博士生的精神健康不容樂觀

By Alia Wong

“I was always gung ho1 about going to graduate school for some reason，” reflects Everet Rummel， a data analyst at the City University of New York. “That was naive.”

Rummel was indeed gung ho， embarking on a doctoral program in economics immediately after completing both his bachelors and masters degrees in just four years. He was only 22 years old. And Rummel was indeed naive， at least in his own telling of his plans. That plan—which for the average doctoral candidate takes roughly eight years—ended quickly， not because of Rummels characteristic efficiency but because he never completed it. “I dropped out，” he explains， attributing the decision to a lot of different factors， many of them not directly related to his studies， but each pointing back to the all-encompassing， unforgiving stress of his Ph.D. program.2

One major stressor3， he says， was the requirement that all firstyear Ph.D. economics students take the same three courses. But other major stressors are likely to resonate4 with graduate students in all kinds of disciplines. The doctoral-degree experience often consists of intense labor expectations for little pay and a resulting lack of sleep and social life.5 In addition， there is the notorious hierarchy of academia， which often promotes power struggles and tribalism.6

上學(xué)的時候，老師們常說：世界上沒有比讀書更容易的事情了。然而對那些正在攻讀博士學(xué)位的人來說，讀書，讓他們喪失了休閑娛樂的時間，讓他們在貧困線的邊緣掙扎，讓他們不斷質(zhì)疑自己對社會的意義，也讓他們因此忍受著更大的精神壓力。

To make matters worse， the payoff for all that stress may be wanting：7 A 2014 report found that nearly 40 percent of the doctoral students surveyed hadnt secured a job at the time of graduation. Whats more， roughly 13 percent of Ph.D. recipients graduate with more than $70，000 in education-related debt， though in the humanities the percentage is about twice that. And for those who do secure an academic post， census data suggest that close to a third of part-time university faculty—many of whom are graduate students—live near or below the poverty line.8

A new study by a team of Harvard-affiliated9 researchers highlights one of the consequences of these realities： Graduate students are disproportionately likely to struggle with mental-health issues. The researchers surveyed roughly 500 economics Ph.D. candidates at eight elite universities， and found that 18 percent of them experienced moderate or severe symptoms of depression and anxiety. Thats more than three times the national average， according to the study. Roughly one in 10 students in the Harvard survey also reported having suicidal thoughts on at least several days within the prior two weeks. （Other recent studies have had similar findings， including one published earlier this year that described graduatestudent mental health as a “crisis.”）

The studys results， which also include survey responses from nearly 200 faculty members， indicate that many Ph.D. students mental-health troubles are exacerbated10， if not caused， by their graduateeducation experiences. Roughly half of the respondents in the Harvard study with anxiety and/or depression had been diagnosed sometime after starting their graduate studies. And students toward the end of their programs were far more likely than those who were just embarking on their graduate journeys to report severe symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Graduate students cite the combination of financial and professional pressures as a significant challenge. Lucy Johnson， an assistant professor of digital literacies11 at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire， says that the financial burdens of her Ph.D. studies made it difficult for her to “escape the graduate curriculum”—by， say， seeing a movie or going out for dinner. Students who already feel isolated by their rigorous12 academic work are bound to feel even more isolated by their financial troubles， she suggests. Like many of her peers， Johnson eventually took out loans13 to support herself.

And then there is the academic pressure itself. Graduate education relies on “this idea that we have to produce， produce， produce， or do a lot more labor than others， so were worn quite thin，” says Johnson， noting that such labor is often promoted under the guise of14 “professionalization.” “I think its something were just supposed to accept as being part of the process.”

Similarly， Rummel—who had long daydreamed of becoming a professor， drawn to the promise of tenure and the prospect of conferences where he could discuss many topics ad nauseam with like-minded “nerds”—says that he and his peers were expected to treat their doctoral education as a “rite of passage.”15“To get that life， you have to pay your dues16—and then some，” says Rummel， whos now 25. “Its accepted that youre supposed to hate your life for a long time.” His school made some effort to ameliorate17 students stress—hosting events on self-care， for example， and offering free massages during finalexam weeks. “But no one，” he adds， “has time for that.”

Compounding18 the pressures is the sense， at least according to the economics Ph.D. candidates surveyed by the Harvard researchers， that their work isnt useful or beneficial to society. Only a quarter of the studys respondents reported feeling as if their work was useful always or most of the time， compared with 63 percent of the entire working-age population. Only a fifth of the respondents thought that they had opportunities to make a positive impact on their community.

Regardless， relatively few study participants reported receiving regular mental-health treatment—including just one in four of the respondents whod experienced suicidal thoughts. And perhaps most tellingly， the graduate students in the study who scored worse than average on a mental-health assessment tended to think that their mental health was better than average. Among those who reported that they recently had suicidal thoughts， 26 percent assumed that their psychological well-being was better than the norm. This dissonance hints at the ubiquity of the problem19—the widespread acceptance of poor mental health as a fact of life in graduate education.

