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| Too many PhD students feel as if they can’t do anything but show up to the lab and look busy. Photograph: Alamy |
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hen my first year as a PhD student became a daily grind of going to several classes a day and learning endless new experiments and procedures in the lab, I looked around for inspiration from older and more successful students.
What were they doing differently? I eventually realised that the high-achieving postgrads all had one thing in common: refusal. Here are five things they simply refused to do:
1) Feel like a failure
Like most other students, I started my PhD as one of the smartest kids in college. But in graduate school, everyone was smart. I was no longer special – I was normal. I went from being a big fish in a small pond to just being a fish. I came to realise that a lot of students felt like failures. Some of them were able to shake this feeling. But others went on to develop mental illnesses. One student, whom I knew personally, ended up taking his own life after just one year.
Feeling like a failure as a PhD student is a serious issue. Studies and reports increasingly show that mental illness is on the rise in academia. One of the biggest reasons that it's rising is because many academics are perfectionists and are not willing to accept failure as part the process of learning. Many of them are also unwilling to reach out to other students or faculty for help. Instead, they isolate themselves and work harder and harder until something snaps.
Successful PhD students aren't perfectionists and they refuse to isolate themselves. These students realise that failing is the fastest way to learn.
They're not ashamed to say, "I don't know." They're also not ashamed to ask for help, especially when they're facing very real problems like depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues. Admitting that you don't know something or asking for help is not defeat, it's success.
The key is to allow for failure without feeling like a failure. If you do start feeling like a failure, don't isolate yourself. Instead, reach out. Ask for help and allow others to support you.
2) Feel out of control
