Worth a read

I'm sure everyone has read it already, but if you haven't read Derek's comments about depression and anxiety in graduate school (complete with his own story of late night failed experimental runs), you should. The last two paragraphs are worth quoting in full: 

...I think it’s important for graduate students to realize that everyone has these doubts and bad stretches. Everyone has these moments when they wonder what they’ve done to their lives, but having these thoughts is not a sign that the exact failure you’re fearing has arrived. That doesn’t mean that thinking about your purpose in grad school is a bad thing, but it probably is a bad thing to try to do it at periods of peak emotional stress. If you feel that it really is getting too much, definitely talk to someone. Universities have people around for just that purpose – more so than in my day, fortunately – and if you find yourself wondering if you should reach out like that, then odds are that you should. Do it. I wish some of the people I worked with had, or had been able to. 

Any meaningful graduate degree is going to be a test of your abilities and your resilience. Recognize this, and avoid the two extremes. On one end are the macho types whose response is “Eat stress for breakfast! That’s what I did in my day! If you don’t have the fire in your belly you don’t belong here!”. And on the other end are the voices, some perhaps external and some internal, telling you that you’re a failure already, an imposter, and that you’re never going to measure up anyway. These are two different sets of lies, and everyone has to steer their course between them.

This is the sort of thing that we should be reminding 3rd years and 4th years in graduate school on a regular basis. Derek's been there, I've been there, probably your PI has been there too. It's okay to ask for help. 

Graduate student mental health and suicide in this week's C&EN

In this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News, an important and sobering story by Jyllian Kemsley on the life and 2016 death by suicide of Anna Owensby, a 4th-year graduate student in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Scripps in La Jolla, CA.

The story is long and convoluted enough that I hesitate to summarize it. It is worth reading in full, if only to understand who Anna Owensby was, the complex interplay between her and her advisers and the response of the institution to her situation, which ultimately ended with Scripps' removing her from their program, and her subsequent death by suicide.

I am still formulating all of my thoughts about this, but I will say this: I don't know about you, but I read about the 1998 death by suicide of Jason Altom when I was a graduate student in the mid-2000s, and it shocked me to my core. My department didn't have much in the way of mental health resources in the mid-2000s. It is plainly amazing to me that graduate research institutions are still playing catch-up in addressing the potential for mental health problems in their midst. (In the article, you can read a bit about both the University of Minnesota and Harvard's efforts to promote good mental health in their departments.)

I hope that this article will remind the academic chemistry community that this problem hasn't gone away. Read the whole thing. 

"the psychological brutality of the post-doctoral system"

Via Twitter, an indictment of the postdoctoral system for physicists by Oliver J. Rosten in the literature.

(A tidbit of Mr. Dolan's story here.)

Final thoughts about graduate school and mental health

Note: this post is the final one in a dialogue between Vinylogous Aldol and I on grad school and its effects on mental health. Yesterday's post can be found here, the opening post can be found here. 

Hey, Vinylogous:

Wow! Great post yesterday - you consistently put things in a way that I wish I had:

The collective action problem of mental health: You make a great point in your beginning paragraphs about asking universities/departments to consider mental health in comparison to academic response to the Sheri Sangji case (where the response of chemical academia arrived from the Los Angeles District Attorney extracting compliance from the University of California):

Mental health is going to be similar [CJ’s note: to the Sangji case]. I don't see a clear path going forward that would encourage change. There's a massive collective action problem that still persists. And it's even trickier than chemical safety—there's more vagueness, less accountability, fewer particularized harms. 

My impression is that as humans we all suffer from profoundly terrible objective foresight. ("Maybe it'll be different for me," we think. It usually isn't, of course). And that's part of the grad-school-mental-health problem. The only people who might realistically make a substantial change (grad students themselves, acting en masse) are only in the system for a few years, and those there for longer (PIs and administration) have little to gain from changing anything.

