Postdocs under pressure: ‘Can I even do this any more?’

Postgraduate student depression and suicidality is at horrifying proportions. The universities don't care. No one cares. Academia is super fucked and super fucked up, and it just keeps marching onward with blindfold on and fingers in ears, yelling "LA LA LA LA" as loud as possible.

Academic positions are basically gone. Whatever didn't vanish completely after the 2009 recession is definitely gone now. Universities continue to purge full professorship as a possibility and continue to shovel more work for less pay onto adjuncts and graduate students making less than minimum wage. And then they put on a big smile for the kids and say "One day you will be a college professor. Look how nice it is. You should join us." A huge lie. A huge malicious pyramid scheme of a scam. Every program churns out PhDs by the dozens every year. Which academic positions are they going to fill? Which of their advisors are retiring? There aren't any positions. Nobody is retiring.

And if you think that _science_ is bad, try a non-science field. There's lots of machines being built out there in the world. There's not a lot of people these days giving enough shits to pay historians.

I can't think of any other area where it's the _norm_ to need a support group to not quit or kill yourself because a fortress of gold has gaslit you into a deathmarch toward a tiny-fraction-of-a-percent chance of success.

I’m currently writing my dissertation and still debating whether to stay in academia or not. I mean, even if I had not been academically unsuccessful during grad school I will get a piece of paper saying "You have a PhD" in the end. If you fail during your postdoc you are left with basically nothing. That’s a huge burden.

Serious question:

Why don’t they leave?

I’m not saying that they should, or that conditions shouldn’t improve, but if academia is that stressful to you, why stick with it? The only potential outcomes sticking with it are that you will fail later on, or you will fill a role with an increasing amount of stressors.

> or you will fill a role with an increasing amount of stressors

I think when you gain a fellowship or professorship in academia it does suddenly get a lot more relaxed and you get time and space to do what you want - which is the goal these postdocs are working towards.

Sunk Cost Fallacy. (At least, I suspect that's a big part of it.)