Unlocking happiness??

Last week I posted about the apparent decrease in my fellow grad students’ happiness. There were so many good comments, I thought it was only fitting to continue the discussion. (In the style of scientiae carnival, for your reading ease….and to point you to some great blogs!)

I was (and am) not sure of the reason(s) for this increased misery. Crazy Daisy echoed my thoughts.

Mad Hatter wasn’t quite sure, either, but she hypothesized that students that can see grad school for what it is—a means to an end (and a defined one, at that)—are happier. This should be put in the prospectives’ packets: “It’s one thing to slog through a 5-6 year PhD knowing it’s the path to what you’ve always wanted to do and quite another to spend it wondering why the hell you’re torturing yourself.”

DancingFish agreed (although thinks good beer would help, too), and added that some go to grad school to avoid the “real world” (oh….oops!).

And speaking of the real world, Anonymous1 actually tried a “real job” prior to grad school “but it was so empty and meaningless and after year 1 I stopped learning anything new and my brain completely atrophied.” By comparison, grad school is heaven!

Jody thinks that many grad students are at a point where they are questioning if they are “doing the right thing.” (I know I’ve occasionally wondered that very thing…)


Some of you can cite specific grad school events that suck the life out of you.


For example, Jennie was doing just fine until she got to the revision stage of writing…ugh!


EcoGeoFemme is happiest when funding is good because “feeling you have to compete with other students for lab resources doesn’t create a happy environment.”

Ms. PhD had problems with the mismatched expectations of grad school. She always puts it best: “We expected to be treated like responsible adults, and we expected our advisors to be responsible adults. We weren’t and they weren’t.”

Anonymous1 had a bad few months with a postdoc (who came to the lab from hell, incidentally).


Others think that the misery is a self-propagating problem.


DancingFish thinks that part of the problem is the atmosphere of grad school itself, that there are some who think that grad students cannot both be happy AND be productive. “So students make themselves miserable because that is what is expected of them, regardless of their actual productivity.”

Rebecca gives some support towards this theory by reporting on the relative happiness in her program, which she attributes to free booze Fridays and the fact that most of their labs “are also not 24/7…we have many options to lead non-science lives if we so choose.”

Anonymous2 thinks that a good attitude and good people (namely, ones that are “at least cautiously or cynically optimistic people…who know enough about what you’re doing to understand but are far enough to let you rant when necessary”) go a long way. (soooooo true!!!)

Ms. PhD agrees that good friends are key to being (even somewhat) happy in grad school, and that they were “the only thing that got me through grad school with any sanity intact….” (although I feel like mine is rapidly slipping away….)

…and ScienceGirl is very grateful for her “wonderful” husband. (if only the rest of us could be so lucky!!)

EcoGeoFemme wondered if the so-called happiest country in the world, Denmark, a place where there is “trust in the government, lack of social hieararchy, lots of social time, and setting of low expectations” could also be applied to the science laboratory. (Hmm….wouldn’t THAT be nice??)

Meanwhile, That Guy observed that foreign students complain about grad school less than Americans, likely because of the fear of deportation, should they lose their assistantship.

SwissGuy weighed in on the European side of things and commented on the increasing expectations of academics. In his field, “you’re supposed to be in another country every three or four years, publish x papers every year, teach and do all sorts of bureaucratic stuff as well.” This is in stark contrast to 10 or 20 years ago, when people stayed at one school and didn’t have pressure to publish. SwissGuy says that this change has resulted in “nobody hav[ing] a normal life with functioning relationships.” (yikes! Then again, I’ve JUST learned how to have a functioning relationship….)

….but silk stocking is having a rough go of the data….so stop by Have Coffee, Will Travel and leave an encouraging note, okay?

Crazy Coworker strikes again!

One of my many (many-many-many!) pet peeves is passive aggressive behavior, particularly in the workplace. Surprise, surprise: Crazy Coworker is one of the most passive aggressive people I've had the pleasure of knowing.

Recent demonstration of this lovely passive aggressive-ism? New signs in the lab.

Now don't get me wrong; I've been known to type up little signs for the lab, such as "please make sure I'm closed" labels for our persnickety -80 freezer. But Crazy Coworker takes it to another level.

First came the snide comments to me (and only me) about how messy the lab is. When I pointed out that there were only a few people in the lab each day, thus making it very easy to pinpoint who was maliciously destroying (not my own words) the analytical balance, I was dismissed.

Next came the handwritten signs on the door: "Did you clean up your bench?"

But the latest addition this week? Post-it notes on the handwritten ones indicating time and location of messes: "The balance is not clean! 2/21/08."


Good grief. Is it too much to ask, in our email-rich, overly communicative research group, for Crazy Coworker to suck it up and communicate beyond a freakin' post-it?

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." B. Russell

Many of you have made excellent comments on my happiness in grad school? post. I'm going to write up a summary / response post later this week, but I thought I'd do a brief update on my job search process (since several of you asked). So feel free to add your two cents to the discussion before Friday!