It hadn’t occurred to me to describe this as a collective action problem, but I think you’re right. It’s not clear which party (individual graduate students, individual PIs, departments, universities) would take the lead in implementing solutions. (I sense that universities departments have been dealing with mental health issues on the part of their students and professors since time immemorial - and, I suspect, up until 1960 or so, the answer was to sweep issues under the rug.)

As you well know, I am a pessimist, and I don’t think there will be there a grand solution that can be imposed from above (either from the state, federal or professional society level.) That said, I wonder if what we can do is find high-profile departments that either have or are growing a reputation of taking care of its graduate students and postdocs from a mental health perspective and encourage other departments to emulate them. If some large professional society for chemists were to endow a $10,000 award for departments who had a good programmatic approach... hmmm....

Politics: I was delighted when you took our discussion in a direction that I didn’t expect with your comments about politics:

It's difficult to clearly articulate the reasons for graduate student political involvement, I guess. But I do wonder if it would be a good thing (maybe as an extension of it being a good thing for grad students to have outside interests in general). What are your thoughts, Chemjobber? I'm interested in your take on whether graduate students would benefit by being more active in this area (isn't that in the spirit of "Broader Impacts?").

As you and I have talked about in the past, there’s a lot of value in having some kind of outside activity that takes you outside the lab. In this case, political activity seems to be just as worthwhile. The positives that I can see would be getting to meet people that aren’t in a university setting (e.g. door-knocking, etc.) and having community (other politically-active folks, etc.) There’s nothing to keep a graduate student grounded than someone who isn’t in academia saying “They’re asking you to do what?... That’s not normal, right?”

At the same time, I wonder if this particular activity (advocating for increased funding for scientists from federal sources and a minimum of political interference in scientific activities) would be terrifyingly existential and would result in tears in almost all circumstances. It’s hard to imagine this as an activity that would promote mental health for the individual student (there’s that collective action problem again!) My recommendation: if you're interested, pursue this after a thorough self-assessment.

Finally, regarding political disputes with PIs: I think this is a problem that may present itself in the coming years. I remember getting into rollicking debates with my PI and my group members during my Bush 43-era stint in graduate school. I have a very, very, very difficult time imagining that professors would take out political disagreements on their students or postdocs, but I am sure that it has happened. It’s probably happened enough that, for the most part, it’s still best not to talk about sex, religion or politics with your boss.

Quick hits: 

The centrality of the PI: A great comment from tautomers at Reddit:

The most important aspect of mental health in grad school comes from your PI as far as I am concerned. I got diagnosed with bipolar II disorder in my 3rd year, and have had multiple issues with it since then. Throughout the entire ordeal, my adviser has been incredibly supportive in every way possible. If it weren't for him and his willingness to understand, even with all the medical treatment I get, I would not be where I am today. 

The most important thing we can likely do is to get PI's to understand how much of a big deal mental health can be. Grad school is so stressful that in the majority of cases it's going to be a major play in any mental illness. If the PI is open, the student is more likely to open up, and likely get the help they need.

Couldn’t agree more with them.

Ouch: Your wisecrack about “wistful sentiments… about the moral and work-ethic superiority of all adults north of 40..."

Et tu, Vinylogous? (Seriously, though, I hear you. I seem to recall that Al Meyers’ wisecracking about lazy graduate students was about them reading newspapers.)

Being a Muslim international student in graduate school: Regarding this topic, you’re absolutely right that these students would be subject to extra mental health stresses. I wonder if there is something that departments and PIs could do to build relationships and generate trust between the students/postdocs so that they could come to them with discrimination or legal issues (although I suspect the legal issues would be something the university would be much more prepared to deal with.) If I were a PI or a senior group member, I'd be doing what I could to cross cultural divides, include them in group activities and stand up for Muslim/international students in my group.

Well, here's best wishes to you and our readers for good mental health and success in our endeavors, chemical or otherwise.

