My
PhD has literally been
an emotional rollercoaster -- sometimes, I feel like a
manic-depressive. In discussing this idea with other PhD's using a
grounded theory approach, and have arrived at four key themes of PhD:
depression, guilt, glory, and
motivation. These themes are cyclic in nature, and can be extremely severe. At times, it can result in "academic suicide" in which someone decides to just plain quit.
Depression: PhD work is lonely. You're on a path that no one else has travelled, and far too often, it seems like no one cares what you're doing. This may or may not be true; regardless, it feels this way. As a PhD student, you invest so much effort, so much energy into your work -- and it's really personal energy since it is your work, and not something you don't care about. Often, this work gets rejected ("We're sorry to inform you..."). This typically brings on a fresh wave of depression and self-doubt. That depression is accompanied by feelings of apathy (what's the point?), and distaste (my project sucks). That meta-realization of these secondary feelings (e.g. of apathy) translate into more depression. This depression translates into a slowing of actual PhD work. Output crawls at times to a grinding halt because of this emotional low.
Guilt: The offshoot of this "PhD Depression" is guilt. You feel like you're wasting your own time, the time of people around you, and the money of those around you. This crushing guilt is debilitating -- it makes you feel more depressed, which means that you do even less work. The consequence of low output is feeling extremely guilty. It's hard to feel good about oneself in this situation. One's own self-worth always seems in question.
Glory: Sometimes, just sometimes, submitted work gets accepted ("We're happy to inform you..."). This outcome is often accompanied by ecstacy, chest thumping, fists in the air, and random shouts of elation. This energy is amazing but short-lived: after telling all of your closest friends and your family, getting the obligatory, "Congratulations," you realize that: (1) the world has (amazingly) not changed, and (2) still no one seems to care what you're doing. And so, you cycle back into that depression that we talked about earlier.
Motivation: This emotional rollercoaster known as the PhD then has a significant impact on motivation. Essentially what it means is that when you're riding a big high, you need to use that high and just drain it to the utmost degree, squeezing the very last possible piece of productivity out of it while you can.
There are upsides to PhD's, don't get me wrong. It's just that the downsides are so much easier to talk about.
Next time: What I've seen successful PhD students do...
