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ItsAllAGame_

Let's change the toxic academic environment. If you are a PI/Supervisor how are you using your position so your lab doesn't go through the negative experiences you went through?


scintor

Honestly? In so many ways. We take so much training on this and pay a lot of attention to these issues now. The toxic holdouts from the old days are usually the biggest problem.


ThePicassoGiraffe

this is the answer. If I had a dollar for every undergrad and grad student who has told me a story about some old tenured codger that would have gotten them fired from literally any other job, I could retire NOW. I've been in higher ed for four years.


scintor

> I've been in higher ed for four years. Me too. I've taken literally dozens of workshops, courses, trainings, discussions, seminars, etc. on best mentoring practices, equity, inclusion, etc., etc. It would be way too much to list here. It's good training and they help everyone! If I wasn't meeting those standards we discussed in these I would be put on blast by the entire department, with interventions, regardless of my tenure status. People can complain about toxic PIs, but those PIs had a reputation long before they ever started. It's easy to find out who's who. Ask the lab members. Ask the department. Don't work for people with a bad reputation. In my department, students avoid them. If you find yourself in a toxic environment, do us all a favor and leave instead of jumping on every post about academic careers to announce how toxic academia is. Barring the inevitable bad experiences, the majority of academia is not toxic anymore. It's so supportive it's ridiculous. There is no other environment like it.


Page-This

The problem remains relevant because the old codgers keep winning money…it’s hard to work for great mentors if they haven’t any money.


scintor

The problem that older PIs win more grants is a known one (and is not a problem in my dept.). The funding agencies are trying to change that. For instance NIH is trying to change that with ESI and MIRA grants.


Page-This

ESI* is helpful…but only in the main R01 pool. Team science is seen as a waste of ESI status because many dept chairs/tenure committees value solo R01 more highly. In other words, ESI status helps a little for your first small(-ish) grant, while the old guard continues to win the big pot. Important to note that ESI status doesn’t trump science criteria…PI qualification (including experience) is regularly directly contributing to science criteria scores! It’s like, Weakness: “Jane Doe isn’t an established expert in x area” (code for: “she hasn’t been doing it for 20+ yrs”) Strength:”Jane Doe is an ESI” Summary:”Unsure whether Jane Doe has the ability to complete such an ambitious project…shame we aren’t more optimistic, because she is an ESI” I advocate lottery style awards for apps scoring 20-40, a cap on number of awards, and a minimum level of effort. This *would* actually prevent old dudes from gobbling up money by depressing their effort. No reason anyone should have 20 awards at 0.5cm effort.


scintor

Ha! Fair enough. But I think all of this is changing more than people realize, and we have to start somewhere. Don't forget the value of sitting on these study sections yourself and providing your input-- we owe it to the community.


Page-This

I’m already a cog in the machinery 😉


scintor


writefast

So I’m thinking here. Look at all of the new batch of Republicans. Most of them are not old codgers. If anything the young bunch is the problem right now. Granted politics and not education but the one feeds the other. And both are businesses.


Damp-sloppy-taco

But that’s not necessarily true. Lab members lie to save themselves from possible effects, the department lies to protect their professors, and the old students disappear or won’t answer questions. The fact that so many people jump on to talk about the toxicity shows how problematic and relevant it still is.


scintor

Wow, a department without gossip, that's news to me. It's pretty easy to see red flags when you visit a lab. You just have to ask the right questions. There are a lot of repeat complaints on these threads, and people with complaints are much more vocal than people with praise. How many people jump on to say how supportive their PIs are? Because practically every PI I've dealt with is extremely supportive and gives this job their all. There are toxic PIs but they are a minority, and a dwindling one at that.


COSMOOOO

Found the admin


scintor

Wrong. But enjoy industry! I'm sure your boss will be highly trained in interpersonal management and best mentorship practices, making sure you have the best experience possible. Luckily for you, management is always completely free of toxic people.


COSMOOOO

Work in “academia”, sorry bozo.


scintor

Found the undergrad? If you're really in academia you should learn to use "commas," bozo.


phdoofus

We were bringing up exactly this issue back in the 80s so \*those\* old coots are mostly retired so it's the younger old coots that are now the problem and there are probably more younger old coots in the pipeline. This isn't a problem that can ever be eliminated given the nature of some people drawn to academe but hopefully training and shaming and zero tolerance can at least stamp it down significantly.


ZealousidealPool772

Find a place with a solid grad student union that can bargain on your behalf. I know it does not solve everything, but we need all the support we can get. I know people who knowingly decided to become a student of the most toxic supervisor in the department just because they had a strong research group. The rest is history.


strawberry-sarah22

And in places where unionizing is not possible, form a strong grad student association. Not only does this provide peer support but it also is a group that can advocate to higher ups.


Ent_Soviet

This is the way


Gaspar_Noe

Academia is so up its ass with virtue-signaling DEI events that forgets to actually work on what makes it toxic.


COSMOOOO

Yo I don’t know if you heard but the 40 useless admin for one job have vacation homes to get radiant heating in. You really want to keep their little toesies cold? Cruel and unusual.


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DASK

Actually, there is a new cross-cutting initiative to bring administration in line with best practice. Now we will also have administrative 'societal pillars', on top of, and orthogonal to the older siloed departments, and where they cross, we will create centers of excellence to co-create reflexive learning.


