Two of us on the Labmosphere team recently attended an event here at Oxford University titled, “Overcoming a Sense of Academic Failure.” It was a great discussion with graduates from many fields discussing their feelings of inadequacy and/or failure with highly successful academics at Oxford who, believe it or not, have also experienced these same feelings. Notes were gathered and compiled by Emily Troscianko, who organized the event, and are available for download here. Hopefully some of the thoughts, quotes, and resources that came out of the discussion can be useful to those who couldn’t attend the event, both within and outside of the Oxford graduate community.
Author: Fátima Sancheznieto
Dr. Fátima Sancheznieto, PhD has recently completed her postdoctoral training at the UW-Madison school of medicine, where she studied mentor training interventions and STEMM training environments. Fátima became interested in the science of training when, during her PhD, she was trained in peer support by the Oxford University counseling center and began advocating for systemic and cultural changes in academic training environments. She has served on a working group for the Next Generation Researchers Initiative at the National Institutes of Health and is currently the President of Future of Research, a nonprofit organization that advocates and empowers early career researchers. Her current research continues to focus on studying the training environments of early career researchers.
Why Do So Many Graduate Students Quit?
Two different people have recently pointed out this article on the Atlantic to us, adding to our growing list of articles addressing problems in the environments graduate students and academics need to survive in. Burnout, mental health issues, and toxic relationships are but a few of these problems:
“Many students are convinced the doctoral experience sets them up to fail.”
As we develop a new generation of faculty and trainers, as well as department heads, we should ask ourselves: Is this really the type of environment we want to develop our brightest minds in? Is the goal of a university ultimately its research and the funds that it attracts, or to train people to develop the capacity to question and perform successful and independent research?
It’s Never too Late to Choose What’s Best for You
This week, I’m grateful to have been sent an article recently published in Science on a topic that some of us have been discussing quite a lot. Coincidentally, HelloPhD’s podcast for today speaks to the same topic:
Is it too late for me to change labs?
In both situations, the women involved felt burnt-out and unhappy by around the third-year mark of their PhD, a time when more than a few PhD students hit their slumps. Both took the road less traveled: they decided to switch lab environments. And both, believe it or not, are currently successful in their academic careers. More importantly though, they are satisfied and happy.
So for those of you struggling and feeling trapped, know that there’s an alternative to leaving your PhD or sticking it out in a problem lab. Seek out advice and help in switching labs, and don’t think of the years you’ve already spent in your PhD as lost or wasted time, but rather as time you’ve spent training your skills and realizing the things you most certainly don’t want. The age-old cliche of better late than never seems to ring true in this case; if your gut tells you it’s time to seek greener pastures, switching labs to a place that will support your personal and career growth will make all the difference.
There’s an awful cost to getting a PhD that no one talks about
Yet another article which talks about mental health issues in graduate school. It’s good to see other people spreading the word and trying to get across that just because things are the norm, they should not be accepted as such. Always remember that whatever you’re going through, you’re not alone. Seek help and solidarity.
In Search of Truth and Happiness
I recently found myself at the King’s Arms pub at Oxford, across the street from the newly opened Weston Library, where works such as the Gutenberg Bible and Dorothy Hodgkin’s drawings of the structure of penicillin are on display. I was there discussing happiness with Michael Plant, a DPhil student in philosophy studying this very subject. While my life at Oxford revolves mainly around working in a biomedical lab up the hill, it’s these moments I came to Oxford for, when the magic of the city of dreaming spires truly works its way into the mind through a pint in hand. Continue reading
Can scientists really have work/life balance?
A recent blog article in Nature raises some good points regarding the age old question of whether or not we as scientists can have a work/life balance, and just what needs to be sacrificed while balancing that equation. While some of the tips author Elisa Lazzari gives might seem like common sense, they are good to keep in mind.
It’s important to address the issue of work/life balance at the cultural level, not just at the individual. Grant agencies and individual group heads must move towards an understanding that investing in happy, well-rested and balanced individuals leads to better science as well. So what do you think: can successful scientists really have a work/life balance? And if so, what are you doing to promote these values at your institute?
The Secret to Being a Better Leader: See and Hear Others
This is an article by Dacher Keltner, one of the founders of the Greater Good Science Center and one of the leading psychologists today who studies emotions such as empathy, compassion, and awe, and the effects they have on individuals and groups.
The article correlates rise to leadership with empathy. Though perhaps it should be taken into account that in our industry, leadership is determined by grants, research, and publications; this correlation between leaders and empathy might not exist in our culture. However, this quote from the article struck me as important:
“Team members led by empathetic managers — who listen, hear, and take in what others think and feel — work in more productive, innovative, and satisfying ways.”
If this also applies to scientists, it is in the best interest of a group, institute, and funding body to promote empathetic PIs and group leaders. But there exists what Dacher calls a power paradox, in which leaders find it harder to be empathetic and can even lose their ability to do so after they’ve gained power. It is interesting to wonder if this also applies in science, and explains some of the bad mentoring stories we’ve heard. We’d love to hear your opinions on the topic in the comment section below.
CV of Failures
While not new, we thought we’d add this article to our collection so that it could be in our repository for others. The Guardian details the story of a Princeton professor who bravely published his CV on twitter with a list of his failures, including positions he didn’t get and papers that got rejected from top journals. We think it’s a refreshing view on the career path of an academic and a move towards breaking the myth that people who make it to the top do so only on a ladder of successes.
Postdoc Mysteries
An interesting article came out in Science recently detailing the “mysteries,” and uncertainties of the Postdoc career track. The comments section of the article is also generating an interesting discussion as to how Postdocs view themselves and their future careers.
Mental Health in Academic Research – A Systematic Problem
“In recent years, a crisis has been building in academia,” says this post on Polygeia. University counseling services report increasing demand due to rising numbers of students with serious and complex mental health problems. From what we’ve either seen or heard from colleagues, mental health problems are very common in academia, but it is surprisingly difficult to find hard data to back this claim, especially since open discussion of these topics is socially discouraged in lab environments. A recent report that came out of Berkeley last year points to 47% of PhD and 37% of masters students scoring as depressed. While these numbers are estimates and not clinical diagnoses, the few studies available in peer-review journals produced numbers of a similar scale. In an UK study, mental health issues among academics were estimated as high as 53%, while an Australian study found that mental illness among academic staff was three to four times higher than the national average. These numbers have to be handled and reported with care, but they are really concerning and point out that this issue needs to be urgently addressed. Continue reading