Cheers, Chemjobber

Mental Health Dialogue: 2017 Edition, Part 2 is up

Over at Not The Lab, Vinylogous responds on our dialogue about mental health and graduate school: 

I think, moreover, that we (as a community) have increasingly brought up the stresses and downsides of grad school—the nebulousness, the power dynamics, the understated role of serendipity in success and failure, the disconnectedness. I've also talked about the above to a lot of students who were either considering applying to grad school or who were visiting on recruiting weekends. 

But I don't think a single one of them took my advice. (This relates to your desire for a rational self-imposed test). 

It's a little puzzling. Given broader exposure to grad school problems, shouldn't fewer people be going to grad school? (Maybe there are—I don't have a handle on the exact numbers, but my impression is that the ranks of scientific PhD students are as full as ever). 

My impression is that as humans we all suffer from profoundly terrible objective foresight. ("Maybe it'll be different for me," we think. It usually isn't, of course). And that's part of the grad-school-mental-health problem. The only people who might realistically make a substantial change (grad students themselves, acting en masse) are only in the system for a few years, and those there for longer (PIs and administration) have little to gain from changing anything.

Go over there and read and enjoy. (He also gets a bit political, which is fun.) 

Revisiting (again) graduate school and mental health with Vinylogous Aldol

A note to readers: Vinylogous Aldol and I will be sharing a brief discussion today, tomorrow and Friday on our thoughts on mental health.

Dear Vinylogous:

Man, it has been a while since our last conversation. Hard to believe that it was 4 years ago when we first had this dialogue about mental health around graduate school in chemistry, and it’s been another 2 years since we had a short update.

What’s new with you? Since we last wrote, I’ve managed to stay in the same job. (I’ve purchased and moved to a house of my own, which was its own unique stress-inducing event.) Between the house, my friends, family and community, I’ve found a lot of joy and not a little work outside of work that has kept me busy and happy. (Now if I could only find some time to work out a little more.)

My immediate family is doing just fine, no complaints there. (My retired father is another story, though: after a couple years of peaceful retirement traveling, he’s going to be undergoing some medical procedures this year. I’m happy to be helping my father out, but I am a little bit sad that my parents aren’t going to be able to travel this year. I didn’t expect to be taking care of him from a health perspective for another ten years. Here’s hoping it’s a passing thing.)

A couple of things that I’d like to raise in this short conversation with you:

We should probably start with your important and appropriate definition of mental health issues from last time:

Having a problem with mental health doesn't have to mean severe mental illness. It is a strain on emotional and/or cognitive well-being. It doesn't have to mean severe depression. It can--and that's common--and it's okay. 

This is the best way I've heard it phrased: every single person on Earth has some degree of mental health issues. 

How are we doing? I think academia might be doing better than two years ago about these issues, but I'm not sure. What do you think?

Distractions: Do you think our modern times are responsible for some of the mental health difficulties that graduate students face? I don't think I was a paragon of mindfulness or presence in graduate school, but I think today's graduate student faces an array of distractions that are an order of magnitude larger than anything I faced. Twitter, Facebook, e-mail (and yes, blogs) are both a source of comfort, friendship, community, laughs and procrastination.

I suspect the expectations on graduate students hasn't gotten smaller, but I think the online distractions have only gotten more powerful. I think that tools for procrastinating have only gotten more and more addictive (I can quit Twitter anytime, by the way.)

I’ve read a couple of articles about this guy Cal Newport about his book “Deep Work” and his idea that we’re losing our ability to focus for long periods of time on work that is additive and that builds on itself. I suspect it’s true of myself. (Maybe I should take his advice and find some time to think deeply on a regular basis.) I wonder if it’s something that contributes to deadline-related stress and stress that we might feel in graduate school? How did you deal with it towards the end of your time in graduate school?

The “I Quit” Series: I never got the chance to thank you for inspiring the “I Quit Graduate School” series. I learned so much. I wasn’t surprised at how much people didn’t like graduate school (I think the people who really enjoy it are relatively rare), but I was surprised at how happy people were to have left. I haven’t made a solid count, but of the people who wrote in, most of them answered the question “Are you happy you left?” with a resounding “yes.” (I should note I am aware that soliciting “I left” stories introduces a huge amount of selection bias for people who would answer in the affirmative.)