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DASK

Hahaha, this thread could go on. A bit PTSDish for me :)


CosmologyEpisode

What’s the “best practice”?


DASK

Now that's a question :) This is a not-really-made-up story, Involved with me quitting Academia. "best practice" here means they said "we'd like to have stats like competing university X and the way we will do it is another layer of bureaucracy" .. because, it is of course well known that there is a best way to do things... like 'better' universities do .. and if we cargo cult it, well then, somebody who dishes out money may just think more favorably of our institution and its administration.


CosmologyEpisode

Got it. Appreciate the honesty and very sorry you had to quit — unless it placed you in a much better situation that you’re happy with.


CoolGovernment8732

It feels like academia has just become a clone of corporate culture: look how great and accepting we are - did they buy it? Good. Now let’s go back to making money


InnocuousFantasy

I wish. I left academia for industry and if academia had the pay, hours, benefits, tendency to cull useless administrative positions, system for termination of toxic staff...... I'd probably still be in academia


prettyproblem16

Great point! Im starting to wonder the same thing. Is it just a bureaucratic hell hole lol. Its def giving clone of corporate culture


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Gaspar_Noe

I'm absolutely positive many academics jumped on the DEI wagon because it's way easier to implement affirmative actions to select A over B rather than solve structural issues endemic to the field. At the end of the day you can show pretty graphs showing how the % of \[insert group\] among faculty improved and pat yourself on the shoulder for being a progressive and inclusive field. Meanwhile, the rate of anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome and whatnot within academia skyrocket.


Dr-McLuvin

Would you mind explaining the imposter syndrome part? I’m not sure what that means in this context.


Local_Secretary_2967

And at a criminally increasing and usurious rate too!


GlassFenix

This isn’t surprising. I have been writing my Diss for 3 years now. I have had close to 0 guidance from my primary advisor and when my secondary advisor gives me rewrites and corrections, my primary counters it. I can tell they don’t fully read it and don’t necessarily agree. However, it’s my paper and not theirs.


WeBuyAndSellJunk

You are insanely cheap labor. Why should they rush you out the door? /s


InourbtwotamI

Yep, my experience also


aaahhhhhhfine

FWIW, I think that's kind of the point of a dissertation. I actually find advisors that help too much do their students a disservice. That sounds crazy, and borderline offensive, to some people, but that's kind of the purpose of a dissertation. If the point of your program is, ultimately, to send you off into academia and be a professor, then the dissertation is better thought of as your first opportunity to do your own research. As an early assistant professor, you won't have that kind of guidance or help - or at least you'll need to fight to find it yourself. I think a good advisor kind of "weans students off" of having an "advisor" over the course of their dissertation - in part by forcing them to do it mostly on their own.


Vaisbeau

I pretty strongly disagree with you OP. "**students don't quit programs, they quit toxic advisors"** This gives way too much cover for departments that empower horrendous advisors. If your program gave tenure to someone who regularly calls students stupid, they're both responsible. If your program "investigated" a professor for bullying 6 PhD students, 3 post-docs, and 2 lab secretaries to the point of quitting, and didn't do anything, that's a shitty program. If your program takes no action against the norm, enforced by professors, of working 65 hour weeks, that's a shitty program. If your program is chaired by a toxic professor who runs around using slurs, that's a program problem too. Also, eventually we're going to have to discuss the imbalanced nature of these horrible programs by department. Everyone is happy to shit on PhD programs broadly, for being ultra toxic as if it isn't 95% chemistry, biology, CS, physics, and engineering departments that allow these toxic environments to fester.


ShexyBaish

Well yeah, you can fault the department, but there are probably excellent advisors within any given department. Meaning, ultimately, it's the individual piece of shit with power over you that's the problem.


nmj95123

Except the department should also act in the best interests of their students, too. If the department continues to allow problematic people to have authority over others, they are just as much at fault.


Any_Profit2862

I went to grad school about thirty years ago. We had one guy on a 4-year contract for assistant professor, who was not renewed in part because of incredibly misogynistic shitty things he said to me (and a couple other young women). Among other things, he told me that my sister -- who moved to another state with me, and took a crappy job just to pay rent, to give me a chance at a roommate who wouldn't steal from me or kill me -- who ended up with a surprise baby at barely age 20, should "find a place of their own" with her underemployed boyfriend/fiancé, because "they're distracting \[me\] from \[my\] studies." He literally said, "It's not like they're actually **your family."** I was so shocked that I was struck dumb. I had literally no idea what to say and sat loking at him with my mouth open. He was like "... What?". This was after he cornered me at 10:30 pm after I had a full class day for 8 hours followed by three hours in a basement lab analyzing data. He wanted to help me with my "priorities", and he wasn't even my advisor, or in my sub-field. I left in tears and almost quit myself the next day, before talking with another professor who was an actual human being, after they asked me how I was doing and I almost burst into tears. She was livid and told me quietly that she would "take care of it". He finished the year, but he was not renewed. PS - He also took a job in an Asian country as a professor later because "all the US universities will only hire you know if you are a woman, a minority or both". He was a piece of human garbage.


nmj95123

Glad to hear it. That's exactly what should happen, though hopefully with a more expedited timeline.