This time tomorrow, my contract papers will hopefully be flying back to my new employer. I'll be accepting a faculty position at a SLAC (small liberal arts college) in a far away state. (I'll post more on that job and why I took it later.) I've had several other offers, a handful of rejections, and am still getting requests for interviews (just turned down one today, actually). After I've John Hancocked my contract, I'll of course contact the remaining schools and withdraw my application.

More on what I'll do about The Boy (from now on referred to as non-asshole, or N.A.) later.

"A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell..." G.B. Shaw

In the past month, I've gone through several major changes in my life. I've gone on several job interviews, started dating a boy (a non-asshole! So out of character for me!), received a few job offers, and decided on my job for next year.

For the first time in...um...perhaps ALL of graduate school, I am completely, wholeheartedly happy. Don't get me wrong; it's not like I've gone through grad school completely miserable. I have my ups and downs each month/week/day. But although these last four weeks of job searching was definitely the most stressful time of my life (and "my life" includes my parents' divorce, grandparents' illnesses, siblings in crisis, friends with mental illness, prelims, etc.), I've been uncharacteristically calm (of course, calm for me is still quite a bit more hyper and neurotic than the average American).

Maybe my relative content-ness is the reason that I've been (of late) more aware of my fellow grad students' misery. While I wouldn't describe ALL grad students in my field at LargeU as miserable, depressed human beings, it does seem that in recent years, grad students in my program have generally become less and less happy.

Is this because grad students are more comfortable voicing their unhappiness? Are students less apt to remain in a bad situation and make the big decision to leave grad school? I know grad school isn't for everyone, but more and more students have been "mastering out" at year 2.5 rather than stick it out for the 5-6 year Ph.D.


Have you noticed an increase in students' happiness in your program? If not, what is your secret for keeping happy in graduate school (or in the "real world")?

Open minded?

My department has had its share of problems. Recently, another grad student pointed out that, despite our department's supposed reputation for being open-minded, no current faculty are "out."

A handful of tenure-track professors are rumored to be gay, which doesn't seem to bother graduate students (as I don't think it should). However, my friend pointed out to me that if other faculty knew assistant professors' sexual orientation, then tenure would be a complete bust.

For a department that's supposedly very progressive-thinking and one of the best in the world, I find this extremely out of place. This doesn't seem to be a concern in the humanities divisions here at LargeU.


So is this just an issue with the LargeU science departments, or is this common at other schools, too?

Blogroll?

Anyone out there use blogrolling? It seems to be down, so I've lost my list of blogs.

Any suggestions on a more reliable way to keep track of updated blogs? What do you use? (I do like to display them on my blog in order to encourage others to check out blogs I find interesting.)

An open letter to search committees everywhere

Dear Search Committee,

Please please please do not schedule breakfasts before 8 am. 7:00 am breakfasts mean that the candidate is getting up at least by 6:00 am (probably more like 5:30 am), and this is after a day of travel and/or meetings with all of you, the Dean, HR representatives, departmental secretaries, librarians, the school mascot, etc, etc.

(And the school that scheduled the 5:45 breakfast: shame on you!)

8:00 am breakfasts are more humane. A breakfast starting at 9 am is pure heaven.


Signed,

Exhausted Faculty Candidate

Plane karma

What goes around at Sucky Airport International (SAI) comes around.

Last week, I was, through what some thought was divine intervention, 15 minutes early into my interview airport. I was not fooled. This was not God's work. More like a Faustian agreement, for the Airport Commandments thus state:

If thee have a good travel experience out of SAI, then your return trip will be full of troubles.


I mistakenly thought that my return trip last week was the payback. I should have known that a mere 20 minute delay on the tarmac followed by a 40 minute crop duster delay was not sufficient retribution for an early SAI flight.

So today, after a very pleasant interview at Far Away state, I drove myself to the airport (~2 hours), only to find that my flight to SAI had been cancelled (still, this is not quite payback). I did get rebooked on flights that will put me in the general vicinity of LargeUtown (if "general vicinity" to you means a three hour drive). Then I got earmarked for "special screening." The pat-downs were so extensive (seriously, my boobs got felt up at least five times), I half expected the TSA officer to request me to sit back and put my feet up in the stirrups.

Still, this was not enough payback for the 15 minute early flight.

My first leg of the trip went pleasantly enough. Until I arrived at the gate and saw that my flight was delayed. By two hours. Leaving after midnight. Potentially stuck here in a Really Far Away state.

Now I think that I am even with the SAI flight gods.

Please?

delinquent!

Yeah, that's me. The delinquent blogger. Luckily for you (and not so luckily for me), in a few hours I will be in Sucky Airport International (SAI). SAI is world famous for delays, so I'm sure I'll have lots of blogging time. I'm going to far away state today through late Tuesday night, and then Thursday morning I'm driving to neighbor state for an interview that goes until Friday afternoon.

There is still much to report. I also need to catch up on all of your posts. I have no scheduled interview next week (yet), so I'm hoping to catch up on life (eh...well at least blogging) between now and then.