Day 9. Graduate survey: A love–hurt relationship

title:
Graduate survey: A love–hurt relationship
研究生调查：爱与伤的关系

Nature’s 2017 PhD survey reveals that, despite many problems with doctoral programmes, PhD students are as committed as ever to pursuing research careers.
《自然》杂志2017年的博士调查显示，尽管博士课程存在许多问题，但博士生仍然一如既往地致力于研究事业。

Science PhD students love what they do — but many also suffer for it. That’s one of the top findings from Nature’s survey of more than 5,700 doctoral students worldwide.
理科博士生热爱自己的工作，但也有许多人因此而受苦。这是《自然》杂志对全球5700多名博士生进行的调查得出的最重要的发现之一。

The survey is the latest in a biennial series that aims to explore all aspects of PhD students’ lives and career aspirations. Respondents indicated high levels of satisfaction with PhD programmes overall, but also revealed significant levels of worry and uncertainty: more than one-quarter listed mental health as an area of concern, and 45% of those (or 12% of all respondents) said that they had sought help for anxiety or depression caused by their PhD studies (see ‘A challenging road’). Many said that they find their work stressful, worry about their futures and wonder whether their efforts will pay off in earning them a satisfying and well-compensated career. For some, it’s almost too much to handle. “Every university should have a special room reserved for graduate students to get some crying time in when they are feeling overwhelmed,” said an ecology student at a US university, in the survey’s comment section.
这项调查是两年一次的系列调查中的最新一次，旨在探索博士生生活和职业抱负的方方面面。受访者表示，总体上对博士课程的满意度很高，但也显示出相当程度的担忧和不确定性：超过四分之一的受访者将心理健康列为关注领域，其中45%的受访者表示，他们寻求的帮助（见博士学位）是由焦虑或抑郁引起的。许多人说，他们觉得工作压力很大，担心自己的未来，想知道自己的努力是否能为自己赢得一份满意的、报酬丰厚的职业。对一些人来说，这几乎太难处理了。美国一所大学的生态学专业学生在调查的评论部分说，每所大学都应该为研究生预留一个专门的房间，让他们在感到不知所措时有时间哭泣。

Responses also uncovered a strong, perhaps crucial, connection between a well-matched PhD adviser and the student’s success. Good
mentorship was the main factor driving satisfaction levels. Most respondents were happy with their adviser, but nearly one-quarter said they would switch advisers if they could. Students can survive and thrive during a PhD programme—challenges and all—but they generally can’t do it alone. “I’m a happy PhD student,” a genetics student from South Africa wrote in the comments. “This life is difficult but it’s what I’ve wanted to do my whole life, so it’s worth it. I also have a fantastic supervisor who is understanding, helpful and ready to push me to the next level.
这些回答也揭示了一个强有力的，也许是至关重要的，一个匹配良好的博士生导师和学生的成功之间的联系。良好的指导是提高满意度的主要因素。大多数受访者对自己的导师感到满意，但近四分之一的受访者表示，如果可以的话，他们会更换导师。学生可以在博士课程中生存和茁壮成长，但他们通常不能独自完成。我是一个快乐的博士生，一个来自南非的遗传学学生在评论中写道。这生活很艰难，但这是我一生都想做的，所以值得。我还有一个非常出色的导师，他理解我，乐于助人，随时准备把我推向新的高度。

WIDESPREAD STRUGGLES
The respondents to the 2017 survey came from diverse scientific fields and from most parts of the world. Asia, Europe and North America were all strongly and equally represented. The survey was advertised through links on nature.com, in Springer Nature digital products and through e-mail campaigns. The data (which are available in full at go.nature.com/2kzo89o) were fleshed out by interviews with a small group of respondents who had indicated that they were willing to be contacted.
2017年调查的受访者来自不同的科学领域和世界大部分地区。亚洲、欧洲和北美洲的代表性都很强，而且平等。这项调查是通过“自然”官网的链接，在施普林格自然数码产品和通过电子邮件活动。数据（可在go.nature.com/2kzo89o)通过对一小群表示愿意与之联系的受访者进行访谈，这些调查得到了充实。