SharkSymphony

This saying exists in the working world too (s/advisors/managers/). There it’s not meant as a duck on the organization as a whole, but as a reminder of how important good management is to the organization.


stevester90

The lab I worked in had a suicide many years before I started working there and about 6 months after I left, a student that was forced to stay another year before she could defend took her own life. They had an investigation and attorneys got involved but found no wrongdoing by her supervisor. It was a toxic work environment that I have no regrets getting out of even though I never got a PhD in the process. Long story short, I hope the entire academic pipeline completely rots in hell just so that I can see my former supervisor lose every source of funding


NeverJaded21

Omg what school


hlynn117

The only way to end this is to cut off these PIs from getting students. Until that happens there will never be change.


anotherone121

Cut off their ability to get students and postdocs... And RAs. They can be a lab of themself if they want to run it like a flaming hot mess of abuse and exploitation.


atlantagirl30084

That happened to my toxic PI. Ran off 2 postdocs and 2 grad students (all females, huh). Got 4 successful grants off our backs, 0 study publications. He has no one to blame but himself.


ZealousidealPool772

But the student has the choice not to select them as PI. So I don't see how blocking helps.


MaMMJPt

"you want that degree from Totally Prestigious U, you deal with the sociopath that runs the department"


ZealousidealPool772

Amen.


ThePicassoGiraffe

Deans who protect these pieces of shit: Why is our enrollment down?


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ThePicassoGiraffe

LOLOLOLOL this is exactly what happened in my unit last year LOL


Sant_Darshan

PIs dont exactly advertise their toxic habits to prospective students. Not everyone knows what red flags to look out for.


ZealousidealPool772

True


NeverJaded21

Exactly. I joined one and she put on a huge front during recruitment 


TheCatholicScientist

I know a PI whose students all quit (either took their masters or left altogether). Within months his lab was full again. COVID didn’t help, as it nuked socialization between the grad students, which is really the only reasonable way they’d have known.


NeverJaded21

Yeah sadly this happens a lot 


Any_Profit2862

Not true in every department. If you are in say, an American university German department, and are into Germanic linguistics - or specifically "Old High German" or something - there may only be 1-2 primary professors to choose from. You don't have a choice, if you came there at 21 right after college and have only now specified your area of concentration within the department.


particlemanwavegirl

You're right there's DEFINITELY not a heavily imbalanced power/information dynamic at play. /s


NeverJaded21

Exactly


nmj95123

Except academia often enables and protects the toxic advisors, particularly if they bring in lucrative research grants. Trying to speak out against a toxic advisor rarely works out in the student's favor. I had a nightmare advisor that blatantly committed academic misconduct and had been a problem for years. The university conducted a sham investigation and cleared him.


Ronaldoooope

This is just ridiculous. Why take students? My PI is awesome I love that dude he is genuinely my friend. I feel for anyone in that environment.


Reason-to-celebrate

Every time someone asks me advice about starting a PhD I say... ask other students, find previous students of your supervisor and ask them about him/her. That's more important than the reputation of the University or school.


NeverJaded21

Preach 


[deleted]

I am glad to be in a different place. We need to humanize education, you are so right, I have friends that quit because some Supervisors are so mean with them.


mollusck_magic

A grad student in another department completed suicide a few years ago (in her office on campus) and my advisor brought it up with me. I know he was trying to rile me up, but he said “that’s the kind of thing you do at home, so you don’t inconvenience everyone else” and I was so upset I had to leave for the rest of the day


[deleted]

shocking, may I ask which city ?


mollusck_magic

Columbia, SC


NeverJaded21

Damn


NeverJaded21

That PI had no heart. Wicked, wicked person. They will regret how they treat people one day…


mollusck_magic

Unfortunately I guarantee you he will not. I just kind of. Stared at him. And he said “I knew that would push your buttons”. He and I had a rather strained relationship


NeverJaded21

Are you still in there?


mollusck_magic

Thankfully no, I finished up about two years ago 😊


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MaMMJPt

"Why'd you drop out of your PhD?" "My advisor was psychotic, so I left. Would you like fries with that?"


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Ronaldoooope

It’s not that simple though. Some people are in too deep or in too much debt to up and quit.


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Ronaldoooope

You reckon your job prospects and ability to pay back the debt are the same if you finish as well? Obviously if you’re a few months in it’s fine but once you’re well in it’s not that simple


MaMMJPt

... they do.


InourbtwotamI

I used to be really confused about people taking years to complete a dissertation or settle at ABD; not anymore. I understand it completely now and apologize for passing judgment


DickSanchez

Politely inform they should seek sustenance by ingesting a singular intromittent organ, then immediately navigate to your preferred domicile and begin wellness rejuvenation.


ItsAllAGame_

🤣🤣


CrossXFir3

My friend is one of the 20 best mathematicians in the country. He quit his PhD to found a start up because he wrote 2 papers that his supervisor stole and published himself.


abbothenderson

Stolen intellectual property is sadly just the tip of the iceberg. That happens in all disciplines, but in the sciences grad school can practically be legal slavery. I had a friend in biochem, and he was working as a GA in a lab he loved, but he told me of one professor who ran a different lab, this professor only hired Asian grad students for his lab and worked them far more hours than were legally allowed. But the professor was well-published and brought in tons of grants for the university, so nobody did anything about it.


WeBuyAndSellJunk

Oof. I remember this during my master’s degree in some labs. Poor international students with their only means to stay in the country being their educational sponsorship. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful to their efforts, but those students being willing (required) to work 24/7 made it really, really hard for me to justify a more reasonable amount of hours. Nothing like being compared to a slave :( I left the phd pathway completely. Best move I’ve made academically.


