Re:Sarah Hörst Creates Exoplanet Atmospheres in Her Lab
by heyitsguay on Monday April 08, 2019 @03:18PM
(#19608198)
Oh yeah, absolutely! No question that it's still an issue: the vast majority of my peers had great experiences with their PI's, but I'd say 10-20% were less happy at times. Even within my department, we all knew of at least a few professors who should be avoided as advisers because of how they treated their students. So if that's anything close to a representative sample, a problem for 10-20% of people is a big problem that needs to be addressed, but that still leaves 80-90% of people pretty happy.
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Re:Sarah Hörst Creates Exoplanet Atmospheres in Her Lab
by tony_cannistra on Monday April 08, 2019 @03:25PM
(#19608257)
Well, it’s comforting to hear about those low percentages (10-20%, as you mention) in your experience. However, empirical results [0] have demonstrated percentages of mental illness among PhD students more in the range of 43-46%. Lest we assign some sort of “well, it’s better here” thinking, those results are from Berkeley.
I remain pedantic about this only because, despite some anectodal experiences, there’s a serious problem in academic training which is having strongly detrimental effects on student development, quality of life, and retention.