet, Professor Grimm’s work was not under formal review nor had he been given any notice of dismissal. It is standard practice at Imperial to conduct both informal and formal performance management. Professor Grimm’s line manager met with him on a number of occasions to see how the College could help him to develop more competitive grant applications, for example through internal peer-review, collaborations and letters of support. Discussions included talking about the best place for him to do his science, both inside Imperial and outside, and, with Professor Grimm’s permission, his line manager made enquiries about opportunities on his behalf." So this may still be a situation of pressure being brought to bear, just in some manner other than via formal review.
- analog31 12y ago
  Wow, that sounds a lot like the first stage of progressive discipline. In other words, as I see it, he was in the process of getting fired.
- kghose 12y ago
  A line manager for academics. We're not in Kansas anymore.

freshhawk 12y ago

"There is no trace of evidence that you can get the best out of people at high-level tasks through pressure and competition. The opposite is true. Worried people get dumber. They may be faster at carrying rocks… but they do not get smarter." That last sentence is a great turn of phrase.

scott_karana 12y ago
You reminded me of a fantastic video about positive and negative motivation, especially with how they relate to blue-collar vs white-collar work: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc)

dang 12y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687714

alevskaya 12y ago

The worst consequence of this insecure, anxious, hypercompetitive culture is the near-impossibility of sincere collaboration. I speak from my experience as a very successful grad-student and postdoc in synthetic biology and neuroscience. Unlike equity in a startup, the kudos credit for publishing a high-impact paper is really only split between the first author and the lab PI, removing any incentive for trainees and labs to work together on larger projects. Of course, a great deal of noise is made in grants and PR about academic collaborations, but they are always paper affairs of convenience in securing funding, never truly incentivized joint missions, at least not in the biological sciences. I can't count the number of attempted collaborations that I've seen collapse in heated acrimony. As a result, most academic science is a very lonely affair, and the ambition of what can be achieved today in experimental biology is completely constrained by what one poorly-trained young researcher can do in a few years of hard labor with only a modicum of outside help and advice.

tjradcliffe 12y ago
This is one of the things that struck me most about moving out of academia and into various other things: how collegial in the best sense of the word most of the engineering teams I've worked on have been. In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You try to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your closest colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openings in your field this decade... there are limits on how collaborative you can be. In the business world, if you're any good, you're a resource and people want to work with you. It's pretty awesome, actually, although there are obviously bad situations as well. They're just fewer and further between.
- NotOscarWilde 12y ago
  > In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You try to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your closest colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openings in your field this decade... there are limits on how collaborative you can be. There are many "academias", but this is not my personal experience of it. Yes, I think most of us PhDs realize the bleak situation we are in, but still, we usually work together at the university as well as across universities. Whenever I see a PhD student that has a better track record or just more talent, I am very happy for him -- after all, he's got a bigger chance than me for making it in academia. There might be some politics and bickering among researchers/employees within a university, but that's something that happens in every community.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

> This is not, I shouldn't have to say, how academia works. Peter Higgs, of Higgs Boson fame, said that there was 'no Eureka moment' to his work, and he only has 4 papers listed on Google Scholar: but what papers! Science rarely has a Eureka moment: it's rather a series of careful, thoughtful developments of work done by one's forebears and peers. A management which demands a Eureka a day is one which doesn't just not 'get' academia, it's a management which contradicts the academic method and it's one which has forgotten that it's meant to serve the needs of science, the arts, students and researchers, not the insatiable maw of attention seeking 'Leaders' (that's the word they use now) and the PR office. It's also a management that kills. slow applause

mathattack 12y ago

"One of the reasons academic infighting is so vicious is that the stakes are so small" - Kissinger

saraid216 12y ago
He's not wrong, but he's not right either. The stakes aren't so much small as they're impossible to wrap your head around. They tend to be something like, "understanding something we don't even know exists yet". Compared to something like global politics, where a stake is often at least quantifiable ("1 country", "500 million children", etc.), it does help explain the viciousness: it's not clear what's lost when there's a casualty.
- mathattack 12y ago
  I've seen academics fight harder for a new filing cabinet than bankers for a 500K bonus.

cerrelio 12y ago

I left in the middle of a PhD for mostly this reason. I was introduced to politics of the department very quickly because I learned my advisor was not popular with most of the rest of the faculty. Only two of them would collaborate with her. She had a big fight with one of the more established researchers over patent rights a few years back. I had met her as an undergraduate five years prior to when I became her grad student. She was pleasant, albeit a little pushy, but nothing offputting. She had changed in the interim. She would yell at me (and her other students) in her office for the slightest mistakes. During a meeting with other researchers and my colleagues she accused me of not completing my work. It took all my strength not to tell her to fuck off and walk out. Mind you, this woman gave me a rare A+ in her course just a few years before because I did stellar work. She's certainly infected by the anxiety of academia and she passes it on to her students and subordinates. When I saw how being a university researcher transformed her I decided to give up my chosen route. It didn't seem worth it to me if there was a significant risk of becoming a bitter asshole. I became a software engineer. So I probably make double what she does, I have a fraction of the anxiety and I'm not a bitter asshole.

svedlin 12y ago

Professor Grimm's death is a horrible tragedy and a major blow to the community. He will be greatly missed by those who were fortunate enough to know him. Perhaps institutions that issue grants should require that the receiving organization ban "quotas" from their internal policies. Condolences to Prof. Grimm's family and friends.