Grad School's Mental Health Expectation

Image source: xkcd 

Having just transitioned from PhD student to Assistant Professor, the grueling nature of graduate school and the expectations related to it are still fresh in my mind (not to mention that the professor position also comes with a new, intimidating set of expectations). Upon entering grad school at UCLA, I quickly realized that there was an unwritten rule that you were always to be working or thinking about work - there is no "off" switch. Soon, I was surrounded by students who wore all-nighters like badges and spoke of all the work they did over the weekend with the utmost pride. Luckily, I had an advisor who openly talked about "impostor syndrome," reassured me that all of my fears and anxieties were normal, and frequently encouraged me to put more life in my work-life balance. I hope that the slog of grad school doesn't fade from memory too soon so that I can also provide a caring and healthy environment for any future students who pass through my office.

This article by Ted Scheinman more eloquently explicates on this expectation. Some of my favorite quotes:

• "'Acceptance' of mental illness is excellent if it means dispelling a toxic stigma; what’s no good is the prevailing presumption that graduate school is supposed to be hell, and that madness is the natural communal reaction."
  
• "What the writer means by “acceptance,” here, is really “expectation”—a culture where we require that everyone work herself to the point of physical and emotional enervation because hey, that’s the nature of the racket. High-scoring students at top colleges who pursue doctorates in the humanities have already capitulated to manifold compromises: instead of earning small fortunes at consultancies, we sign a six-year contract to live on or around the poverty line while our teaching, writing, and research busies us for roughly 12 hours a day. We’re told these drudgeries are requisite sacrifices to the life of the mind..."
  
• "When one’s world contracts to fit the walls of a university, anything that happens within the walls has an artificially bloated importance."
• "One’s options are fairly grim: publish or perish, or perish because you’re working so hard to publish."
• "Reviewing a 2006 study among graduate students in the University of California system, Arnold notes that one in 10 students had considered suicide in the previous year, while 'about 60% of graduate students said that they felt overwhelmed, exhausted, hopeless, sad, or depressed nearly all the time.'"
  
• "We should expect no less—and perhaps no more—than a rudimentary emotional intelligence among our tenured patrons."