
Being a PhD student shouldn’t be bad for your health - pseudolus
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01492-0
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alpineidyll3
Ex professor turned hedge fund dude here -- Can confirm working in a hedge
fund is more ethical than being faculty.

Vote with your feet people. Stop pretending to care, and leave a system which
really does no one any good besides a handful of faculty in the top 5. --
certainly not science

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xiaolingxiao
Could you elaborate?

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sieabahlpark
Roughly paraphrased, "Just do the research yourself and forward science like
they did in the past. Why does everything have to be through the universities
of the world?

~~~
alpineidyll3
[https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-open-letter-to-the-
ma...](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-open-letter-to-the-mathematical-
community)

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bonoboTP
Is it really any worse tan a high-stress job? What is the baseline for the
comparison? Is the corporate environment with all the office politics,
performance reviews, project deadline pressure etc so much better?

~~~
cfallin
IME, hard to say better or worse, but definitely different: less day-to-day
stress (work on your own schedule, drive your own project, usually no one
directly dependent on your day-to-day output) but much more existential-
threat-type pressure (if this doesn't work, I won't graduate). Couple that
with a culture that looks down on quitting, and the fact that one can't just
"quit and find another job" while staying on the academic track (one can
switch advisors but it's difficult and often costs years of progress), and PhD
students are often under a tremendous amount of stress. Personally I'm happy I
finished but I've seen it take a lot out of others.

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musicale
"Senior scientists are expected to be both a robust support system and a
stern, independent assessor of progress — a contradiction that discourages
students from sharing potential mental-health issues for fear of damaging
their professional progress."

This is true at all levels. As someone recently pointed out on HN, bundling
formal evaluation with teaching makes students cautious, for good reason. It
makes it harder on both sides for teachers to help students learn.

Graduate advisors become even more powerful when they control your funding
(i.e. ability to eat) as well as your continued presence at the school.

There are similar problems in workplaces where your boss is supposed to be a
coach or facilitator but is also expected to be an evaluator who has power
over your salary and continued employment.

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mrgigabit
I recently terminated my PhD - a very hard decision after 4 years of study.
But my mental health hit rock bottom, after it had continually declined so
much over the years. Worst of all, when I seeked help from my universities
student wellbeing services, I was told to 'google my issues'.

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musicale
Universities really need to do a better job and not cut students off from
mental health services.

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TheOperator
I've found universities to have far more robust mental health services than
the general population has.

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musicale
Unfortunately depression is almost an occupational hazard of graduate
programs.

And if you actually manage to finish your Ph.D., your chances of making it to
the top of the academic pyramid scheme are essentially nil.

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gauravjain13
This is an entitled view. Pursuing a PhD is a choice; privilege even. How we
value (or should value) pushing the frontiers of knowledge is a separate
debate. Ideally, nothing should be detrimental to your health.

~~~
brunellus
How extreme would the health detriments have to be such that it’s no longer an
“entitled” view?

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nickthemagicman
'Capitalism' shouldn't be bad for your health.