There were many positives. Overall, more than three-quarters of respondents were at least somewhat satisfied with their decision to do a PhD, a strong endorsement for such a massive commitment. That result closely mirrors those from other surveys of PhD students, says Katia Levecque, an industrial-relations specialist at Ghent University in Belgium. “About 80% of PhD students are satisfied or very satisfied,” she says. “It’s a consistent finding in most universities.”
有许多积极的方面。总的来说，超过四分之三的被调查者对他们的博士学位决定至少有点满意，这是对如此巨大的承诺的有力支持。比利时根特大学（ghentuniversity）的劳资关系专家卡蒂亚•莱维克（katialevecque）表示，这一结果与其他针对博士生的调查结果非常吻合。她说，大约80%的博士生感到满意或非常满意。这在大多数大学的发现一致。

The fact that 12% of respondents sought help for anxiety or depression caused by their PhD underscores the stresses of the graduate student life, Levecque says. “You’re expected to take responsibility, but you aren’t given control over a lot of issues,” she points out. And because the 12% includes only people who sought help for their distress, it almost certainly understates the prevalence of anxiety and depression among all respondents to the survey.
Levecque说，12%的被调查者为他们的博士学位引起的焦虑或抑郁寻求帮助，这一事实凸显了研究生生活的压力。她指出，人们期望你承担责任，但你不能控制很多问题。因为这12%的人只包括那些为自己的痛苦寻求帮助的人，所以几乎可以肯定的是，这低估了所有受访者中焦虑和抑郁的患病率。

The Nature survey also found that students with anxiety don’t always have an easy time getting help. Of those who sought assistance, only 35% said that they found helpful resources at their own institution. Nearly 20% said they tried to find help at their home institution but didn’t feel supported.“There are so many cultural and financial barriers to seeking help,” says Levecque.
《自然》杂志的调查还发现，有焦虑症的学生并不总是很容易得到帮助。在那些寻求帮助的人中，只有35%的人说他们在自己的机构找到了有用的资源。近20%的人表示，他们试图在自己的家庭寻求帮助，但感觉不到支持。Levecque说，寻求帮助有太多的文化和经济的障碍。

In the Nature survey, nearly 50% of students who reported seeking help for anxiety or depression said that they were still satisfied or very satisfied with their doctoral programme. Kate Samardzic, who studies pharmacology at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, was one of the hundreds of respondents who live with that apparent paradox. She’s satisfied with her programme, but she is also under considerable stress. “There’s a lot of uncertainty in becoming a researcher,” she says. “You’re under pressure to please your adviser and do everything in a certain time frame. And you don’t know what kind of job you’ll get at the end of the day. I’m halfway through and I still don’t know where it’s going to lead.”
在《自然》调查中，近50％的报告称寻求焦虑或抑郁帮助的学生表示，他们对自己的博士课程仍然感到满意或非常满意。 在澳大利亚悉尼科技大学攻读药理学的凯特·萨玛迪奇（Kate Samardzic）是数百名患有这种明显悖论的受访者之一。 她对自己的课程感到满意，但她也承受着很大的压力。 她说：“成为一名研究人员存在很多不确定性。” “您承受着取悦导师的压力，并在一定时间内完成所有工作。 而且您不知道一天结束后将获得什么样的工作。 我已经走了一半，但我仍然不知道要去哪里。”

Samardzic knows that she isn’t the only one going through this. She had read a study published in March by Levecque and colleagues (K. Levecque et al. Res. Pol. 46, 868–879; 2017) showing that PhD students were about 2.5 times more likely than highly educated people in the general population to be at risk of depression and other common psychiatric disorders. To tackle this problem, Samardzic, a student representative who serves as liaison to the university board, helped to form Research Resilience, a university group that holds regular seminars designed to help students cope with the emotional toll of PhD studies. “I sensed that there wasn’t enough support for people who are feeling anxious or upset about their PhD programmes,” she says. “That should be more of a priority.” .
Samardzic知道她不是唯一经历过这一过程的人。 她阅读了Levecque及其同事于3月发布的一项研究（K. Levecque等，Res。Pol。46，868–879； 2017），结果显示，博士生的普及率是普通人群中高学历人群的2.5倍。 有患抑郁症和其他常见精神疾病的风险。 为了解决这个问题，萨玛迪奇（Samardzic）是大学董事会的联络代表，他协助组建了研究抵御力，这是一个大学团体，定期举行研讨会，旨在帮助学生应对博士学位研究的情感损失。 她说：“我感到对那些对博士课程感到焦虑或不安的人没有足够的支持。” “这应该是一个优先事项。”

