It's not that PhD students aren't okay with failure, but that constraining a PhD to ~5-7 years and expecting students to produce a groundbreaking contribution to their field puts undue stress on trainees.
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The expectation of many programs is that students will publish (often in high-impact journals)—and when there isn't a publication outlet for failure, that creates a real problem for trainees on a deadline.
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"Career paths of prestige" are also often expected of a trainee. I know a number of people who were made to feel that their non-academic career choices made them failures We have a culture that de-values non-academic careers and cultivates needless shame in trainees
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Why don't we also talk about some very real causes of hardship during a Phd:
systemic racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc. that systematically push people out
lack of funding to carry out research
lack of access to (or stigma around) mental health resourcesPrikaži ovu nit -
Please please please don't claim that something is "the biggest cause" of anything unless you actually can show that it is. Not when we have so much data to back up the very real and persisting problems facing trainees (and others) in academia.
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The "solutions" posed in this piece lack an awareness of some of these barriers. Ex: "Another way to help students before they embark on the lengthy road to a PhD would be to require them to gain some mock PhD experience." This assumes resources to provide this experience.
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The author also notes that qualifying exams should be used as an opportunity for student's to decide whether they want a PhD. Well, that's exactly what quals are for. But cultural pressures keep students from exiting programs and feeling a sense of shame.
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I'm so deeply tired of takes that blame folks with relatively little power for their own predicaments. I do believe that we need to get more comfortable with talking about failure—but that's a cultural change that needs to happen across ALL OF ACADEMIA.
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To be clear, I agree with the general idea the author lays out. I would love it if the way we taught science spoke more frankly about how much failure is involved. But trainees aren't the problem—and it's a shame to frame it that way.
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You bring up a lot of valid points. This thread describes the reality for a lot of PhD students. Respectfully, I hope the author of the article
@irinakitop and@naturecareers both take them into consideration and retract their insensitive statements -
On one had, I understand what was getting at. I think it's incredibly important that we talk more openly about how much failure is part of the scientific process. I thought the framing—that not everyone is cut out for science—was really unfortunate for a number of reasons.
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kindly stop blaming PhD students for why they struggle and focus in on the issues with the system in which they operate.
A thread...