you have to be one to know one

Yesterday, I went to hear Jorge Cham’s talk, “The Power of Procrastination.” I discovered Cham's PhD comics shortly after beginning grad school and was sold on his remarkable ability to relate precisely what the average grad student endures through comics. His talk was entertaining enough, but I think his comics are far better. Although I was grateful to learn a few new things, like Newton’s Three Laws of Graduation:

First Law: “A grad student in procrastination tends to stay in procrastination unless an external force is applied to it.”

Also, his mention of a recent survey of graduate student conducted by U.C. Berkeley which found that:

• 95% of all graduate students feel overwhelmed
  
• 67% reported feeling hopeless at times
  
• about 10% had seriously considered suicide
  
• 1 in 200 had actually attempted suicide in the last year

made me reconsider a question that I’m sure I’ve thought about before: Is graduate school itself the cause of such angst? Or are the sorts of people who go to graduate school predisposed to falling prey to such feelings?

Link to one of my all time favorite PhD comics.