Losing classmates

Grad school is not easy. I think most of us go through periods of depression, lack of self esteem and think of quitting on a regular basis. For those that say otherwise I question their honesty. It's hard work being a graduate student. Long hours, low pay, lacking social life, and very little appreciation seemed to be the norm. And honestly, that's if your thesis research is going well. If it's not, well, you don't usually get the support and help that you need, which is unfortunate. These circumstances have led to at least 2 honest to goodness cases of clinical depression this year, which just makes me sad.

This past year has not been a good year for my class. As far as I can tell, we've lost at least 3 classmates with more contemplating leaving. All of which are intelligent, bright and fully capable of doing graduate research. So what went wrong? Well, in all three cases they were in their fourth year of a six year program and felt that their projects weren't going anywhere. Instead of getting new projects with a higher probability of success, at least one found themselves being blamed by their mentor instead of helped. Another felt that it just wasn't worth starting over. It's really upsetting. All of us have worked so hard to get here. We've already proven that we are smart and capable scientists. The rest shouldn't have to be proven by what is often the luck of getting a successful project.

It saddens me that our successes in science are so tightly linked to our self esteem. But they are, including my own. My darkest times in grad school were those times when nothing seemed to work and nobody seemed to care (and everyone else I talked to seemed to be writing their results up for publication). Because I know what it feels like to be in such a low place, I try hard to be there for those who find themselves facing giving up or starting over. It's hard to know what to advise. They are so obviously worn down by defeat with every experiment. I wonder if they just got one really good result would it all be ok? Would they stick it out? Would they be happy again? Neither of us know the answer. Stay or quit? The right answer remains elusive. I wish my faith in them was enough to make them stay, but it's not, they need to have faith in themselves and the determination to see it through. I guess that's easy to say when you're not the one that's been beaten to the ground with failure.

But still, I hope you'll let me help you up to try again. I do have faith in you. I know you can make it, we're almost there.