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A mental health crisis in science

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Re: A mental health crisis in science

#131

Post by vkou »

qazpot wrote: post #95
abhayhegde wrote: post #42

Academia places unrealistic goals on brilliant people and pays them so meagerly that they have to often find other sources of income. On top of this, some of the advisors are outright unbearable with their demands and work expectations, the world seems bleak for even a motivated researcher. Amidst the scarcity of grants, measly pay, extremely competitive environment, uncertainties tied with job market, failures in ex…

I think the part about "unrealistic goals" is applicable to a lot of spheres of life and exacerbated by the social media. Social media after all inflicts high expectations and pressure to convert your life into a performance on everyone irrespective of profession, culture, age, country. And ofcourse the Titans of social media - zuckerberg, chamath, tiktok and 1000s of engineers, PMs will not pay for the harm their en…

Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger.

You don't need Facebook or the Gram to be keenly aware that all your university buddies who went into tech are going on vacations to Maui and buying their second homes, while you're still grinding your life away for nothing in a university lab. In fact, all you need to do be aware of this is to show up to your friends' bi-weekly happy hour at the local.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#132

Post by vkou »

f6v wrote: post #96
spamizbad wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of what contributes to this is the "brainwashing" that takes place in PhD programs that discourages applicants from transitioning out of academia into "the industry". Academia has tons of extremely smart, hard-working individuals, most of whom would have excellent white collar careers with half the work and 2-10x the pay. There are a handful of academics who are truly built for working in academia and wouldn't b…

You should be discouraged from abandoning projects when hitting a wall. I’d advise against dropping out of PhD program if you don’t have a publication ready in second year. Also, there’re people who truly enjoy science and pay isn’t the deciding factor.

> Also, there’re people who truly enjoy science and pay isn’t the deciding factor.

If that's a good reason to keep pay low, why don't we apply this to the management and administrative class? Surely, we could find someone smart and capable who'd be happy to do an exec's or a director's job, without seven-figure pay as a consideration...

Think of all the money we could return to shareholders, if we just made the directors subsist on prayers and ramen...

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#133

Post by chriskanan »

greenhearth wrote: post #91
tptacek wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academic research is funded by grants.

Can these grants provide a living wage?

Depends on where you live: https://csstipendrankings.org/

NSF grants are hard to get, with a small award being for about $600K over 3 years. That translates to about $300K after the university takes its overhead. For me, that would about fund about two PhD students for 3 years for about $31K per year during the 9 month academic year. Many PhD students in computer science do internships during summer where they make a lot larger salaries, or they are funded by me for that period instead.

In my city, Rochester, according to this website, our stipends are the most generous in the USA based on the low cost of living here. https://csstipendrankings.org/

We would all like to pay students more, but either we then have fewer students or need the government to award larger grants. As someone who had a hard time getting into a PhD program due to how competitive it is, I would be opposed to depriving folks of educational opportunities.

Students typically take classes and do little research for their first 1-2 years, but they do receive a stipend during that time period.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#134

Post by chriskanan »

dbcooper wrote: post #33

A part of this is that in academia there are often few positive career rewards. You're under pressure to publish frequently, in high impact factor journals, and that is to keep your job. You don't get pay rises or bonuses, or any other career improvements, and job security can be until your next contract, at best. If you don't make it to tenured professor, and have good grant funding, then you are staring down the ba…

As someone who loves my career as a researcher and scientist, but was denied admittance when I applied from 2003 - 2005, I'd be opposed to denying the career opportunity to those who want careers in research and to follow their dreams.

Academia isn't the only career path for those with a PhD (I worked in industry and at NASA as well), and I think students should be taught that early on. I think we deny the opportunity to learn how to conduct research to too many people due to limited resources.