I wish I had some way of forcing graduate students to confront the question of “should I leave?” with some kind of rational test. I wonder if it would be worth it for 1st year graduate students to write themselves some kind of letter that said “if I ever got to this point” (whatever that point might be) that would give them the realization that it was “all right” to leave graduate school.

What do you think? Are we looking at this wrong? Should we be encouraging people to stay no matter what? (Do graduate students need more ‘grit and determination’?)

It’s getting late and I’m getting tired, so I think I will stop. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to talk more fully about my feelings about the “depression and suicide in graduate school” post that I wrote last year. I’d like to do something to acknowledge the problem exists, but I just can’t figure out what that might be.

Did I miss anything? Hope all is well and here's hoping for a fruitful conversation.

Cheers, Chemjobber

A depressing post about graduate student (and postdoctoral) mental health

This is a depressing post about mental health. I'd love it if you were to give me advice on this; if you don't want to read it, I won't be offended.

Mental health survey for graduate students and postdocs

Via Twitter (and one of the co-investigators), a survey about mental health for graduate students and postdocs: 

Dear Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows: 

All Master's and PhD students and postdoctoral fellows from all disciplines are invited to participate in a research study that aims to measure the prevalence of anxiety, depression, stress, and burnout in the graduate student and postdoctoral fellow population. Through this study, you will be asked to confidentially respond to a series of questions via an online study questionnaire. Although you may not get immediate personal benefit from taking part in this research study, your responses may help improve the level of understanding of these issues in this population and thus help establish the need for developing programs and resources to address these measured issues. All participants will be entered into a drawing for the chance to win one of several prizes including an iPad, Kindle, or a gift card ranging in value from $25-$100.  
Of course, you have a choice about whether or not to complete the questionnaire. If you do participate, you are free to skip any questions or discontinue at any time. If you desire, you may receive the results of this study when it is completed.

Interested? The survey is here.  

Letters on mental health and graduate school

From this week's letters to the editor in C&EN, a set of fascinating ones:

The article “Managing Grad School Stress” by Linda Wang was most welcome (C&EN, Sept. 14, page 59). In 45 years as a student, postdoc, and faculty member, I have seen almost all graduate students stressed at some point. 

The article omitted an important group of people who in many cases act as psychologists, counselors, and relief valves: support staff, especially secretaries and administrative assistants. Frequently going beyond their job descriptions, they provide perspective, sympathy, and a human touch that students sometimes feel is lacking from some faculty. I know of at least one Ph.D. chemist who spent so much time doing counseling instead of chemistry in a central lab facility that she changed careers to social work. 

While not always recognized for their contributions to graduate training, these supporting players are beloved by the students and essential in these increasingly stressful times. 

Alexander Scheeline
Urbana, Ill. 

Wang’s excellent article on managing grad school stress cut close to the bone for me. While I was a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the late 1950s, one fellow student did, in fact, kill himself. I, too, might have gone that route, or at least dropped out of the program, had it not been for the intervention of two perceptive and sympathetic faculty members: my formal research director, professor Isadore Perlman, and my de facto research mentor, professor Robert Connick. 

Evan Appelman
State College, Pa. 

I read your article on managing graduate school stress with great interest as it provoked recollections of my own experiences in the early 1980s. One paragraph in particular suggested that advisers are not blameless, but why? Could this be a result of their own experiences that, in most cases, have not been punctuated by life in a nonacademic environment? 

When I started my first job at a pharmaceutical company, it took me several weeks, if not months, to become accustomed to the concept of a weekend, let alone an evening. Testimony of graduates whom I hired, years later, would sometimes include tales of adviser-originated phrases like, “If I’m here from 8 AM until 10 PM seven days a week, then you should be too,” “Don’t waste precious research seconds,” and “Why on Earth would you want to take a day off [to spend time with your spouse, partner, family, etc.]?” 

