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Episode 0021 Shownotes
Avoid dropping out of grad school
Sooner or later, more or less you could be thinking of dropping out of grad school or stopping your doctoral journey. This episode shall help you manage your expectations and to be prepared for the fears, doubts & challenges on your PhD journey. Building resilience and frustration tolerance and coping with impostor syndrome will be key (also for later in your future). You need to consider long-term consequences & reevaluate your goals. You need to weigh your health vs. academic milestones. Listen to Prof. Dr. Eleonore Soei-Winkels as she shares actionable tips for your PostdocTransformation.
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Your concerns, doubts & fears are real,
as there are typical challenges on the PhDjourney
Have you ever thought about dropping out of grad school? Well, then this episode is for you. Welcome to this episode [00:01:00] of the PostdocTransformation Show. I'm your host, professor, Dr. I go by Eleanor, and I hope that you will enjoy this one because to be honest, I think most of us have probably found ways to manage and to finish the PhD and probably also with great results, right?
But honestly, the concerns, the doubts, the fears are real. And that's why I want to focus this episode on struggling. And I hope that you will see yourself as being not the only one. And it's okay to struggle and it's okay to seek help.
So, let's see how you can avoid dropping out of grad school. I'm really happy to do this because I think that a lot of us have pursued the PhD uninformed.
So, [00:02:00] the first thing that you have to consider is you need to make an informed decision, okay? So just because you don't know anyone who dropped out of grad school doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And just because you know someone or these, and these two people, or three people, they all have individual reasons and your reasons might be different. Maybe these reasons are legitimate, you should drop out. But maybe there are ways to reconcile so that you can still finish your PhD. Making an informed decision means that you don't just go by your gut feeling, right? Don't decide to drop out of school without talking to a lot of people.
And the second thing to consider are the typical challenges that come with a PhD.
When you're talking to your PhDs, your peers, your postdocs, they [00:03:00] will probably share the same or similar anxieties, right? So, it is hard for a PhD student, when you look at the power ladder, to be not overworked, when your boss is a workaholic, right. You could think of well, academia is so competitive. I need to be at my best. I need to be better than the others. And that makes, then you prioritize work and research over life. And that's bad because in the long run you will run out of fuel. Right?
So, if you are a car, then maybe you can speed up and be, be better than the others, than your competition, but at the end you may be run out of gas and the others will also finish, right?
Maybe you also have research difficulties. And I understand this, during the Corona crisis, a lot of you, a lot of my listeners here have started a PhD during the Corona crisis, and that has absolutely, you know, [00:04:00] disrupted everything that your research plan probably had.
This is not something that only affects you, but your principal investigators should also consider this and guide you in continuing your research in different ways.
Another thing is about the academic pressures. Okay, so I also see this with publication numbers and impact factor and something like that.
Well, if you wanna become a professor, that is certainly the case. But is it right for you? Because if you don't want to become a professor, then you might be able to let go of the pressure, right? So just publish in the second best academic journal because in business no one knows about that.
If you are focusing on becoming a professor, it's more important to have a great publication than to [00:05:00] have many mediocre publications.
Frustration & impostor syndrome
The other thing is about the frustration being alone in a foreign country, making no friends, having a hard time to socialize because you are working so hard in the lab and at university.
A lot of anxiety stem from the uncertainty of job opportunities within academia and also maybe in your home country or in your country where you are at the moment. So these are all legitimate things. And then one last thing.
Hello impostor, right? So maybe you can raise your hand and say, yes, I've experienced that in many ways, or in just this one module, or in this one studies or whatever. Even if you are excellent, even if you have been an A student, chances are quite high that you have imposter syndrome sooner or later, shorter or longer. So, if you then think in those, times [00:06:00] about dropping out of grad school, I ask you to postpone the decision, right?
You are not alone,
do you manage your time wisely?
Number three is, you aren't alone, right? Every one of us has gone through this sooner or later, longer or shorter, and so it's not just you. Share openly your anxieties and you will see that the others say, yeah, yeah, that's me. That's me two years ago, but look at me now.
I've gone through this and I've grown. So, be sure that you ask other people and if there is a postdoc who tells you, "no, I didn't have this". That postdoc is probably lying [00:09:00] and maybe you shouldn't ask him or her it for advice anymore.
Now let's talk about number four time and stress management and to find ways to maintain your mental well-being.
Let's look at your journey from bachelor to master.