Research Resilience holds monthly seminars that draw 30–40 students. Recent topics have included tips on mindfulness and the pitfalls of impostor syndrome — the pervasive feeling that one doesn’t really belong with the rest of the PhD crowd (go.nature.com/2gtufgt). “We’re all high-achieving individuals, which makes us even more prone to those sorts of feelings,” Samardzic says. Indeed, nearly one in four respondents to the survey listed impostor syndrome as one of the difficulties they face.
Research Resilience每月举行一次研讨会，吸引30至40名学生。 最近的主题包括有关正念和冒名顶替综合症的陷阱的提示-人们普遍感觉自己并不真正属于其余的PhD人群（go.nature.com/2gtufgt）。Samardzic说：“我们都是成就卓越的人，这使我们更容易产生这种感觉。” 确实，接受调查的受访者中有近四分之一将冒名顶替综合症列为他们面临的困难之一。

Among them was Andrew Proppe, who studies physical chemistry at the University of Toronto in Canada. Like Samardzic, he is satisfied with his PhD, despite hefty doses of anxiety. For him, feelings of alienation were exacerbated by the fact that, for a while, he also felt physically out of place.
其中包括安德鲁·普普（Andrew Proppe），他在加拿大多伦多大学学习物理化学。 像萨玛迪奇一样，尽管感到焦虑，他仍然对自己的博士学位感到满意。 对他来说，有一段时间他还感到身体不适，这一事实加剧了疏离感。

Proppe had started a PhD programme at Princeton University in New Jersey, but left after about a year and a half because, despite having an excellent adviser, he didn’t feel fully prepared for the programme or the town. He had grown up in culture-rich, populous Montreal, and felt disoriented in the relatively small town of Princeton. “It was no fun at all,” he says. “I hadn’t factored in how important the environment would be to me. I gave up everything I had back at home to go out there, and it didn’t seem worth it. I was unhappy.
Proppe在新泽西州的普林斯顿大学开始了博士学位课程，但大约一年半后离开了，因为尽管有一位出色的导师，他仍未为该课程或城镇做好充分的准备。 他在文化丰富，人口众多的蒙特利尔长大，在相对较小的普林斯顿小镇上感到迷失了方向。 他说：“一点都不好玩。” “我没有考虑到环境对我来说有多重要。我放弃了家里的一切去了那里，这似乎不值得。我很不开心。

Proppe’s current adviser, Ted Sargent at the University of Toronto, was eager to add Proppe to his team. “He was working with one of the world’s best physical chemists at Princeton, so he had some skills that were a clear benefit to my group.” Proppe was also able to provide some insight into how his previous adviser ran his lab. “I asked him to engage in academic espionage,” Sargent jokes. “You might think that after 20 years I have this completely figured out, but it’s still an evolving process.”
Proppe的现任导师，多伦多大学的Ted Sargent，渴望将Proppe加入他的团队。他在普林斯顿大学和世界上最好的物理化学家之一一起工作，所以他有一些技能对我的团队来说是明显的好处。萨金特开玩笑说，Proppe还能够提供一些关于他以前的顾问是如何管理实验室的见解。我让他从事学术间谍活动。你可能认为20年后我已经完全明白了，但这仍然是一个不断发展的过程。

Returning to Canada helped Proppe to regain his footing, but it didn’t completely remove the anxiety of PhD work. “I was running the day through my head,” he says. “At three in the morning, I’d be thinking about data sets.” Having never had to deal with much stress or anxiety before in his life, it took him a while to recognize the problem. Once he realized how much his PhD worries were affecting his life, he started to make changes. “I stopped trying to stay at work until 11, to instead make more time to play guitar, exercise and be with my girlfriend,” he says.
回到加拿大帮助普罗佩重新站稳脚跟，但这并没有完全消除博士工作的焦虑。他说：“我一整天都在脑子里想。凌晨三点，我在想数据集。他一生中从未经历过太多的压力和焦虑，他花了一段时间才意识到这个问题。当他意识到博士生的烦恼对他的生活有多大的影响时，他开始做出改变。他说：“我不再试图工作到11点，而是为了有更多的时间弹吉他，锻炼身体，和女朋友在一起”。

