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Why do older grad students become bitter?

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21–30 of 114 posts

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

let me guess - it's in Germany.

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#22

They... don't ? I don't know where the person is studying, but it's not a general phenomenon. I have still students around me, and the number of years don't seem to make them more or less bitters.

5 of my friends did a phd, 4 of them had a clinically diagnosed depression during phd

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#23
post #2

> A decent STEM PhD student stipend in the US is about $40k. I don't know where that number comes from. In most universities you'd be looking at $20k-lower 30k, sometimes less. In fact, in public schools, salaries for teaching assistants/research assistants are public data and people can look them up.

(for CS) You can find more numbers from Jeff Huang's Computer Science Open Data, which posts verified stipends: [0]

[0] https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#verified-c...

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#24
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

let me guess - it's in Germany.

Correct

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#25
post #18

I 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 e…

But if you don't take out loans, you almost certainly guarantee failure to reach the top of the pyramid.

So we're stuck with two bad choices. Either people take a risk on loans, or the academic pyramid becomes populated with only those with burnable wealth.

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#26

They... don't ? I don't know where the person is studying, but it's not a general phenomenon. I have still students around me, and the number of years don't seem to make them more or less bitters.

If you're in a teaching position and students' evaluation depends on you remember that you won't see all that much genuine interactions, as many will try to appear at their best

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#27
post #15
post #4

I’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.

> Try to solve real problems

All the engineers working on AdTech and surveillance capitalism solving real problems with billion dollar budgets

All the PhDs researching new physics and fighting for scraps of funding be losers /s

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#28
1. If you put a sixth grader in second grade, they wont be happy because they are doing a lot less than they should and could be doing. I think this feeling applies for sixth year students, that know they could be starting a real job or building a family.

2. Academia is built on the the theoretical.

Learning is cool, and theories are nice, and colleges are full of kids that don't bear the responsibility of their actions. But most people eventually get the nagging and uncomfortable suspicion that the world that they are being sold doesn't quite match up to reality. A feeling associated with bitterness, cynicism, and denial.

OT> IMO, this one reason why academia is so strongly leftist. Socialism and Communism are theoretically utopian, but can never work in the real world. Ditto to monetary theory (if it was so reliable, the profs would all be rich and retired), and liberalism (unfortunately, since I really buy into the theory), and other agendas that are popular on campus.

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ignore the downvotes, I'm not sure which country you are in but there are other suicide prevention services in most of them, phone helplines, charities and other options.

And while I know that you don't feel like you have energy to seek for help, please consider do a Google search and reach out to one of the helplines, they will help you find a way out and figure out how you can get some form of help on a shorter notice. Also you have done the first step which is usually the hardest, realised you need help.

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#30
post #18

I 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 e…

You can do a BS and work in the industry. Nobody forces you to get a job in the academia.
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