by Aide Robles
Mental health disorders and depression are over three times more likely to be experienced by graduate students than the average American. Although its easy to for people to put all students in the same group, graduate students are not only students. Yes, we prepare for exams, we take courses and complete homework, as well as other student life tasks, but a big chunk of our time is dedicated towards producing great research and writing journal articles. Most STEM programs take six years to complete and graduate students spend about 60 hours producing research. Yes, students are compensated for their work, but at salaries substantially lower than those that would be offered to people with the same qualification in the open job market.
So, now we have an over worked and underpaid student with no time. But we choose this life of long hours and little pay because it allows us to pursue our passions. Sometimes even for the most passionate individual the nature of how demanding graduate school is on top of the weight of the unknown, such as “Does my research make a difference?”, “How long will it take me to graduate?”, “Am I wasting valuable time for something I might not need?” and “Am I under and over qualified at the same time?” can be too much. There are also other factors like advisor and student relationships. Every advisor has their own idea of what is enough to graduate, there isn’t a clear list of requirements and boom you get your degree. When asking students when they are graduating, I’ve gotten many variations of the same response “Whenever my advisor decides I can graduate”. There can be a dangerous power dynamic where the student might feel powerless to speak put in fear of losing a recommendation letter or being dropped by a professor.
There is clearly a problem in the system if so many students are suffering. The system probably won’t change today, tomorrow or even by the time I graduate. Moving towards a solution will require measures to prevent labor exploitation, making clearer requirements for graduation criteria, offering funding to offset cost of living expenses, as well as providing mental health services free of cost. In the meantime, here are some tips to balance graduate life better:
- Seek support groups. A support group can be anything from your family, fellow grad students, an ethnic group, a women in science group, religious groups, yoga groups and etc.
- Find mentors outside of your research advisor. Find someone you are comfortable taking about jobs, kids, start-ups, mentoring, being a woman in engineering, being an LGBTQ engineer etc. Try to find many mentors. It’s a friendly reminder that there is light on the other side and you might learn how to better navigate grad life.
- Get outside and get active. Take care of your body eat well and exercise you’ll be in a better mood, have more energy, be more concentrated and get better sleep.
- SLEEP! Plain and simple, everyone needs it!
- Avoid scheduling every minute of your day. Let yourself have downtime
Here are some links to take advantage of ASU resources, as well as the mental health crisis:
ASU counseling services: https://eoss.asu.edu/counseling
ASU student organizations: https://eoss.asu.edu/clubs
ASU group fitness classes: https://fitness.asu.edu/programs/fitness-wellness/groupexercise/tempe
Grad School’s Mental Health Crisis: https://thebestschools.org/magazine/grad-school-mental-health-crisis/
Aide Robles is a Ph.D. student in the Delgado Lab studying Environmental engineering. She researches bioremediation of trichloroethene and microbial chain elongation.