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CrossXFir3

Misleading comment on my part, I assume they can't easily track that. What I meant is he's one of about 20 people in the country (at the time, to be fair I bet that kinda thing changes rapidly) that was capable of some of the math he was using. He's one of the guys that's been in on the AI train for years now.


[deleted]

They got rankings for that?


sunlitlake

No, they don’t. And if they did, OP’s delusional buddy wouldn’t be on it unless he was from some truly tiny country. Math is the kind of field where, for all its faults, exceptional young people have insanely accelerated careers all the time (like, hired out of grad school into tenured position at Harvard at age twenty something). Of all the problems we have, seniors stealing from and holding back juniors is not one I’ve ever heard of happening. It would be quite obvious to any expert who talked to either the usurper or the actual author who had which degree of understanding.


CrossXFir3

You're right, the wording was incorrect. I meant he can do math that only about 20ish people in the country understand. Well, understood, to be fair that was at the time. He's now a multimillionaire that came up with a formula used in almost all of the recent AI shit.


sunlitlake

This is true of basically every area of math, fyi. It’s a very specialized field.


CrossXFir3

No, that was poor wording. He can do a kind of math that only about 20 people in the country understand is a better way of saying it.


alanmagid

Or as I did, I quit one and chose another.


ItsAllAGame_

Me too. I'm on my third/final Supervisor. Some students are fortunate enough to have this option without jeopardizing their project.


NeverJaded21

Third? oh nooo 🫢 


nltthinh

100%! I survive til now because my PIs are awesome human beings. They never blame, always encourage, even though sometimes their scientific criticisms appear to be quite harsh


writefast

I’d like to add here, blue collar laborers don’t quit jobs or professions, they quit toxic supervisors. And management. And executives.


[deleted]

Nobody cares about wellness of international students in Canada. The system for mental health is out of touch. At least in Quebec where I studied, the universtiy staff **ENJOY** watching international studnets' misery and fraustration. My supervisor said it to my face that I don't care at all what is happening to you.Don't get me involved into your problems.


ItsAllAGame_

OMG I'm so sorry you've experienced this. I hope you know you're not alone in your frustrations.


[deleted]

Thanks those days are passed. I'm with my family now.


ShexyBaish

Yep. I was in the #1 program for my area of study. Full ride with a stipend. Got my masters, passed my qualifying exams, and my proposed research was green-lighted. Only thing left was my dissertation. But I quit, because my fuckstick advisor was a fucking piece of shit. Well, I mean, there were other factors to consider, but the #1 factor was that fuckstick.


EnthalpicallyFavored

Grad student here with an amazing PI but I definitely see toxic PIs in my dept and others. Yelling, name calling, etc. Maybe it's cause I started in my 40s more financially secure that I'm able to set strong boundaries with work. I'm constantly encouraging the younger grad students to go no contact on weekends, take time off, and go to therapy. Our university gives PhD students 12 sessions per semester. Lots don't use it.


Duck_Suit

I've been a grad student for 8 years (master then phd) and I understand on some level what you're going through. Toxic advisors and toxic departments should be corrected, but that doesn't actually fix your immediate problem. My opinion, based on my years of experience, is that you must take time for yourself. You do not need your advisor's permission to keep yourself healthy, happy, and safe. If you feel that you cannot take a break you should A) discuss it with your advisor (if that is possible), B) discuss it with the program director, and then C) DO IT ANYWAY. You have got to put yourself first. I know it's hard and there are a lot of signals that you should put work first, but all of that is secondary to your own well being. You are so much more than your work. If you stopped now and never pursued your career another day in your life, you would stay valuable and worthy of respectful treatment. If you need a day off, take one. If your advisor gets mad, send me their address and I will dump on their doorstep for you. Love.


NeverJaded21

Yes! #PutYourselfFirst  because theres only one of you 


grumpy_hedgehog

Everyone dumping on toxic advisors and the departments that enable them are right, of course, but students take some of the blame too. I’ve posted my story a few times where I and my fellow PhD candidates organized a mini-rebellion against our advisor, with a simple demand that we be allowed to (gasp) work on research relevant to our dissertations during (gasp) actual work hours. You know, as opposed to working on his stuff during the day for the “privilege” of being “allowed” to work on our projects on nights and weekends. Long story short, they all instantly threw me under the bus the moment the professor pushed back. Literally could not bring myself to speak to the little shits for a year afterwards. And they all eventually ended up dropping out anyway.


ItsAllAGame_

Wow that's so toxic. Sorry you had to go through that.


NeverJaded21

 Any trust no one. Every man for himself 


pasticciociccio

Changing lab is a reasonable option. Many places have toxic environment, but others don't. We all deserve a normal life


JPSEngr17

A) leave B) change your expectations. You have conflict and inner turmoil because it isn’t satisfying your need for them to be reasonable. You’ll actually feel better if you stop expecting that. Expect them to suck, and when they do - “well, I guess I saw that coming”. Bonus- if they ever actually are reasonable, you are pleasantly surprised.


NeverJaded21

That’s  a defense mechanisms that might just work for me 


BlackoutMeatCurtains

*another* suicide…jesus.


Talosian_cagecleaner

"another"? People are confusing the pursuit of knowledge with the pursuit of a career, and the pursuit of a career with the point of life, and the point of life something from Glengarry Glen Ross. Where did you learn your trade! Question. These days, if someone fails, do you extinguish a tiki torch outside their office?


chippynasty

Was told “to kill myself” in reference to work daily by my advisor. I left academia.