It was always far more impressive to see a person who achieved outcomes and managed their time efficiently, rather than one who prided himself or herself on sheer physical presence in the lab or office. Time management and life balance can be taught, but it is best taught by example lest those less experienced in both have nothing by which to measure their achievements in such skills. 

Young academics striving for tenure are in their own (sometimes self-made) pressure cookers, may have had no training themselves in a more realistic environment, and could benefit greatly from learning by some of the examples described in the article. Overall, moderation in all things (including moderation—sometimes, but not always, the extra effort is essential, just not continuously) would seem to be the best policy! 

James T. Palmer
Templestowe, Australia

Gotta say, I love Alexander Scheeline's perspective - so true. Staff can be great counselors, and I feel that they are not recognized as such by many departments. 

Reddit AMA this AM

I was part of a Reddit AMA this morning on graduate school and stress, if you're interested. 

Got tips to relieve grad school stress?

C&EN wants to know!

I hate to admit it, but exercise was a good way to relieve a bit of stress for me. Sounds cliched, I know. 

Signs you may be working for someone more passionate than you

As you all know, my beloved father is a retired engineer.

Once, when I was a teenager, I recall a conversation with him and my beloved mother about the classic saw "Nobody on their deathbed has ever said "I wish I had spent more time at the office.""

My father was silent for a moment and then said, "I wish I had studied more [technical field P] in graduate school."* 

My Mom then pointed out that that wasn't really the point of the proverb. I don't think my Dad ever got it.**

I'm reminded of that conversation thanks to a recent set of quotes in the Washington Post from a recent biography of PayPal investor, SpaceX and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk: 

15. “I would tell those people they will get to see their families a lot when we go bankrupt.” — Ryan Popple recalling Musk’s retort when an employee complained in Tesla’s early days that they were working too hard. 

16. “One night he told me, ‘If there was a way that I could not eat, so I could work more, I would not eat. I wish there was a way to get nutrients without sitting down for a meal.’ ” — Nicholson 

22. “We’ve grown [expletive] soft.” — Elon Musk, after Vance noted that hundreds of people were working at Tesla’s headquarters on a Saturday.

I have heard thoughts similar to number 16 from my father once (slow-release food tablets was his idea - his more biologically-oriented son knows that's not very practical.) It's funny how those who are successful and truly driven think differently than us - they just do.

*Technical field P is what my father spent the bulk of his career doing, as opposed to his graduate training in related technical field C. My Dad loves to say "I didn't want to learn [technical field P], but I forced myself to like it!" 

**It's okay now; I'm amused/bemused to note that my beloved father doesn't spend very much time thinking about work during his retirement (so far, anyway), which I think is pretty great. 

Colorblind Chemistry offering advice

Want to talk to someone who isn't in early-middle age (i.e. me?) He'd be happy to hear from you: 

If you are someone seeking anonymous advice, feel free to send that, and I will attempt to facilitate that discussion discreetly for you. While I might not be in a position to answer many of those questions, sometimes you just “need an adult” and I can tell you from experience that the chemblogosphere has plenty of sympathetic ears. One of the major hurdles to jump over emotionally is to know when to ask for help, which is sometimes difficult to seek from your peers.

A good service - I am happy that someone is providing it.  

Revisiting mental health and graduate school, by Vinylogous Aldol

Vinylogous' excellent contribution is up at Not The Lab. A key excerpt:

Quitting grad school is a really taboo subject--maybe even more so than mental health or the fact that academia is pretty rubbish at drug discovery. Why don't we talk about it more? Grad school should not be the only priority in one's life--and it's perfectly OK for it not to be the highest priority (although certain PIs may disagree).

Go over there and read -- it's very good and worth your while. 

Revisiting graduate school and mental health with Vinylogous Aldol

A note to readers: Vinylogous Aldol and I will be sharing a brief discussion today and tomorrow on our thoughts on mental health since our previous series. Tomorrow, it will be at Not The Lab. 

