mental health

What I Learned my First Year of Grad School

Hello! This blog is a bit more of a heart to heart with myself, but I hope by sharing this it might help at least a couple prospective or first year PhD students like myself.

Take notes

Take notes all the time on everything, even when learning things like a new lab machine. You never know when you will need to reference something! Lab equipment is the one I forget about the most to write down because once you get use to using it everyday you don’t think twice about all the buttons you need to press, but what if you take a month hiatus or switch to another project for a while? You’ve forgotten everything!

Ask for help

Yes, do it. I know it seems scary, and you think you will be judged for looking dumb or asking stupid questions, but no one is going to think less of you for asking questions. You are just trying to learn, which is the whole point of graduate school!

Take breaks

Even if you love science and can’t think of anything else, not taking breaks and doing other things (such as hobbies or weekend plans) will eventually lead to burnout.

Science isn’t defined by your successes

Many more experiments (and projects) will fail than succeed. That’s just the reality of science. But don’t beat yourself up, because a failed experiment tells you information just like a successful experiment!

Find your community

Be it in lab, classmates, or non-work related at all, it’s important to have a support group to get you through the inevitable tough times of graduate school.

It’s okay not to know everything

Many people going into a graduate program think they must know everything before starting, but that is not the point at all. Going into a graduate program, you just have to have the excitement to learn! No one expects a first year to know everything about your topic so don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself.

Learn how to take care of your mental health

Anxiety and depression are, unfortunately, so common among graduate students because of the mountain of things we are supposed to accomplish at any one time. While we can’t control the inevitability of tasks in graduate school, we can control how WE handle it. Whether it be meditating in the morning or having a set lunch time each day with friends, take time for what makes you feel better.

Pick the mentor/advisor that is right for you

The biggest thing I hear many of my fellow graduate students saying looking back on their first year is that they wish they had focused less on the project they would get in lab and more on how they interacted with their advisor. Having a mentor that understands you, how to motivate you and make you into a better scientist, leads to a successful graduate school experience regardless of the project. Different people mesh with different mentors, but take your time to find the mentor that you click with!

Find a junior mentor

Another piece of advice many students mention is having an older graduate student so you can ask for advice and opinions from someone who has already been through the process you are going through.

Don’t compare yourself to others

This is by far the hardest, but you will thank yourself if you learn how to separate your progress from other graduate students in your program. You all work at different paces, have different projects with different pitfalls. Only you can decide if you are doing the right amount of work.

Graduate School Work-life Balance

The biggest question I get asked about graduate school, after asking about my research, is whether graduate school lives up to the “all work, no play” mantra many associate with a life in academia.

To answer this question: no, I strive to have a strong balance between my life in the lab and fun beyond the lab. But, as anyone in academia will readily admit, this isn’t easy.

“All work no play” stigma

There’s a stigma associated with graduate school in STEM, and academia more largely, that you have to be willing to sacrifice everything in order to meet your research demands. This stigma isn’t unwarranted; the path to becoming a full tenure professor in STEM is increasingly more difficult and demands more from its many applicants which fuel the notion all else must be sacrificed to thrive in research.

In addition to academia driving academic scientists to work hard, there is the added life logic from the baby boomer era that you live to work and make money. In Millennial and Gen Z times, there is a lot less emphasis on living to work and more on working to live your best lifestyle.

Graduate students now fall in the awkward between of these two worlds: the baby boomer generation who are now the professors and heads of our labs encouraging us to work hard, while we grow up surrounded by peers who believe we should be vocal asking for vacation time and more time to follow our passions.

Ultimately, how we are all told to cope with these conflicting ideologies is to find a work-life balance. Work-life balance is simply a way to balance the commitments of your personal life, professional life, and family life.

Work-life balance can be hard in graduate school. Our measure of success is based on the number of hours and experiments completed in lab along with the number and/or status of our journal publications. We don’t get bonus points for being a well-rounded person who plays soccer and raises two kids.

That all being said, however, work-life balance is possible in any job, including graduate school, as long as you are willing to put in the effort. For each person, it varies how it might look, but below is how I best try to keep a good work-life balance in graduate school.

Finding your work-life balance

1.Pick a university that respects work-life balance

This may seem intuitive, but some universities are better at prioritizing their students’ needs than other universities. When you are applying to graduate school, do you research! Talk to current graduate students in that school, professors, and online to see what kind of environment they cultivate. The location of the university is also important! Like I picked somewhere in a big city that is warm year-round, providing lots of activities when I’m not in the lab. I talk more about how to pick a graduate school here.

2.Choose a lab that respects work-life balance

Again, another “no duh” point but is worth writing out. Most heads of labs respect that you have duties and priorities outside of the lab but this is important to establish early on in your graduate school career. Yes, there will be times you inevitably work longer hours than 9-5 or have to come in on the weekend for an experiment, but strive to make this an exception rather than a rule. Make sure the head of your lab is open to hearing about your mental health, particularly because so many graduate students struggle with burning out and depression.

3.Join a community that is beyond your lab

For me, this took joining a number of different graduate student organizations at my university and making friends through these. For others, you may already have an established community where you are going to graduate school, in which case harness this community and give yourself time with them! If you are religious, finding a local place of worship, or if you take classes befriend some of your classmates.

4.Set boundaries

This, by far, is the hardest part of the work-life balance for me. Setting boundaries extends beyond not spending all your life in the lab, and also to not feeling pressured to always be socializing with your community or to do a million things at once. Be willing to listen to yourself and understand when you need rest, when you need fun, and when you just need to work. Set boundaries with friends and family members. Before graduate school, I would pick up the phone any time of day because I had that freedom. Now I explain I can’t talk during the day because I’m in the lab. These little boundaries may seem like nothing as I say them, but not establishing them they will fester until it feels beyond your control.

5.Focus on one thing at a time

Juggling your personal, professional, and family life can seem overwhelming and that’s why it’s so important to only focus on one thing at a time. Only focus on what you can control and then prioritize based on importance.

6.Decide what your values are and how you can incorporate those into your life

Do you value spending time with friends? Going to the beach? Riding your bike? What makes you excited and is something you look forward to? Whatever it may be, make sure to include it in your weekly or daily schedule. For me, I value being calm and focused. How I incorporate this into my life is by taking some time out every day to write what I am thankful for and meditating. I also value feeling healthy, which is why I incorporate eating balanced meals and going on runs.

Stay safe, Chloe xx