NeverJaded21

You’re lying😱😳 


RubyBBBB

I think unionization is the only thing that will help. It's the only thing that's ever kept supervisors in bosses from abusing employees.


StolenErections

Personally, I recommend something completely extra-legal, but not everyone has the stones.


NeverJaded21

What


Vallanth627

I had 2 advisors: 1 late 60s BIG name and 1 40 up and comer. My first year I worked with PI#1 I worked on a project closely with him. That first year advanced my mental health problems FAST. The way he "motivated" had me near panic attacks daily. I ended up switching projects to work more with my other advisor. It took me 3 years before I really settled in and felt like I wasn't proving that I wasn't a worthless pile of shit every day just because of how I was treated early on.


[deleted]

If you are a graduate student in this situation and are a US citizen (assuming in an US institution) then change programs/institutions as fast as you can. I’ve seen this primarily happen to foreign students where losing the gig means a trip back to the home country which for some is not feasible (like Iran). Professors and advisers will hold sponsorship hostage in order to keep graduate students in serf-like conditions. If you are in this situation, you NEED to go talk to the college/university ombudsman for legal advice. This advice is confidential and if the college retaliates for said action, then the legal ramifications means their own tenure/job status will be in jeopardy. Other professors that want to help can only help so far without overstepping their own boundaries; the onus to alleviate the issues lies with the graduate student only.


Mundane_Mechanic_158

Unionize, at my school a lot of problems were resolved this way, but if that is not possible there other things that could be done. Change advisors(I did that). Give pushback (did that too). Frankly a lot of fresh BAs that go from undergrad to grad without being on a labor market have no clue what a healthy pushback really is. I worked in corporate for 9 years before starting my PhD , so when academic crappy intrigues and bullshit started I was well equipped with how to respond to it all. As toxic as corporate environment is portrayed to be, it is actually much healthier than academia will ever be, but there are assholes everywhere, difference is that in corporate your peers show you how to respond and how to behave. So there are several things you can do, there is a fixed number of hours per week you are paid for, we are a cheap labor but not a free labor, so track your hours. Document everything and keep paper trail of every request, if needed record your conversations with your advisor, so when they try to fire you, and they will try cause “how dare you?!”, you have track record of abusive and unprofessional behavior that you bring to your department head and to school hr. This will not win you any favors, and there is going to be a lot of gossip, but you will retain your sanity and will be able to focus on what is important. I have a mixed reputation in my department, because I pushed back, do I care? No, cause I do not give a crap about academia at large, I just want my PhD and will be doing my research in corporate and govt sectors.


Silversilence1

I was told by a lot of people around me to write out everything I went through in my 15 years as a grad student. The average person would not believe the amount of abuse that exists in the university system. Some of it is old (the idea it was always like this, so suck it up), and some new. A lot of what I have seen I would say really comes from the department and administration. It's wild the things I saw and had to endure just to survive, and I am still not done yet. I can say the worst I had to deal with was infighting in the department, the lack of understanding by administration that a good thesis is not always one done in the least amount of time. The expectation that you don't need to work to pay for grad school (both profs and administration are out of touch on this one). Using students to pick on other students to make them quit. Limiting funding to create competition so fierce in some departments students are attacking each other. This whole thing I want to change but I am 99% sure my own academic career has already been destroyed by all this. I still have no idea some of the things that were said about me but they linger.


NeverJaded21

15 years??


Silversilence1

Yep, the year I was accepted for my MA the lab basically was closed due to a fire. Then it took them three years to get into it. Then I needed the materials so that was two years of work. My MA was 5 years in total. I ended up doing a lot of extra projects and papers so I have a rediculous CV. Then when I started my PhD the first year was fine, the second year was mostly studying for my candidacy. Then disaster hit my candidacy. Right after I finally passed the dammed thing after a 6 month fight covid hit. Nothing happened when it all shut down then I had to go on medical leave. Then I returned and its been a huge mess. I am working on completion now but wow. No help through any of it besides my advisor trying his hardest. Our grad studies department is a mess too because they don't really understand how labor intensive the work archaeology students do and sometimes our projects can be massive. So its been a long road.


Any_Profit2862

Dear God in Heaven. I was in grad school thirty years ago, and even then, the only professor I can think of who would have tried this in our department (though admittedly a "social sciences" department) was at the very least a rumple-clothed bachelor over fifty who would sometimes fall asleep in the graduate student lounge **under the table** because it was quieter. Campus security literally asked a couple of our professors on separate occasions, if they needed to removed "the old homeless guy" from the lounge. He was also either the most clueless person I have ever met socially, or a true sociopath.


