Let's talk about mental health!

Voices in Academia

A Thesis with a Side of Depression

We all know the running grad student gag: anxious, depressed, poor. We’ve seen the episode of ‘The Simpsons’ where Bart imitates a grad student. The thing about stereotypes is that they sometimes highlight very important truths. In fact, graduate students are 6x more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression when compared to the general population, resulting in what has been labelled a ‘mental health crisis’ within the academic community. Not only do many graduate students suffer from anxiety and depression, but they have to write a thesis during this highly pressurized time, and survive the ‘publish-or-perish’ culture in academia in order to graduate. Many graduate students surpass the writer’s block associated with anxiety and depression and become successful and thrive in academia, but sadly, some do not.

Animal Ecology in Focus

Did they choose my brain, my gender, or my race?

During my second year of my master’s degree, I started feeling undeserving of my position as a graduate student. At first, it was during my classes that I would think that I wasn’t up to par when compared to other students. It then extended to my teaching, where I felt I was failing my students by being incapable of explaining simple biological terms efficiently. Later, it started affecting my writing as everything I would write felt unintelligent and unoriginal. Finally, I had a mental break and ended up having to seek counseling for my deteriorating mental health.