Yeah, for the Master's student, I usually guide them a little bit more in the time management and stuff like that. I also ask them whether they are okay with the timing, et cetera. So priorities have, do they have difficulties or not? So I'm having a long leash like. A long leash, but if I see that someone is struggling, then I would pull and see.
But this is not the case for PhD students usually because from from a PhD student, I would expect that person to be very independent, to say, I can do this and I can manage myself because I mean, that person has been doing [00:10:00] a bachelor, a master now a PhD. So I would expect some kind of maturity personally, right?
That doesn't mean that you don't have issues with time management, but if you do, then seek support, Find ways to maintain your mental wellbeing. If time management is something that should be on your bucket list and if you wanna know more about that, let me know in the comments so I can create a new episode focused on time or also on stress management. Maybe we can find someone else who wants to talk about that, I could do this, but I want to focus on my niche.
Do you have legit reasons to drop out?
Take a break before you make your decision!
All right, so number five is assessing your specific reasons for dropping out. So the question really is, are these legitimate. Because maybe when you're talking about that with other people, you see that this is objectively easy to change. That's why you should also think about can you change yourself? Can you change your behavior? Can you change your research methods or the subject? Or you know, can you change the approach? Can you cut this in half? So what other things that you can do to change the circumstances so that you would release a pressure at the moment.
Moving on to number six:
You can take a break. I see sometimes people who take a sabbatical and that's maybe not so [00:12:00] usual. if you need the sabbatical, you need to prioritize yourself. Otherwise you won't be able to regroup your research projects to seek and invest into additional resources if you know you need to learn how to manage your time.
If you can't do this, don't bother going further. Instead, take a break, get this done, whatever you need. And then, being more empowered, you can then finish the PhD.
All right. And then on number seven, I wouldn't say that you probably need academic counseling, but maybe it is because maybe you are doing your master, maybe you are doing a PhD in a completely different field.
So, learning all these new things in terms of disciplinary things might be a struggle for you. So, maybe you need academic counseling.
But probably [00:13:00] you should seek career counseling because as a dropout it will look different for you, as compared to someone who's finished the PhD.
Long-term consequences &
reevaluate your goals
Number eight
Then you should also consider your long-term consequences, right? So, what's the impact of dropping out of grad school in the long run for your future work, but also for your self-esteem? So, maybe this will be something that you feel keep coming back for the rest of your life that will haunt you in the sense of why didn't I finish that?
I had this feeling of becoming a professor. I know this is different. So, I returned to become a professor. I see also PhD students who aren't young anymore. Instead, they've come back, when they were more mature and also more equipped to finish the PhD successfully. So it's not a bad choice to leave it now as it is and then return later.
Hey, have you found this episode so far helpful for yourself? [00:15:00] Well, maybe you can subscribe and also share this episode with your PhD bestie because that would encourage us to help the underprivileged, underrepresented, and underserved early career scientists leaping into business. And now back to the show.
So, number nine is reevaluate your goals. And like I said in one of the previous episodes on the strategic approaches to do a PhD, you need to reevaluate recurrently your goals, not just once. And like I said, maybe at the beginning a PhD sounded like a great idea, but now in the middle of it, Things have changed.
And I would say life changing events, like becoming a mom, a parent, losing your parent or your partner, these are things that are valid. So, your vision of life may have changed, or at least the goals have changed, or the goals [00:16:00] have sort of like postponed to a later point in time because now something is changing in your life and that makes you reconsider and reevaluate. So, that's okay, as long as it is an informed decision making.
Health over academic milestones
And tip number 10 is your mental health is your priority. Nothing else matters. You can earn a PhD when you are older, but you literally need to survive until that stage of life. So, that might sound serious, but I really mean it.
Seriously, no one will look into your PhD in the sense of how many publications how many research collaborations and stuff like that when you are in business. That doesn't mean that you should do less, but it should make You consider other things as well for your life.
You are more than [00:18:00] just your research. Often PhD students forget about that during that time. All right, so until the next episode of the PostdocTransformation Show, I'm your host, professor, Dr. Eleonore Soei-Winkels. I'm really happy to have been in your earbuds.
All right, so thanks for listening and I hope that you will watch our show and also listen to our show for the next episodes. And like I said, go back to the previous episodes. I think they have valuable insights for you, especially if you are a PhD student in your first year.
Until the next episode,
Cheers,
Eleonore & Team PostdocTransformation
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