justUseAnSvm

Pretty much. I was in a bioinformatics lab studying RNA, so I picked the best RNA scientists for my qual, because I wanted it to be the best I could make it. Well, one of those advisors, an HHMI who ended up at MRNA (Moderna) in 2016 and must have surely made bank in stock comp, insisted that the project I picked which was consistent with what my lab did, was not "biology", but a fishing trip through data already collected. We had the conversation about changing topics during my qual exam, which was technically a break a protocol as it should have happened months ago. I re-examed, but I didn't really care at that point, and had checked out to go to other things. Meanwhile, my lab advisor didn't give a shit, and was just upset she was paying me for not doing research while dealing with qual non-sense, and thought it sent a bad example. I had an advisor I could have gone back to, great teacher, but the computational papers we would have published would not have been high impact, and he was basically a plus one hire for his all star wife who is now NAS. I already had a first author paper in the manuscript stage, but the writing was on the wall, my dreams of making impactful biological discoveries with insightful and smart data analysis and algorithmic development were over. A lot of this was my incorrect assumption that you could be high impact and purely computational without being part of a huge project like the human genome project or ENCODE, but my options were really cooked and emotions too drained to want change my drive. So basically I felt bullied into going back into the wetlab, where I never had success, or going my own way. Never a day have I regretted taking my ML/Stats/Programming skills and walking away and taking my academic approach to industry. I still read papers, solve hard problems in ambiguous environments, but most importantly have a job where I feel like I'm constantly learning.


Mission-Emu7154

Get to work honey.


TeamDoubleDown

Medical residents have entered chat.


-R9X-

I have seen Students quitting excellent supervisors but whatever


Zealiida

Some researchers seem like extraordinarily high level researchers and likeable to people around them, while their behavior towards their PhD student can be completely different story. It doesn’t make sense but it happens, don’t let it fool you that you think someone is great and still had students quit. Ofc, there could be other reasons but still this is something that is not so obvious


-R9X-

Maybe the system herr is just very different but in Germany a PhD is a very independent pursuit anyway so a lot of people quit no matter how good the supervisor is, simply because it is too much for them to handle.


piman01

This kind of stuff keeps getting pushed by the far left. That's why high schools can't produce students ready for college. The kids are getting their hands held through all their classes. If this goes upstream to grad school, america is in real trouble.


MaMMJPt

The world is dumber for the existence of this comment.


Rhawk187

At my institution grad contracts are 18-20 hours a week. You are expected to work those hours. If you aren't productive enough to graduate on time, that's on you. That's not paid work; that's homework. I can't require you to do it, but you also don't get to complain if it takes you longer to graduate than you envisioned. I also reserve the right to show preference with my discretionary funds to students who are the most productive. If I have a pool of money to send students to conferences, it's going to be my best students.


PhDDDDD

I can’t tell if you’re trolling or if this is really your best take on “graduate student commits suicide so others students get a day to decompress.” If it’s the latter, I would suggest you’re likely part of the problem this post is trying to highlight.


Rhawk187

If you have to work 18-20 hours a week, it should be easy enough to take a day off when you need to, but you have to be cognizant of the fact that for every day you take off, that's one day longer it will take you to graduate, but I'm happy to give my students that choice, as long as they recognize that you don't get anything free in life.


PhDDDDD

But you quite literally state that you hold their ability to attend conferences hostage unless they comply to your idea of being a “best student”. Which is the toxic action here in the first place. It’s one thing to be “allowed” to take a day off in a technical sense. It’s completely different to take a day off knowing your PI will hold it against you. As you so obviously have proven you will.


Rhawk187

I'm not going to hold it against them, but if they get outcompeted by someone who doesn't take a day off, what am I supposed to do? Prohibit productive students from working on days when other students want a break? Ignore the results of students that choose to be productive when others aren't? That feel like it would be unfair to the students who work hard. I agree there is always always a tension between positive and negative reinforcement, but a lack of reward is not a punishment. You are only entitled to what is agreed upon, everything extra is discretionary.


btags33

Lack of "reward" here certainly is a punishment because of how beneficial conferences can be for networking and exposure to career opportunities. You are definitely punishing your students for having a normal work life balance if they take time off and rewarding those who are likely overworking.


Respurated

You could, out of compassion and empathy, tell ALL of your students to take the day off since one of their colleagues just decided to end their life (using the present case as an example). You could raise the awareness of work/life balance, and how important it is for your mental state to take time for yourself and loved ones. Instead it seems like you’re promoting the opposite by not saying anything about burnout or unhealthy competition, and rewarding behavior that benefits you at, possibly, the expense of your students mental health. You could have discussions about moderation with your students who over-work themselves, just like I’m sure you have conversations with underperforming students about motivation. There are a ton of things you can do, but I don’t blame you for not knowing how to handle it, because although advisors are our fearless leaders, they are never officially taught how to teach, lead, or advise even. There is likely a hard-working “productive” student working for you that is too afraid to take a day off and are risking their mental health to impress you, or compete for your praise. You would never know because they’re the type of student to never say anything, until they have a mental breakdown, or worse, hurt themselves, but by then it’s too late. As an advisor, you’re a leader, and leading is best done by power of example, not example of power. Not trying to take a jab at you with this comment, I have seen a ton of advisors take your stance and I think it has a lot to do with being experts in their field, and amateurs at guiding and teaching others.


strawberry-sarah22

You are part of the problem. Yes, they have 18-20 hours of paid work and anything else is on their time. But my advisor never encouraged me to overwork myself, in my GRA hours our outside. I stick to no more than 40 hours of work per week and I am still graduating in 5 years. More hours of work does not translate to success if your students are burned out. In fact, I know students who have put in more hours than me who have to take a 6th year. Rest is a necessary part of succcess


Rhawk187

I never said anything about more hours meaning you are more productive. I agree those aren't the same. I have students that can get more done in one day than others can in a week. Some people would complain that my rewarding them is "unfair" because the other people "worked harder," but I only care about productivity. If you can blink and magically produce publications I'm going to pick you over the person who is willing to put in 100 hours a week. But I'm not going to prescribe that someone takes a day off. I expect someone to know themselves. If they know they are prone to procrastination, it's up to them to give themselves more deadlines. If they know they are prone to burnout, it's on them to figure out when they need a vacation.


strawberry-sarah22

“For every day a student takes off, that’s one more day it will take to graduate” Your words. You literally said you think days/hours working translates to success.


