
{"id":2255,"date":"2019-01-15T11:53:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T11:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/if-academic-life-is-so-difficult-why-do-i-do-it\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:37:10","slug":"if-academic-life-is-so-difficult-why-do-i-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/if-academic-life-is-so-difficult-why-do-i-do-it","title":{"rendered":"If academic life is so difficult, why do I do it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I feel that academic life is notoriously insecure. It seems like we\u2019re constantly scrambling for grant funding, pushing manuscripts we\u2019ve spent years of our lives working on through the arduous process of peer review, and attempting to find pots of money to fund conference attendance so that we can leave our desks behind for a few days. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>I know what you\u2019re thinking &#8211; If academic life is so difficult, why do I do it?<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">That\u2019s a serious question. If the process of academic life is so difficult and unstable, then why are there still so many of us slogging away in this area? Clearly, I can only speak for myself, and I have chosen to stay in academia for two reasons. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">1. I love the work I do. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">2. The people I work with are incredible. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I\u2019m not going to spend too much time on the first point. All I\u2019d like to say is that I am a clinical trials methodologist, which means that all of the projects I\u2019m working on have the joint aim of trying to improve the way in which clinical trials are designed and conducted. I strongly believe that if we can make clinical trials more evidence-based, then they will become more efficient; ultimately resulting in less research waste and more useful evidence for patients, clinicians and policymakers to use in healthcare decision-making. The fact that I love trials methodology does not mean that others will. I understand that interest is an incredibly personal thing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">However, the people that I work with are simply incredible! As academics, I believe that we have a degree of flexibility that is unheard of in any other industry (at least, in my experience). I love being able to come up with innovative ideas for research projects after a short conversation with a colleague, and then spending time and effort working on that project until it is a full grant application, with a group of team members across various different disciplines and geographic locations.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>\u201cYou get to choose who you work with.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">When I started my PhD in 2015, one of my supervisors (Professor Shaun Treweek, also at the University of Aberdeen) gave me a few pieces of advice; the most important one being, \u201cYou get to choose who you work with.\u201d That sounds incredibly simple, but having the awareness and understanding that you don\u2019t need to work with people you don\u2019t like can change everything about the way you work. I feel that the people who surround you can make or break your level of enjoyment at your job. In my own experience, I have found that the people who you get on well with, who can make you laugh, and who understand the way you work can help you love your job. On the other hand, people who are less easy to get on with and who work differently as compared to your own ways can be frustrating at best, and at worst, depressing. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">When I was diagnosed with depression less than a year into my PhD studies, I was terrified. My mind was racing with questions \u2013 What would people think? Would people avoid working with me? Would I be able to complete my PhD after all? I was really worried that my PhD supervisors and colleagues would be weird about it. Although, none of my colleagues had ever done anything to make me think that my depression would be a problem, for me, explaining this new diagnosis was a weird conversation to have and you can never be sure how anyone will react when you start talking about something so personal. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">The conversation itself was, perhaps unsurprisingly, quick and painless. I had been open with my supervisors about a number of unfortunate events that had happened in my life in the previous months, and they had both been supportive throughout. When I tackled the subject of my diagnosis with them, I think they were more relieved than anything. They let me talk for a few minutes about how I was feeling and what I was doing about it, they didn\u2019t put any pressure on me to up my workload, they asked numerous times if there was anything they could do to help, and they congratulated me for seeking help when I needed it. Neither of them changed the way that they interacted with me, and at that point I was certain that they would support me all the way to PhD completion.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Excellent people make every difficult day easier to deal with<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I have been living with depression for quite some time now. Some days I am absolutely fine; you would never even realise that I have depression \u2013 to the extent that sometimes I actually forget. Other days though, it\u2019s not that simple. And as you can probably imagine, difficult days are not always predictable. Sometimes a difficult day means that I don\u2019t get out of bed, sometimes it means I get to work and find that my brain doesn\u2019t function as I want it to and I struggle to get words out coherently. Sometimes difficult days can even last more than one day, turning into difficult weeks with stunted productivity. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Difficult days and weeks are hard because I\u2019m not only forcing my own productivity to come to a standstill, but when I don\u2019t do the things I\u2019m supposed to, it can have a knock-on effect on the people that I work with. However, I\u2019m very fortunate. And I say this because the best bit about my situation is that the people I work with are consistently understanding and supportive. Somehow, both Shaun, and my other PhD supervisor, Dr. Katie Gillies, have managed to strike a balance between being understanding and sensitive, and giving me just the right amount of determination to pick myself back up and get on with navigating this unfamiliar academic landscape to build a successful career. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:.0001pt; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:normal\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>In sum, I\u2019d like to say that whether you are an established academic, or a very early career researcher like me, pay attention to the people around you \u2013 if they are not supporting you and making your life better, then maybe it\u2019s time to reassess things. <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I feel that academic life is notoriously insecure. It seems like we\u2019re constantly scrambling for grant funding, pushing manuscripts we\u2019ve spent years of our lives working on through the arduous process of peer review, and attempting to find pots of money to fund conference attendance so that we can leave our desks behind for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1093,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2414],"tags":[2678,2454,2669],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-2255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-researcher-stories","tag-mental-health-in-academia","tag-researcher-stories","tag-stories-of-struggle"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>If academic life is so difficult, why do I do it?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Heidi Gardner is a Research Assistant working in clinical trials methodology at the University of Aberdeen. 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