Dear Vinylogous:

How are you? It's been a while, hasn't it? Two years since we last discussed the issue of "Is graduate school in chemistry bad for your mental health?" I hope that the time has gone well for you in graduate school. I've certainly had a lot more perspective since then.

The stresses of industrial work

Since we've written that series, I've also experienced some of the fun aspects of life in industry as well. While I have been spared being laid off so far (thankfully), there have certainly been ups and downs.

A favorite novel of mine ("Gates of Fire", by Steven Pressfield) talks about how the soldiers of Sparta counted their years and their memories by different wars and battles. My father's long career in corporate America seems to have been marked by not only what he was working on, but who his supervisor was, and whether or not that supervisor was a good or a bad one.

I experienced a change like that in these intervening years. It (and the change in management style, expectations and relationship-managing) was difficult at best and somewhat humiliating at worst. Looking back, I shared a healthy chunk of blame in its rocky start. That said, it was a very good, maturing (and extremely humbling) experience for me. That is something that I suspect that doesn't happen very often in graduate school; most of the time, a student has 1 PI. Industry seems to switch management about once every 3 years. I wasn't prepared for it, and it showed.

I regret to tell you, Vinylogous, that I wish I could say that the moments of greatest stress have resulted in some professional triumph on my part. Rather, I experienced a rather difficult project where, in the end, I was not able to meet the rather simple chemistry goals that had been set out. Everything mostly worked out in the end, but there were too many missed deadlines and out-of-specification results that I was responsible for. I learned a lot of lessons, but I sure wish I didn't have to learn them this way. It's been a while, but the project still pains me in the still quiet moments when I think about work. While I've tried to channel my disappointments in positive directions (including writing a really detailed, brutal postmortem), I still think about that project a lot. Happily, work has moved in a much more positive direction since then (and my mental health!)

I don't think anything that I experienced could match the depressive depths of graduate school, but I suspect that the real difference happens to be that I have a wife and children now. Getting to see them (and experiencing their daily, unconditional love) is something that I didn't have before. Also, it's funny to see how having friends who aren't other graduate students (and have troubles of their own, and sharing those troubles with them) has been pretty therapeutic. Being part of a community (whatever it may be - hobby-based, faith-based) matters -- that's something the real world is a lot better at, I think, than graduate school. I also started running regularly, which has been a source of some solace (and back pain.)

Is graduate school any different? 

It's clear to me that graduate school hasn't changed that much since we last talked. The median time-to-degree for graduate students is still above 6 years for students in the physical sciences (6.5, to be exact*), it's not like the funding pressure has gotten better since then either. I am more surprised to hear some graduate students being paid in the high-20s or low-30k range, which, as far as I'm concerned is both a hell of a lot more than I was being paid and great news. Grad school sucks on its best days, and getting paid more is better than a kick in the shins. I wonder if the new and welcome emphasis on reproducibility in science is having mental health repercussions -- I haven't heard any, but I am sure that having a paper retracted would be a tough day.

So, some questions for you, Vinylogous:

1. How has the intervening 2 years been for you and your mental health?
2. I feel like younger professors are getting a lot better about work-life balance than not -- am I right in thinking that?
3. Are mental health-related issues getting talked about more, among newer graduate students?
4. I know you talked about it a little bit in our e-mail exchange, so I'll steal this question from you: how should a graduate student know when it is time to quit a program? Does the "sunk cost fallacy" play a role in this? ("I gotta recoup these last 4 years by getting a Ph.D.!")

Once again, sorry that this is a touch late -- hope to hear from you tomorrow.

Cheers, CJ

*I originally cited the "since bachelor's degree" number, where most people use the "since starting graduate school number. Thanks to Organometallica for the catch. 

A word of encouragement for chemistry graduate students

RIP Daniel Havey

I am sad to note the passing of Prof. Daniel Havey, a father of two preschool girls and a professor at James Madison University. Press reports are that Prof. Havey committed suicide and was found in a JMU laboratory.

Like SeeArrOh said, if you're feeling this way, it's okay to get help.

My sincere condolences and prayers to his family, friends and coworkers.