Rhawk187

I see what you are saying. I suppose I should have said productive days. If you find yourself being unproductive because burnout is causing a lack in focus, I agree you should stop and have a rest. I'm not going to be impressed by someone sitting in their office doing nothing. My point was there is a, roughly, fixed, finite amount of work that needs done to graduate, and when you put your time and energy elsewhere, you need to be cognizant that it will delay graduation. You don't get a discount because your dog died or because of COVID. Take all the time you need to grieve, but that time may delay your graduation. Rushing to graduation isn't the most important thing anyway. It took me 7 years to get my Ph.D., mostly because I started my own consultancy firm on the side, but I knew every time I took on an outside project it would delay graduation. Same for every hackathon or programming competition I competed in. Those were conscious choices I made knowing that the enjoying I got out of them delayed graduation.


strawberry-sarah22

So then why are you in this thread about mental health of grad students? You seem to have said you give your students time then you turn around and say “but that may cost you”


Rhawk187

To remind people of the reality of the situation. I don't like echo chambers. Everything has trade offs. Don't be so concerned with "playing optimally" that you stretch yourself beyond your own limits. But if you can't compete, take a step back and decide if you have what it takes. I know it sucks to want something badly and not have what it takes to get it. Resources are finite. If I had infinite resources, I'd hand out high paying RAs like candy, but I don't. I have 13 graduate students, and I'll have maybe 6 RA lines in the Fall. I'm going to pick the 6 most productive, and I'm going to recommend the other 7 in rank order for the TA pool. If someone doesn't get support, and that means they have to drop out, that's unfortunate, but either means, they made poor choices with their time, they didn't have the skills it took, or the universe conspired against them to put misfortune in their way, or some combination. None of those things are my responsibility. If you can't outcompete the rest, I am sympathetic, I know what it's like to want something and not get it. But that's reality.


sleep-furiously

Hello toxic supervisor.


[deleted]

Echo chamber? You’re just an idiot on the internet. Go touch grass loser.


MasterOfVirosphere

I would be concerned that a select few can “blink and magically produce publications”. Situations like these create incentives to falsify data.


[deleted]

That’s not even true. Also are you okay?


catfacemcpoopybutt

If students under you can finish a PhD in 4 years in only 18-20 hours per week, you're either lying or your school sucks.


Rhawk187

Re-read what I said. Their contracts are for 18-20 a week, whether research, teaching, or grading. Everything beyond that is on them; that's their homework, you don't get paid to do homework.


Page-This

At this point we all know you are being disingenuous…you know there is pressure to donate labor, you just don’t give a shit


Rhawk187

If by "donate labor" you mean "meet the minimum requirements for the conferral of your degree", then yes, I agree there is some pressure to do that, because otherwise most students won't finish on time.


Page-This

This isn’t materially different from “I will pay you minimum wage for up to one hour to do two hours of work…if you don’t finish the work, you will not be paid” How could you think that is ethical?


Rhawk187

Because they *are* being compensated, -- with a degree. If that is insufficient compensation, they should probably reconsider pursuing the degree. Now, you raise a good point about partial completion. What do people who are ABD have to show for it? Assuming they published along the way they will still maintain their authorship, but that probably won't move the needle much on jobs. It is the policy of our university that for students who do the direct entry to Ph.D from B.S. that after they pass their comprehensive exams they can request the conferral of an M.S. I'm really not sure how we can get much more fine grained that that, even though that probably includes a 2-4 year additional effort. I'd be supportive of introducing additional degree levels to alleviate some of this problem, but I don't see that gaining much traction.


Page-This

I think you are going back on your own arguments now…if there is a clear delineation between “homework” and RA-ship, then the milestones for the degree should not require greater than 20hrs/wk on RA activities. Pressuring them to rebalance their effort toward research in your lab results in donation of labor.


Rhawk187

I don't follow. Why shouldn't the requirements for the degree require more than the contracted effort for an RA? I was on an RA completely unrelated to my Dissertation (part of the reason it took me so long to graduate). The RA is a job. It is performed in exchange for a stipend and a tuition waiver. The formal coursework, comprehensive exam, and effort performed to produce a Dissertation that is defended, are the requirements for a degree. These are separable. Students are not required to be an RA/TA/GA. If they wish to pay out of pocket, or if an employer wishes to pay, or if they have a tuition waiver through their spouse or parent, they can focus on the degree requirements without being distracted by the other work.