A WORTHWHILE COMMITMENT
Mentorship contributed more to respondents’ overall satisfaction with their PhD programme than did any other factor. Specifically, guidance from, and recognition by, an adviser proved to be the top determinant. Yet, a sizeable proportion of survey respondents are unhappy with the mentoring they receive. Beyond the 23% who said they would swap advisers if they could, nearly one-fifth of respondents, or 18%, said that they do not have useful conversations about careers with their advisers — the person who is uniquely well positioned to help doctoral students to identify their ideal career path and learn how to pursue it.
与其他因素相比，导师制对受访者对博士课程的总体满意度贡献更大。具体来说，来自导师的指导和认可被证明是最重要的决定因素。然而，相当一部分被调查者对他们接受的辅导感到不满。除了23%的受访者表示，如果可以的话，他们会交换导师之外，近五分之一的受访者（18%）表示，他们没有与导师就职业问题进行有益的对话。这是一个能够帮助博士生确定理想职业道路并学会如何追求理想职业道路的人。

Respondents said that conversations with their supervisor about non-academic careers are notably absent. “My adviser looks down on non-academic jobs and thinks they’re only suitable for people who aren’t very motivated,” wrote a chemistry student in the United States in the comments. Around 30% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that their supervisor has useful advice for non-academic careers, about the same proportion as in Nature’s 2015 survey of graduate students. Slightly more than half of respondents in this year’s survey agreed that their supervisor was open to their pursuing a degree outside of academia, which also echoes findings from the 2015 survey.
受访者表示，他们明显没有与上司谈论非学术职业。一位美国化学系学生在评论中写道：我的导师看不起非学术性的工作，认为这些工作只适合没有积极性的人。大约30%的人不同意或强烈不同意他们的导师为非学术职业提供有用建议的说法，这一比例与《自然》2015年对研究生的调查大致相同。在今年的调查中，略超过一半的受访者同意他们的导师对他们在学术界以外的学位持开放态度，这也与2015年的调查结果相呼应。

Sensing an institutional indifference towards career development, Samardzic and other students have started organizing careers events in which graduates and other experts talk about their options. She helped to arrange a recent talk by a PhD student who had gone overseas for a workshop on entrepreneurship and biomedical innovation. “There needs to be more of that,” she says. “I feel like I don’t know about half of the jobs that exist out there.”
意识到制度对职业发展的漠不关心，萨马尔季奇和其他学生开始组织职业活动，让毕业生和其他专家讨论他们的选择。她帮助安排了一位博士生最近的一次演讲，他出国参加了一个关于创业和生物医学创新的研讨会。她说，需要更多这样的东西。我觉得有一半的工作我都不知道。

The survey responses suggest that many PhD students lack a clear vision of their future. Nearly 75% of respondents said that they would like a job in academia as an option after they graduate, whereas 55% said that they would like to work in industry. That might partly be down to indecision: nearly half of respondents indicated that they were likely or very likely to pursue a career in either sector.
调查结果显示，许多博士生对自己的未来缺乏清晰的认识。近75%的受访者表示，他们希望毕业后可以选择在学术界工作，而55%的受访者表示，他们希望在工业界工作。这可能部分归因于犹豫不决：近一半的受访者表示，他们有可能或非常有可能在这两个行业从事职业。

The strong interest in academia echoes findings from the 2015 survey in which 78% of respondents said that they were likely or very likely to pursue a career in academia despite a lack of job opportunities. The dearth was highlighted in an analysis published in 2015 (N. Ghaffarzadegan et al. Syst. Res. Behav. Sci. 23, 402–405; 2015), which estimated that in the United States, there are on average 6.3 PhD graduates in biomedical sciences for every tenure-track academic job opening.
对学术界的浓厚兴趣与2015年的调查结果相呼应，在该调查中，78%的受访者表示，尽管缺乏工作机会，他们仍有可能或非常有可能在学术界从事职业。在2015年发表的一份分析报告中强调了这种缺乏 (N. Ghaffarzadegan et al. Syst. Res. Behav. Sci. 23, 402–405; 2015)，这项研究估计，在美国，平均每一个终身学术职位空缺就有6.3名生物医学博士毕业生。

Doctoral studies don’t seem to be prompting large numbers of students to rethink their commitment to research. Nearly 80% said that the likelihood that they will pursue a research career has grown or remained unchanged since they launched their PhD programme — up from 67% in the 2015 survey.
博士研究似乎并未促使大量学生重新考虑他们对研究的承诺。 近80％的人表示，自从他们开始博士学位课程以来，从事研究事业的可能性已经增加或保持不变-高于2015年调查中的67％。