Regarding student aptitude, that's hard to measure. Already we highly prioritize students who have already published as undergraduates. If we do more to ensure student aptitude, it would hurt those who may excel but were held back by a lack of mentorship during their undergraduates in how to get into a PhD program. This would also negatively impact efforts to increase diversity in science as well.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#135

Post by LetThereBeLight »

A large issue is that PIs have no training on how to manage people nor is there much protection for grad students (and practically none for postdocs). It is surprisingly common to hear stories of sexual harassment, or international researchers essentially being held captive by their advisors. The universities are motivated to maintain their public appearance, and so cases of harassment and mistreatment are either entirely ignored or dealt with quietly. This, in addition to pay issues, is also playing a significant role in the unionization efforts that are taking place across US universities.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#136

Post by DrThunder »

_fat_santa wrote: post #3

It seems like this is a symptom of a larger problem, rates of anxiety and depression have been going up in recent years in pretty much every facet. I always hear that social media is to blame, but I wonder if that is really the case? I feel like something else is going on, maybe it's just a totality of smaller issues rather than one big problem.

It's being coddled in a sense. You have an entire generation that had very little required of them. Many of them never heard the word no and were just given what they wanted. Additionally, k12 schools told them that any slight or disagreement put towards them was bullying and unacceptable. No one should have to hear opinions they don't agree with.

Imagine growing up that way and then being sent off on your own. Of course your mental well-being will plummet. It's like being in a nice climate controlled house for 18 years and then being thrown out in the wilderness. When your expectation is to never have to deal with any discomfort.... well it's a shock.

As far as the social media part, I think many of these kids were raised on smart devices. They were receiving constant dopamine hits from a young age and no parenting on emotional regulation. If your brain is wired for an easy dopamine hit that doesn't require work, the real world is pretty harsh and depressing.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#137

Post by DrThunder »

commandlinefan wrote: post #44
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked with groups of juniors and college students every year for a while now. I agree that something is going on, but I don’t think there is a single explanation. Social media is a big part of it, but from what I’ve seen it’s not in the way people usually describe it. The most unhappy people I see aren’t the ones talking to their friends on Instagram and Facebook during their lunch break. To be honest, those pe…

I don't know - I have two kids, one 17 and one 19. The 19-year-old graduated valedictorian from his high school of 700 last year, did extracurriculars and scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT... and was still rejected by the "top" colleges he applied to (Stanford, MIT). The 17-year-old got a B this year, and she's devastated - if getting everything nearly perfect isn't enough, what hope does everybody else have?…

What do you mean, what hope does she have? You do not need to go to Stanford or MIT to be successful. In fact I think the average person would be better off not going to an expensive school like that.

If you're goal is to be in the top echelons of elitist society I guess that's where you've got to be. If your aim is be gainfully employed and make a good living then those schools aren't necessary for anything.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#138

Post by DrThunder »

commandlinefan wrote: post #105
ke88y wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 19-year-old graduated valedictorian from his high school of 700 last year, did extracurriculars and scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT > Stanford, MIT I see this attitude often and... I just don't get it. It seems innumerate at best. MIT accepts around 500 students and Stanford accepts around 2,000 students. There's overlap between those two groups, but let's assume they are entirely disjoint. That gives…

> I know they can get a great education Too bad the people doing the hiring don't know that.

Huh? You believe people that don't go to Ive League schools are just living in squalor? I don't know of any jobs that require a degree from those schools. MIT is even more silly because most tech sector jobs don't care where your degree is from.

I'm sure there's some weird pompous elitist corporation out there that only pulls from those schools but no one NEEDS to work at those places.

If you're basing your success off of gaining entry into those schools I have to guess you grew up in a very closed off, extremely wealthy area.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#140

Post by bumby »

vkou wrote: post #132
f6v wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be discouraged from abandoning projects when hitting a wall. I’d advise against dropping out of PhD program if you don’t have a publication ready in second year. Also, there’re people who truly enjoy science and pay isn’t the deciding factor.

> Also, there’re people who truly enjoy science and pay isn’t the deciding factor. If that's a good reason to keep pay low, why don't we apply this to the management and administrative class? Surely, we could find someone smart and capable who'd be happy to do an exec's or a director's job, without seven-figure pay as a consideration... Think of all the money we could return to shareholders, if we just made the direc…

>Surely, we could find someone smart and capable who'd be happy to do an exec's or a director's job, without seven-figure pay as a consideration...

We do, depending on domain. Directors in a lot of social programs make low pay for what they deal with. Luckily, many are mission oriented rather than being motivated primarily by money.

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