At some point in graduate school, it is not the work that is the hardest part but to actively fight demoralization.

The hardest part is to keep going even though extremely demoralizing forces are at work.

Every graduate student has to fight demoralization.

You are in a long, dark tunnel. But that is not the problem. You knew that would happen.

The problem is you have no clue how long the tunnel is.

No one is sure about that.

Everyone says you should “just finish.”

But you do not know exactly how long that is supposed to take. Does it just happen at some point?

Do you keep on going and going and it happens one day?

For me, I didn’t know I was out of the tunnel until after my defense.

Actually, sometimes, I still feel I am in the tunnel.

Is graduate school really over? Are we sure about that?

I have heard that in Europe, students have to finish in three years.

But there is no such thing in the US. As far as I know.

You graduate when your advisor agrees to graduate you.

Till then, you are in the tunnel.

It isn’t like a tunnel just in that you can’t see the end of it.

You also have tunnel vision. You have to.

You forget about the rest of the world and how there is a life beyond academia.

Succeeding in academia is the only thing you can see and the only goal you have.

So when, inevitably, academia does not work out, you have to fight demoralization.

I don’t just mean that there isn’t a career for most people in academia. I mean the day-to-day of academia.

A Ph.D. involves research and original work. It means you are working on problems that are yet unsolved.

Since PhDs have been getting granted for years and years now, it means that any unsolved problem is probably really hard to solve.

Doing a Ph.D. is a recipe for failing, and failing regularly.

So when your happiness depends on the one and only goal of doing well in your research due to your tunnel vision, you wind up pretty unhappy and demoralized.

So it is far from surprising that, reportedly, about 50% of graduate students have mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.

But demoralization is not just about our tunnel vision as junior researchers, is it?

It is also about the tunnel vision of the people who are in leadership roles. It is about bad leaders.

Academia is wrought with leaders who are rewarded for having a tunnel vision.

Their tunnel vision does not allow room for training to become better leaders, and honestly, better people.

Destructive criticism and feedback are, therefore, the norm.

Destructive criticism can be in different forms too.

It’s not just the old guys rudely interrupting and complaining about your talk even before you have finished slide #2.

It takes other, more subtle forms too.

Such as minimizing the effort it takes a junior researcher to “just do it.”

As far as the execution part of the research is concerned, professors are clueless about how difficult it is or how long it should take.

(Of course, there are exceptions.)

So, as a graduate student, what can you do to fight demoralization?

• Remember your advisor did not go to advisor school. They went to grad school where they, too, suffered.
• Make a plan of action that is rewarding no matter what. And, stick to it.

Most academics have zero training in how to manage people. Yet, they are managers.

Yeah, some conferences might have bits on how to be better. Which they probably avoid or attend fully planning to be on their computers the whole time.

So a large number of them wind up being a bunch of bad leaders forgetting the one most important thing about leading: keeping up the morale of the team!

Graduate students, I daresay it’s not you. It’s your advisor. They don’t know what they are doing as far as being a good leader is concerned.

Awareness of the problem can help you to deal with it. Which brings me to the last point.

Make a plan and follow it.

Each day, at the end of the day, write down what you’d like to (need to) accomplish the next day. It should be only two or three things.

You might end up doing more things but keep this list short.

This is your list to get STARTED with your day.

So that you don’t sit there feeling terrible and also unable to shake it off as you don’t know how to get started with the day’s work.

An item in your list could be something like:

Implement the next step in troubleshooting to figure out what the hell is the bug that your code is currently suffering from.

Then, come in the next morning and do the things on your (short) list no matter what.

I used to have a daily morning meeting in graduate school where I basically heard that I couldn’t graduate. Not yet. And what felt like, maybe not ever.

It was really hard to do work right after that. I was so demoralized. I wished my day wouldn’t start like that but I had no choice.

My mind would be clouded by negative things and when working on hard problems, you kind of need to be all there. You need to shake off negativity and get the work DONE.

It helped to acknowledge that I found the meeting demoralizing and then come up with a plan to fight that feeling.

I would have a few things planned out to start doing right after the meeting.

Things that would add up and ultimately lead to graduating no matter how much it felt like that was an impossibility. It’s all about chipping away at it.

So, don’t let any demoralizing forces stop you from chipping away at your goal.

If you detect demoralization, take steps to fight it first, and then continue working.

To fight demoralization can be as simple as taking a nap, going for a rejuvenating walk, talking to your family and friends, eating good food. The important thing is to have a plan so you can beat it.

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