More on graduate school in chemistry and mental health

I'm going for uplift this week (trying to, anyway), but I thought I should note a couple of things:

• Dave Collum has shown up in the comments and given his two cents about picking groups in graduate school. 
• A wonderful perspective on changing groups in graduate school from @Organometallica. 
• Here's another good post on changing groups and mental health, from a looking-back perspective; it's good stuff (especially the reminder that 1) grad school living conditions can be horrible and 2) it can have an effect on you.))
• It reminds me of the crummy apartment that I lived in with my wife the last two or so years in grad school, where a group of men would gather every Saturday night and throw empty beer bottles in the parking lot under our window. Good times.

This is obviously an important topic, so we'll be revisiting it periodically. Thanks for all the comments -- I have really appreciated them. 

Is graduate school in chemistry bad for your mental health? Part 5

This is the final post in the series on the question "Is graduate school in chemistry bad for your mental health?" by myself and Vinylogous Aldol. Don't miss Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. 

Dear Vinylogous Aldol:

This has really been quite a week of posts -- I'm almost exhausted just reading through all the other posts that have spun off. As you've said, if we had to name check all the folks who've contributed, it'd start looking like a J. Med. Chem. paper. I have a couple of comments and answers to some of the questions that you've posted in your excellent Thursday post (which, I feel, I need to somehow apologize for a lack of comments -- perhaps readers were actually beavering away in their hoods on Thursday. I got a large bit of work done myself.)

As to whether graduate school contained anything that improved my mental health, I'd have to think about it, and give a qualified "yes." I learned to exercise in grad school; while I seem to have lost the motivation to exercise a little since then, it's definitely something that I really enjoyed doing and gave me some amount of pleasure. I did gain a good bit of emotional resilience from graduate school (the ability to "take a lickin' and keep on tickin'), but I'm not sure that's something that made me happier.

I do think that something might be given up when you work shorter hours; let's just posit that the difference between working 40-50 hours and week at 60-70 hours a week for 2 or 3 years is probably 1 Org. Lett. paper's worth of work (maybe more, maybe less.) Would that one more or less publication at the margin cost someone a job? Maybe -- I think it's possible. I think the return on the happiness is probably worth it, though. (Don't know -- that's all just a WAG.)

As to Lyle's question of "whether grad school causes these issues, or exacerbates the existing condition?", I agree with you, it's probably both. I really, deeply agree with the commenter (I can't find it now) who said that probably everyone has some level of predisposition with mental health issues and graduate school is a really good environment to bring them out.* The trio of high expectations, high failure rates of experiments and relatively low pay is probably corrosive to all but the most mentally tough psyches. What's worse, of course, is that when you haven't figured out your project well enough to really, deeply understand the principles behind the chemistry that you're doing, failure and success almost seem to happen randomly. It's that initial random aspect to experimentation that can drive people completely bonkers if they're not careful.

And of course, "project frustration" (I'm trying to come up with a phrase for the scientific version of "battle fatigue"**) is such a key part of graduate school. It is the one thing that teaches a chemist that they can solve the problem presented to them. I think it teaches them to challenge assumptions, to learn the usefulness (or lack thereof) of beating your head against the wall, to delve into the literature, to talk to your adviser and your friend. I think what is most key is that we have to acknowledge, at those key times (perhaps in our 3rd or 4th years?), that graduate students need to be watched especially carefully by their PIs to be sure that they're not doing poorly, from a mental health perspective.