With an already tough academic job market getting tougher, many hopefuls will need guidance. But that’s not always easy to come by.
Only 15% of respondents said that they found useful career resources at their institution, down from 18% in the 2015 survey.
随着本已艰难的学术就业市场变得越来越艰难，许多有希望的人将需要指导。但这并不总是容易做到的。只有15%的受访者表示，他们在学校找到了有用的职业资源，低于2015年调查的18%。

To a large extent, students are serving as their own career counsellors. When asked how they arrived at their current career decision, almost two-thirds chalked it up at least in part to their own research on the topic. Just 34% credited advice from their adviser.
在很大程度上，学生是作为自己的职业顾问。当被问及他们是如何做出目前的职业决定时，几乎三分之二的人认为至少部分原因是他们自己在这个问题上的研究。只有34%的人相信他们导师的建议。

Laying some groundwork with an adviser early on can go a long way towards improving the PhD experience, Proppe says. After leaving Princeton for Toronto, he immediately had a direct talk with Sargent, his new adviser. “I asked all of the questions I wished I had asked when I first started graduate school,” he says. By the end of the conversation, he had a good idea about how the lab operated, how often he’d see his adviser and how much supervision he could expect.
Proppe说，尽早与导师打好基础可以大大提高博士学位的经验。离开普林斯顿前往多伦多后，他立即与他的新顾问萨金特进行了直接交谈。他说：“我问了我刚开始读研究生时希望问过的所有问题。谈话结束时，他对实验室如何运作，多久见一次他的顾问，以及期望得到多少监督有了一个很好的见解。

Alberto Brandl, a student in aerospace engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Turin in Italy, knew his co-supervisors before he started his PhD programme. “I hoped they would be great mentors, and I’m very satisfied,” he says. It helped that his advisers were very accommodating when his daughter was born, early in the PhD process. “They said it was a beautiful thing,” he says. “I didn’t take much time off, but they told me to take as much as I needed.” He feels that his advisers give him just enough guidance to make his own decisions, instead of dictating every step. “It’s the difference between a boss and a leader,” he says. Brandl counts himself fortunate. “I know people who have abandoned their PhDs because of their mentors.”
意大利都灵理工学院航空工程系的学生Alberto Brandl在开始博士学位课程之前就认识了他的联合导师。 他说：“我希望他们能成为很棒的导师，我感到非常满意。” 博士生早期，他的女儿出生时，他的导师就非常乐于助人。 他说：“他们说这是一件美丽的事情。” “我没有休太多的假，但他们告诉我需要多少就休多少。” 他觉得自己的导师给了他足够的指导，使他可以做出自己的决定，而不是命令每一步。 他说：“这是老板和领导者之间的区别。” 布兰德指望自己很幸运。 “我知道有人因为导师而放弃了博士学位。”

Survey responses can only go so far, and sometimes there’s a deeper story beneath the data. Yissue Woo, a microbiologist at the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering, gave his adviser high marks, but says that he and his supervisor have had no career-related discussions. For now, Woo is too preoccupied with his studies and research to broach the subject with his adviser.
调查结果只能走这么远，有时数据背后还有更深层的故事。新加坡环境生命科学工程中心（Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering）的微生物学家吴一淑（Yissue Woo）对他的顾问给予了很高的评价，但他表示，他和导师没有就职业问题进行过讨论。目前，吴宇森过于专注于自己的学习和研究，没有向他的顾问提出这个问题。

He also rated his PhD experience highly, but that’s partly because he’s learnt to take failures in stride. “I’m not new to research,” he says, “so I’m not surprised by setbacks. When things don’t work, I know that’s just how it is.”
他对自己的博士经历也给予了很高的评价，但这在一定程度上是因为他学会了坦然面对失败。他说，我对研究并不陌生，所以我对挫折并不感到惊讶。当事情不顺利时，我知道事情就是这样。

Perhaps one student, who studies medicine in Israel, summarized it best. “Doing a PhD is hard and frustrating,” wrote the student in the comment section. “But the small successes are worth it all.”
也许有一个在以色列学习医学的学生对这一点总结得最好。这位学生在评论部分写道：攻读博士学位既困难又令人沮丧。但这些小小的成功是值得的。