
Sarah Hörst Creates Exoplanet Atmospheres in Her Lab - furcyd
https://www.quantamagazine.org/sarah-horst-creates-exoplanet-atmospheres-in-her-lab-20190408/
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tony_cannistra
It's refreshing to see a successful PI with such a strong focus on the well-
being of her students and community, and yet I'm annoyed that I'm refreshed by
this.

One day, when nobody wants to be a graduate student anymore and the academy is
suffering, people will start to wonder whether they should start treating
trainees like humans and expecting PIs to be competent managers.

~~~
heyitsguay
My grad school experience was very positive wrt my PI, and the same was true
for the vast majority of my peers with whom I interacted. That's not to
minimize the problem of PI's who mistreat their underlings, but to point out
that in internet discussions, mostly it's unhappy people who are motivated to
share their experiences, and that can create a distorted perception of [insert
topic] as a whole.

~~~
tony_cannistra
Certainly, I’m glad to hear of the positive experience of you and your
colleagues. But, isn’t there something to be said for the call-out of the
topic in the article? If the issue of work-life balance and quality mentorship
wasn’t an issue, it seems to me that this article would stop short of asking
Dr Hörst about it.

~~~
heyitsguay
Oh yeah, absolutely! No question that it's still an issue: the vast majority
of my peers had great experiences with their PI's, but I'd say 10-20% were
less happy at times. Even within my department, we all knew of at least a few
professors who should be avoided as advisers because of how they treated their
students. So if that's anything close to a representative sample, a problem
for 10-20% of people is a big problem that needs to be addressed, but that
still leaves 80-90% of people pretty happy.

~~~
tony_cannistra
Well, it’s comforting to hear about those low percentages (10-20%, as you
mention) in your experience. However, empirical results [0] have demonstrated
percentages of mental illness among PhD students more in the range of 43-46%.
Lest we assign some sort of “well, it’s better here” thinking, those results
are from Berkeley.

I remain pedantic about this only because, despite some anectodal experiences,
there’s a serious problem in academic training which is having strongly
detrimental effects on student development, quality of life, and retention.

[0]:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4089](https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4089)

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amondal
oh wow, I took her class at JHU. she's awesome!

