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‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

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Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#81

Post by d0mine »

mjburgess wrote: post #64
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #61

Y'know, occasionally I see off hand remarks from tech or start-up people dissing academia, not understanding that academia is probably one of the hardest career paths in the world (and thus surprisingly similar to start-ups). You can't take a break (publish or perish), you need a lot of qualifications to even dream about getting tenure (top 5 grad schools or bust), and you're competing against ridiculously smart and…

I suspect its the content of the game rather than its difficulty. That is, academia is at-best dimly related to practical results that have a direct effect on people's lives.

> dimly related to practical results that have a direct effect on people's lives.

Look at how monkeys live, look at us. Think who can do science.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#82

Post by JanSt »

expertentipp wrote: post #71
JanSt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Berlin, which is totally different than pretty much every other place in Germany :-) FREE healthcare means that everyone is covered, even if unemployed or working for low wages. The more you earn, the more you pay (capped at ~400€). Your family is insured for no extra payment. You obviously don‘t fit the system because you believe you should pay less (single, young, healthy) but that‘s exactly not what it…

> poor, old, unhealthy people, those who suffer in life are protected > Cancer won‘t bankrupt your family, you won‘t end on the street. > That‘s free healthcare - dignity! I guess the middle age male homeless sitting and sleeping all over the cities and transport venues damage your vision slightly. Don't even try the narrative "it's eastern Europeans, it's their own fault".

First of all, maybe in Berlin. There are a few reasons for people living in the streets. Drugs is a big one, especially in Berlin. You won‘t find that in most of Germany.

Fact is, most people who are legally in Germany for >3 months are legible for Hartz 4: a free apartment, free heating and a few hundred Euro. And free healthcare.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#83

Post by mjburgess »

tensor wrote: post #74
mjburgess wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect its the content of the game rather than its difficulty. That is, academia is at-best dimly related to practical results that have a direct effect on people's lives.

Considering almost all the world changing knowledge our society has has come from academia, I really can't agree with you. Even in CS, almost all of what I learned in grad school was directly applicable to real problems. The issue is that the bar in industry is so low that we're more worried about getting people to do even basic things than getting them to use state of the art technology.

Yes, but the results of "academia" are an exercise in the net effects of collective intelligence. Many a bee sacrifices its life without making a difference.

Rarer in business is one individuals efforts 100% wasted with such regularity.

Academia is a path finding strategy through a forest where most paths are dead-ends.

On a case-by-case, individual basis, it doesn't look so good.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#84

Post by mjburgess »

d0mine wrote: post #81
mjburgess wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect its the content of the game rather than its difficulty. That is, academia is at-best dimly related to practical results that have a direct effect on people's lives.

> dimly related to practical results that have a direct effect on people's lives. Look at how monkeys live, look at us. Think who can do science.

And likewise, think who can do business.

You might find the latter has a lot more to do with our success as a species than "science" as such.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#85

Post by auxym »

expertentipp wrote: post #71
JanSt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Berlin, which is totally different than pretty much every other place in Germany :-) FREE healthcare means that everyone is covered, even if unemployed or working for low wages. The more you earn, the more you pay (capped at ~400€). Your family is insured for no extra payment. You obviously don‘t fit the system because you believe you should pay less (single, young, healthy) but that‘s exactly not what it…

> poor, old, unhealthy people, those who suffer in life are protected > Cancer won‘t bankrupt your family, you won‘t end on the street. > That‘s free healthcare - dignity! I guess the middle age male homeless sitting and sleeping all over the cities and transport venues damage your vision slightly. Don't even try the narrative "it's eastern Europeans, it's their own fault".

Given how plenty of other countries with free healthcare also have homelessness problems, I doubt these issues are related all that closely.

Have a look at the large Canadian cities: Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Or France, whose residents use the three letter acronym SDF to refer to the homeless.