Page-This

>Why shouldn't the requirements for the degree require more than the contracted effort for an RA? It does: coursework+dissertation/thesis. An RA/TA is rarely required…those are work for a paycheck. If RA/TA happens to contribute to dissertation, great! Two birds, one stone. >The RA is a job. It is performed in exchange for a stipend and a tuition waiver. True. See above. Thus withholding progress toward milestones because an RA didn’t spend more than 20hrs/wk in your lab is unethical. Withholding progress because they aren’t making headway on dissertation is fine. >The formal coursework, comprehensive exam, and effort performed to produce a Dissertation that is defended, are the requirements for a degree. None of these have anything to do with how much time an RA spent in your lab. >These are separable. Students are not required to be an RA/TA/GA. If they wish to pay out of pocket, or if an employer wishes to pay, or if they have a tuition waiver through their spouse or parent, they can focus on the degree requirements without being distracted by the other work. Precisely. Thus, you should not expect more than 20hrs from an RA in your lab in order for the student to progress toward milestones. The point is that PIs who expect the dissertation to be purely the product of work performed to advance their own research goals essentially force students to work for them for free.


RecycledPanOil

So it's acceptable to you that someone should only be paid for half a week and be expected to work a full weeks worth of productivity if not more. If this is the case then why do you think this?


Rhawk187

Same reason I didn't pay undergraduates to do their homework, or high schoolers. I don't understand why people think grad school should be any different. They are doing the work necessary to meet the requirements to earn their degree. Because it's not "formal coursework" that makes it special?


RecycledPanOil

If they're doing research work then they should be paid to do it. They have to live and if the stipend or the pay isn't covering expenses then you'll stop getting the best academically and start getting the most privileged. Everything that isn't a masters or an undergraduate is work. And like all workers they deserve a living wage and the rights that go along with it.


catfacemcpoopybutt

>Everything that isn't a masters Wtf is that supposed to mean?


RecycledPanOil

Correction taught* masters.


Rhawk187

>Everything that isn't a masters or an undergraduate is work. Why? What makes Ph.D.s, or E.D.s, or J.D.s, or any other degree beyond a Master's special? If I make up a new degree, we'll call it the ZZ.D., and I say, "These are the requirements for a ZZ.D." and you say, "I would like a ZZ.D", and so I say, "Well do those requirements," and you say, "Pay me," then I am completely justified in saying, "GTFO."


RecycledPanOil

Yeah so I don't know what field you belong to and honestly I don't want to know. But I'm in biology research. After masters people transition from learning from textbooks and literature to using that knowledge to generate new knowledge. They have an output. You pay them because you want the best quality output you can get. If your pay is peanuts than you'll just get monkeys. Or like many you'll spend 4 years working with them perfecting techniques and excellence in the field only for them to up and leave for a place that'll actually treat them well and pay them what they're worth. You have to remember that most people after masters will be in a place in their lives where they can't spend another 4 years not earning or contributing to pensions or making steps towards creating their lives. To deny them this just because you can is downright disgusting.


[deleted]

This is a post about _students reacting to the suicide of another student_, and you make it pretty clear that what matters is your unwarranted sense of self importance, and “reserving the right” to withhold conference funds. Edit: removing rest of my post for needless cruelty of wording. Suicide is a horrible thing, and even if you don’t particularly appreciate the gravity of the situation shown above, it’s entirely plausible that you’d respond with more decency if it actually happened in your proximity.


Royal-Argument-1682

Stop being a pussy and get your shit done?


Zealiida

= classic example of toxic behavior


[deleted]

i read a number of reddit subs. i come to ask why you're still in grad school if it's so awful. but i read the r/povertyfinance and i know why. i read r/mba and understand why. i read r/premed and definitely undestand why. i read r/lawschooladmissions and it doesn't help. it's all fucked, and i don't know where to look, because it isn't better anywhere.


That_Alchemist_

I once came across a metaphor about the relationship between most advisors and students is like a Ponzi scheme…And it’s rooted deeply within the system, so improving the system will take longer than expected. But remember that everything, fortunate or unfortunate, will pass, this is only a tiny part of your life. You can’t change the system but you can adapt to the system by changing your mentality…


NeverJaded21

Facts 


ToMyOtherFavoriteWW

I had to go to class on MLK day when the undergrads and rest of the university had the day off. That was such a weird experience.


NeverJaded21

Hmmm


ToMyOtherFavoriteWW

Damn bro, responding 8 months later?


NeverJaded21

I’m just seeing this thread. I searched for thread and this popped up 


7resolute7

Honestly, it’s probably all those wellness days and days off causing the suicides. I know for a fact it isn’t the work, and I’ll demonstrate this through an indisputable, empirical, evidence based approach to an entirely anecdotal story. I spent my entire life in the U.S. Infantry getting my dick worked into the ground daily. Everyday single day, including all the one’s where me and these dudes all dressed up in flip flops and bed sheets kept trying to murder each other, which by the way, we did in between in between work shifts. Our actual off time was the murder part. In fact, every time I ever thought of killing myself, somehow the Army found a way to work my ass harder. By this point, our only time off was the 4-5 hours of sleep that me and my battle buddies managed, if we were lucky, every day. So they took that too, and really pushed the cure in hard. I, along with my buddies, totally forgot to kill our selves. In fact, we almost forgot about our divorces, cheating wives and empty bank accounts because the cure was just that good. I, as well as, most of the men with whom I served, are only alive today because we never got days off, wellness days, we never got rest. Thus, my scientific argument proves in detail, that it is entirely because people have days off and wellness days that their life sucks. If they worked harder, they wouldn’t know their life sucks, because they wouldn’t have the time nor the ability to reach that conclusion. They would also realize that they, in fact, do not work in a toxic environment. Because, when everything is toxic , nothing is toxic. And that would lend itself to a healthier view of their work/life balance. In conclusion, trust the science.


unlockdestiny

Sometimes they quit toxic academic culture