I am reading about people who are feeling a sense of anxiety/depression/ennui. These all strike me as normal & appropriate responses to prolonged uncertainty. And, while it may not be a conversation we have now, I'd like to revisit this later about grad school...
[thread]

A recent poll in the US found that roughly 30% of the respondents are suffering from clinical symptoms of emotional distress (anxiety/depression). This number struck me because...
(you can check out the data here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/mental-health.htm)

Because it's the same number we see in graduate school. Let me say that again: the frequency of mental distress DURING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC is roughly equal to those in graduate school. Think about it. This stands out to me for two reasons... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03489-1

First, one of the often-cited reasons for not changing the graduate school system is that graduate school somehow selects for people with a predisposition to mental health challenges. In other words: "it's not the system's fault, it's the student's fault." BUT...

We're seeing the same rates of distress (which is heartbreaking) right now, during a time of 1) increased isolation, 2) financial distress, 3) fear of wellbeing, and 4) future uncertainty. ALL THESE THINGS also describe the experience of so many in graduate school...

...and this is my second reason for being surprised: for many people I've talked to, being in quarantine reminds them of being in grad school. Very little external structure, often unclear expectations, high levels of perceived future risk & uncertainty (hello job market) etc...

...I realize I'm drawing a comparison between two things that are different. For example, graduate students as a whole may experience more inherited economic privilege, for example. But still...

...the similarity between what many experiences in quarantine with what many graduate students feel, combined with the similar rates of mental distress, lead me to believe it's really not the students, it's the system. And while I've suspected this for years...

...I think this is a conversation worth having, and revisiting, as time goes on. Some people will thrive in quarantine (you submitted how many papers??), some people will remain status quo, and many people (>30%) will really struggle. Ditto grad school...

We owe it to our students, friends, and family, to take these numbers seriously. Right now, 1 in 3 Americans is really hurting. Last year, 1 in 3 graduate students was really hurting. These numbers are too high....

...and while we might not be able to control the global course that COVID takes, we can certainly change how graduate programs treat their students.
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p.s. and if you need help, please please reach out. We all need help sometimes. You are not alone. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/