Anecdotally, I've heard that a significant proportion of them have mental health issues for which they refuse treatment, free or not. It's also a problem of housing accessibility (interesting article: https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/22/finl...) and support for transitioning to gainful employment.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#86

Post by icefo »

digitalixus wrote: post #41
luckydata wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a single thing about China is attractive to me. Not how you work, not your politics, not your view of what's important in life. We have nothing to learn from you and I hope we don't become more similar than we are now.

If there's one thing living and working in Europe (Germany) has taught me is that all countries are more or less the same. It's just how well the culture manages to mask the "unattractive" traits we love to criticize in places like China (or America, as of late), and the PR/propaganda campaign they run to convince everyone they're the best place on the planet. China is a prime example of subpar image/PR management. T…

You seem to be missing that China is more or less a dictatorship. No matter how much I disagree with the German government I'm sure I won't disappear or get sent to a reeducation camp. I value that a lot and so are a lot of people.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#88

Post by lavotu »

digitalixus wrote: post #30
skrebbel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recognize that this is anecdata but I worked together remotely with a engineers from the Shenzhen area a number of times, and they would have a 2 hour lunch plus a 2 hour afternoon nap (under their desks, on a couch, anywhere really) every day. Working from 9 to 9 sounds less heavy (and more fun!) that way. Maybe I met some lucky few, but if my impression of Chinese tech working culture is accurate, it's less insan…

Ain't that the inconvenient truth? Countries with long working hours aren't filled with people with superhuman stamina and concentration. They just fill up the additional hours with a bunch of other stuff; in the western hemisphere, it's acting busy and spending hours on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. I'd rather work in a place with "work-life balance" (whatever the hell that is these days, 8-6?) but such places a…

I always some trouble understanding these kinds of comments. They really don't mirror my experience. I have worked in a mix of small to multinational companies in France, small companies/startups in England (Cambridge). I would always do 9:30/6, often less. Sure I received "median" wages for that. Sure there was the occasional release where you work on Saturday, but that's once every 6 months, and I could say no if I wanted.

Some people would work more or much more (they ended up being "nudged" into management, the poor souls, they regretted it dearly), but as a software engineer the market is so much in your favour that you can always go somewhere else.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#89

Post by expertentipp »

JanSt wrote: post #82
expertentipp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poor, old, unhealthy people, those who suffer in life are protected > Cancer won‘t bankrupt your family, you won‘t end on the street. > That‘s free healthcare - dignity! I guess the middle age male homeless sitting and sleeping all over the cities and transport venues damage your vision slightly. Don't even try the narrative "it's eastern Europeans, it's their own fault".

First of all, maybe in Berlin. There are a few reasons for people living in the streets. Drugs is a big one, especially in Berlin. You won‘t find that in most of Germany. Fact is, most people who are legally in Germany for >3 months are legible for Hartz 4: a free apartment, free heating and a few hundred Euro. And free healthcare.

> Fact is, most people who are legally in Germany for >3 months are legible for Hartz 4: a free apartment, free heating and a few hundred Euro. And free healthcare.

Free apartment for a foreigner living in the country only over 3 months?! Dude, people on employment contract with over average income, staying in the country for years are having difficulties to find anything for rent in any major city, buying is out of question. Did you swallow an info brochure of German ministry for social affairs?

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#90

Post by Aeolun »

ascar wrote: post #40
skrebbel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My I ask what you studied and where? I'm curious because I did a Master's (CS) at a Dutch university (Eindhoven) and my experience was the total opposite. Lots of students were involved in extracurricular activities, there was time for study and time for fun, people generally seemed mostly relaxed. I'll concur that the program was a bit of an industry mismatch in that they don't teach software engineering but academi…

> the program was a bit of an industry mismatch in that they don't teach software engineering but academic theoretical computer science, which has at most 10% overlap with what programmers in industry do The important thing to remember is that the goal of an university is not to prepare you for what you do in industry, but to teach you fundamental knowledge about a topic that helps you adapt to new challenges (also i…

There is in fact two complete levels of education dedicated to that in the Netherlands.

University more or less assumes you’ll be going into academia or research.

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