Burnout + Isolation + Financial burden + Career uncertainty + Unrealistic expectations = disillusioned old phd student
Why do older grad students become bitter?
11–20 of 114 posts
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
You considered suicide but not quitting? You're still waiting for your contract to end? I don't understand.
It’s guaranteed money for the next year and a half and I’m basically totally isolated with no expectations of me actually doing anything. In addition, I will be forced to leave the country if I quit. Therefore it makes no sense to quit. Also there is not anything else I want to do. I would not be less suicidal if I quit
I know it never seems like the right time to do anything else than moving forward, but please seek help.
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s guaranteed money for the next year and a half and I’m basically totally isolated with no expectations of me actually doing anything. In addition, I will be forced to leave the country if I quit. Therefore it makes no sense to quit. Also there is not anything else I want to do. I would not be less suicidal if I quit
I know it never seems like the right time to do anything else than moving forward, but please seek help.
I am on the waiting list for therapy for a year. They told me it would be a year. I rang a couple weeks ago and they told me it would be another year. Help is not available. God knows I’ve tried
EDIT: Why downvote? What am I supposed to do?...I'm so tired
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#14>Only 15% of postdocs end up being tenure-track faculty.
It's strange that the most intelligent people don't overcome that limit. There are billions of people on earth who could benefit from education to become more productive. A share of that gain could pay for many more 'tenure-tracks', they just wouldn't be called like that.
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#15I’m just waiting for my depressing postdoc to end so I can take the money and then im out of here. Have hated every moment of it, considered suicide multiple times, etc. Very bad
Man, I'm sorry to break it to you in this way, but it's up to you to make your life and research interesting. Don't waste time with the bullshit. Try to solve real problems and work towards concretising them.
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#16I’m just waiting for my depressing postdoc to end so I can take the money and then im out of here. Have hated every moment of it, considered suicide multiple times, etc. Very bad
Man, I'm sorry to break it to you in this way, but it's up to you to make your life and research interesting. Don't waste time with the bullshit. Try to solve real problems and work towards concretising them.
I’m simply not interested anymore
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
You considered suicide but not quitting? You're still waiting for your contract to end? I don't understand.
It’s guaranteed money for the next year and a half and I’m basically totally isolated with no expectations of me actually doing anything. In addition, I will be forced to leave the country if I quit. Therefore it makes no sense to quit. Also there is not anything else I want to do. I would not be less suicidal if I quit
But suicide being your only other perceived alternative means something isn't right. Please get some help - your life is worth more than that.
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#18I think the psychological aspect of first failure and injustice is rough on grad students.
Hypercompetitive to get into a good enough BS program to get into a MS program yet unlike post-BS tracks like med school, 98% aren't getting that job in academia and will fail out.
Its a pyramid with a very pointy top, much like college football usually doesn't lead to a NFL career.
Meanwhile the "failures" who were not smart enough to get into a good grad program are making incredible salaries etc.
98% of them when they don't get that tenure track professorship "Hey I listened to advice, obeyed, played the game of education, played it VERY hard, put in incredible hours, won top positions, now where's my reward I was promised?"
(I get this emotional response originally from my favorite server at Dennys who did a K12 education degree, busted her butt, got a top half of her class place, back then they were overproducing ed degrees to such an incredible extent she never got a teaching job, came home with her student loans to the same server job she had at Dennys when she was in high school. If you're going to try to climb a job pyramid where most people don't make it to the top, don't take out loans to do it... Anyway she sounded a lot like some MSCS students and grads I've met while programming.)
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#19As somebody from the UK, six years feels such a long time. Our PhDs are usually three years, although there's more specialisation earlier on at the undergraduate levels, and people might have done masters first, so you are launched straight into research pretty much when you start. You generally have four years from the start to submit your thesis and three years of funding, although I don't know if that has changed at all since I did mine.
I knew two years into my PhD that it wasn't what I wanted to do - I did see it to the end as I was concerned how it would look on my CV if I quit (not sure if that was a good decision or not, but I think I am glad I did finish it!). But I think it'd have been really hard if it had been four more years rather than just another one or two.
Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?
#20I found myself nodding in agreement, as this all sounds very familiar to me as a former graduate student (except the final "applications of science" section, because I was in philosophy).