Quick hits: 

Pressures on a PI: Whenever I think about this issue, I think about Professor Hardass Slavedriver, and his paragraph on the pressures that he has. It's real reality, and there's not a lot of humanity, just Hobbesian jungle.
Organic-versus-everything-else: Students are getting smarter about the job market, and they can read the writing on the wall about organic chemistry (perhaps scrawled by Professor Whitesides.) Chemistry is full of other interesting fields, and organic chemists aren't waving around their Big Pharma signing bonuses like they used to.
If the job market/funding picture continues to suck, what happens?: Not a clue. If the funding picture continues to suck, more 4th and 5th years will teach o-chem lab and the Wheel of Pain will turn slower, and they won't be in the lab as much. If the job market continues to suck, I dunno. Lots of cheap postdocs?
Are relaxed labs at a disadvantage at hiring?: I don't know -- are they less visibly productive? I don't think there's any really good evidence that they're at a disadvantage, but I'm not in the hallowed halls of Big Pharma, so I can't tell you. Readers?
What parts of grad school are necessary?: The truly high stress parts of the Ph.D. are really important, in my opinion: giving literature seminars, the original proposal, the candidacy exam, these all make a lot of sense to me. What I would potentially discard is some of the tried-and-true soul-grinding routine: namely group meeting. Is a 3 hour group meeting starting at 7 pm with lots of pop quizzes and berating necessary? Is departmental group meeting necessary? Were Woodward's all nighters really that important? (Probably, yes, but most PIs that pull that stuff (Saturday group meetings) aren't R.B. Woodward.)

Concrete things I would add to grad school: 

• A mercy rule, w/r/t length of doctoral degree. I don't know what is too long, but I think 9 years is probably too long. 
• A course on interpersonal professional interaction, with an emphasis on communicating needs. By this, I mean, "telling people how you really feel" and "asking people for stuff." Look -- you're going to be doing it in one form or another for the rest of your life, even if you're just asking people if they want fries with their burger. (I kid.) Asking a customer if they'll accept $400/kg instead of $300/kg, asking your boss for flex time or your friend if they'll hire you are all basically asking people for stuff. It's very important, and only covered in writing form in grad school (because, apparently, the government will only give you money after you've written a doorstop of a proposal in 8 point Times New Roman.) 
• The excellent and mysterious @jfreebo suggested a one-month sabbatical for grad students in the middle of the 3rd year of graduate school. I think that's an excellent idea, and I would put it at the end of the candidacy exam as a reward for finishing -- along with my offer of cold hard cash to quit. 

What have I learned from all of this talk of mental health and graduate school? 

3 separate very senior chemists (with an H-index average of ~30 or so) have talked about moments of deep emotional distress in graduate school, with an added panic attack by a not-nearly-as-senior-but-still-awesome chemist. It happens, and it's normal. It is also wise and normal to seek professional help.

I think I've learned the breadth and depth of pain that people are willing to talk about in forums such as these, and how important it is that institutions and professors note how their words and actions  might be perceived (however incorrectly). I've also learned that this is something that we should be watching for in our friends and talking about, in public and online.

Hope you had a good week and that you managed to get something done in the lab. Thank you for participating in this and thanks for the sacrifice of your time. I think I've also learned that you're a pretty great writer and thinker, and I hope to hear more from you, Vinylogous.

Best wishes, Chemjobber

*@autolycos, a MD, writes in with his thoughts: "In my opinion, the reason chemistry grad school, med school, residency, and other similar hierarchical environments (the military, too) have such a mental health and suicide problem is twofold. First: there are few checks on admittance of people who are potentiated to have mental illnesses when they are deprived of meaningful feedback... But, once we've admitted these people, it's then generally the case that they are treated capriciously, carelessly, and generally considered second to the task at hand, whether it be teaching, research, taking care of patients, or storming that hill."
**Noting, of course, that PTSD is its own thing and separate from a hard year in the lab.

Is grad school in chemistry bad for your mental health, part 4: at Not the Lab

Vinylogous' latest installment on our series on chemistry grad school and mental health is up and he's asking some great questions:

A few questions remain: Do you think that a sustained poor job outlook might lead to a relaxation of grad school culture? Or will the harsher grant culture lead to increased pressure on students instead? There are apparently many labs that don’t suffer from a depression culture: but are students from these labs as competitive in the job market as the high-octane labs? (Of course, that’s a very complex question). What high-stress aspects of the system are maybe really just necessary in order to impart chemists with the skills and breadth/depth of knowledge to competently practice in the field?

Go over there and read, and comment!