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Comment by idunning | Hacker News Reader

Countering your counter-point: this seems like the most pessimistic comment about doing a PhD I've ever seen. There are many types of department, many fields, that don't operate like the type of setup you are describing. I'd be damn surprised if anyone in my department is waking up with "screaming nightmares" or is "on their way to the psychiatric hospital" - though maybe I'm just ignorant about my peers, or got a lucky roll of the dice.

I'm not saying this doesn't happen, or trying to diminish your personal experience, but you've presented your dark scenario as being as inevitable as the happy scenario you are railing against.

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I'm in a finance PhD program at a top US school. What he says is quite close to the true, from my experience with friends in finance and partly economics (the marketing and accounting people seem to be having healthier lives in my school).

I have several friends who are depressed or have a diverse array of issues, none of which existed before grad school. Yes, I completely agree that "your mileage may vary", but I've seen it happen many times. Asshole advisers that have you at their mercy. Gruesome grading hours for no pay. Etc.

For instance, I just got an email a few hours ago about my weekend. They told me I have to work for 19 hours between Saturday and Sunday afternoon grading MBA exams ("work" is of course generous because the word usually implies me getting money out of it). What can I do? Nothing really...

[Details: I need to proctor MBAs exam on Saturday until noon, and then I have to help grading 400 exams which NEED TO BE GRADED on Sunday afternoon (because the profs go on vacation early on Monday and also MBAs want their grade fast). The prof. told me that at 2.5 minutes per exam (for my part), it will take me 16 hours, besides typing the grades and the 3-hour proctoring. That's 19 hours of work in a 24 hour lapse. And they don't blink an eye, because I just have to take it (it's unpaid because it's "part of scholarship")

Sure, I can complain, but if I do I'm dead and will be called a troublemaker (seen it happen a few times). Moreso, my grading load is on the low side compared to some friends who spend an insane amount of time grading, teaching, and preparing slides for their advisors.]

Was that stipulated in the scholarship?!

Yes, it says we have to work 6-8 hours a week for them doing RA and TA work, but to not worry as "in practice the workload is much lower". My problem is not with teaching/grading/doing silly RA work [1], but that they expect me to spend my entire Saturday and most of Sunday doing it just because the faculty are flying away early on Monday.

I don't know how to put it, but it's not just a matter of working, it's about feeling respected. And I think that component is not there.

[1] My last RA work involved going to the website of the top 100 US and international business school, and collecting the number of assistant professors and the details of all the female and African American asst professors. It seems MBA rankings are starting to include that in their rankings so the faculty wants to recruit in those demographics. (And when I reported back that there was not a single African American assistant prof in finance in the top 100, I was told to go back and include the next 50 in the list).

You've put your finger on something important: "it's not just a matter of working, it's about feeling respected. And I think that component is not there." By paper measures I'm doing decently in academia, but in practice the working conditions, pay, and level of respect from others in academia who don't know my work are not good. (I've made some choices in employment based on geography rather than prestige and will not be allowed to forget that in the near future.)

That much grading in that short of a time is bullshit. Sorry that you've had that dumped on you. But you're right, it's not going to pay off to complain about it.

"67 percent of graduate students said they had felt hopeless at least once in the last year; 54 percent felt so depressed they had a hard time functioning" (quoted in http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2009/02/23/grad-schoo...; I don't have access to the original publication.)

If someone in your department was waking up with screaming nightmares, would you know about it? Most people don't want to talk about these issues.

I know it sounds unrealistically pessimistic but it's very similar to my experience. Colleagues developing a host of awful conditions due to a terribly stressful environment. Doing a Ph.D. was my biggest regret.

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