Failure

I read an article the other day about the mental health of graduate students and the fear of failure. There were a number of very good points made about how, for many graduate students, the fear of failure can be absolutely debilitating. And what defines "failure" for PhD candidates can be completely warped when viewed from the outside. Anything other than a tenure-track faculty position at a major research university is interpreted as failure in the academic culture (according to this article). And let me be the first to assure those of you not familiar with the situation: there are not nearly enough tenure-track positions at major research universities to go around. A whole lot of us are going to "fail", in this sense of the word. This attitude certainly pervades the environment here in my department.

I have pondered this a lot lately, being in the midst of applying for fellowships and post-doc positions. It's a huge decision to make: to stay in academia or to leave. (And mind you, we are all in the midst of writing our dissertations and finishing up our thesis work as we're contemplating our futures in the backs of our minds.) There are pros and cons either way, but there is such a stigma associated with choosing to leave the traditional academic world! Around here it's often referred to as "bailing", as though the PhDs who decide not to stay in academic research are somehow not as good, not as smart. As though they couldn't make it to the coveted tenure-track position if that were what they really wanted. My officemate is telling his advisor tomorrow that he has decided not to pursue a post-doc, and instead is going to seek a non-research job in industry. He's nervous, because the disappointment (and even anger!) from his advisor will be real.

The article also reported a pile of statistics from a study of ~3000 grad students at one particular university. A few for you to peruse:

45% of grad students in the study said that stress-related problems impacted their academic performance
95% felt overwhelmed in graduate school
54% had felt so depressed they found it difficult to function
1 in 200 had actually attempted suicide

Here's my question: who were the 5% of grad students that didn't feel overwhelmed? Seriously. I have never meet any of them. And the 1 in 200? That surprised even me. I don't have a good feel of how this compares to the population as a whole, but other than the suicide one, the general trends seem to fit very well with what I observe in the population around me.

I often call graduate school a completely surreal experience. It is difficult and harsh. And this bizarre definition of failure that so many of us have does nothing to help. As for me, I'm still on the academic track. It's a day to day thing still (hour to hour even, depending on the day), but for the moment I think this is what I want. I'm off to more collaborator meetings this weekend and possible post-doc discussion. Think good employment thoughts for me. :)