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alright pals i& #39;ve been off twitter for a while, but thread incoming - how NOT to talk to grad students about the current situation in academia, ESPECIALLY if you have tenure
in case you haven& #39;t noticed, it& #39;s a tough time to be alive. this thread is in no way comparing the grad student experience to any other experience - and 100% acknowledges that the "grad student experience" isn& #39;t a monolith and varies from person to person.
but but but - it& #39;s a tough time to be a grad student. if you& #39;re in the beginning of your program, suddenly you& #39;re off campus with very little support in some cases, trying to learn how to be a scholar by yourself in your room.
or you& #39;re a mid-track student trying to figure out why you can& #39;t work - you were doing fine a few weeks ago and now nothing! and maybe not a lot has changed but also the world is on fire, so of course it& #39;s hard to write your prospectus.
or maybe you& #39;re at or near the finish line and you& #39;re suddenly trying to figure out what your options are becasue there are no jobs, but there& #39;s no funding to stay either, and all the while the finish line, which is supposed to be a celebration, is lonely and scary and sad.
all of it sucks - and all of it is of course compounded by the fact that it& #39;s happening on top of incredibly global instability and in a lot of cases, personal loss and grief. it sucks it sucks it sucks it sucks.
and if you aren& #39;t a grad student - but you do interact with them - then i get it, how do you support someone who is just in the throes of a terrible situation that you can understand parts of, but aren& #39;t really in yourself? how do you help??
well, brene brown to the rescue - the trick is empathy, not sympathy! there& #39;s a great video that describes it here - but it& #39;s feeling with people without judgement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw">https://www.youtube.com/watch...