1. gung ho： 起勁的，狂熱的。

2.“我輟學(xué)了，”他解釋道。他將這一決定歸結(jié)為許多不同的因素，其中很多與學(xué)業(yè)并不直接相關(guān)，但都與博士項(xiàng)目中林林總總、難以擺脫的壓力息息相關(guān)。allencompassing： 包羅萬象的。

3. stressor： 導(dǎo)致緊張（焦慮）的事物。

4. resonate： 發(fā)出回響，產(chǎn)生共鳴。

5. 追求博士學(xué)位的過程通常工作繁重，而酬勞卻微乎其微，隨之而來的是睡眠不足和社交缺乏。

6. notorious： 臭名昭著的； hierarchy：等級制度，分級體系；academia：學(xué)術(shù)界；tribalism： 部落制度，此處指拉幫結(jié)派。

7. payoff： 結(jié)果，報(bào)償；wanting：不令人滿意的，不合要求的。

8. post： 職位，職務(wù)；census data：人口普查數(shù)據(jù)；poverty line：貧困線。

9. Harvard-affiliated： 隸屬于哈佛大學(xué)的。

10. exacerbate： 使惡化，使加劇。

11. digital literacy： 數(shù)位素養(yǎng)，即運(yùn)用電腦及網(wǎng)絡(luò)資源來搜集、評估、整合數(shù)據(jù)信息的能力。

12. rigorous： 嚴(yán)格的，嚴(yán)厲的。

13. take out loans： 申請貸款。

14. under the guise of...： 在……的偽裝之下。文中指這些繁重的工作是掩藏在“專業(yè)化”的偽裝之下的。

15. 同樣，在拉梅爾這樣一心想當(dāng)教授的人看來——他沉浸在獲得終身教職的憧憬之中，想象著自己在會議上和書呆子同僚們令人可笑地探討許多主題——博士階段對于他和他的同事來說就是一個過渡儀式。tenure： 終身教職；ad nauseam： 討厭地，令人可笑地；rite of passage： 一般指個體從一個群體中離開，進(jìn)入另一個群體的儀式，比如成年禮、婚禮等。

16. pay ones dues：〈美俚〉經(jīng)受苦難，取得經(jīng)驗(yàn)。

17. ameliorate： 改善，減輕。

18. compound： 使惡化，使加重。

19. dissonance： 不和諧；ubiquity：無處不在，普遍存在。

閱讀感評

∷秋葉 評

二十年前，我成為了一所著名大學(xué)的博士生。經(jīng)過整整六年的寒窗苦讀和導(dǎo)師的苛求與批評（我的專業(yè)就是文學(xué)批評，但對于施加在自己頭上的過多的批評，回想起來還是有些灰心喪氣），雖然勉強(qiáng)抵達(dá)了終點(diǎn)，可謂浴火重生，但攻讀博士之路就像游子漂泊在外，急于要找回自我的歸鄉(xiāng)之路。這六年生涯，恰如費(fèi)翔在《故鄉(xiāng)的云》中所唱的，“踏著沉重的腳步，歸鄉(xiāng)路是那么的漫長/我已是滿懷疲憊，眼里是酸楚的淚/我曾經(jīng)豪情萬丈，歸來卻空空的行囊！”我后來知道，讀博經(jīng)歷成為人生永遠(yuǎn)之痛的，實(shí)在是不乏其例。與我同系同專業(yè)的一位學(xué)長，在讀博期間罹患不治之癥，完成論文并答辯通過后，人生也走到了終點(diǎn)。我還認(rèn)識一位已屆中年的女博士生，在原單位已晉身為教授職銜，但在讀期間與導(dǎo)師不和，論文遲遲得不到實(shí)質(zhì)性指導(dǎo)，無法提交答辯，后患上狂躁抑郁癥，與導(dǎo)師溝通中數(shù)次采取極端手段，最終被開除學(xué)籍，遣返回家。

從原文里的調(diào)查數(shù)據(jù)來看，美國博士生的精神狀況應(yīng)該要更為嚴(yán)重。據(jù)稱，在美國八所精英大學(xué)的約500名經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)博士生中，18%有焦慮與抑郁癥狀，是社會平均值的三倍以上。另外，在哈佛大學(xué)的博士生中，有十分之一的人在過去的半個月中有過自殺的想法，而且半數(shù)是在入學(xué)后才出現(xiàn)此精神健康危機(jī)的。美國博士生在此方面與中國相比有過之而無不及，顯然與他們在學(xué)業(yè)與經(jīng)濟(jì)上所承受的更為沉重的負(fù)擔(dān)有關(guān)。在學(xué)制上，我國博士培養(yǎng)期限一般為3—6年，而在美國要長達(dá)7—12年，同時，在各個環(huán)節(jié)的把關(guān)上，我們往往有著更多的人情照顧因素，而他們卻更為嚴(yán)格，只認(rèn)事不認(rèn)人。這也就是為什么美國博士生真正畢業(yè)的不足入學(xué)數(shù)量的一半，而在我國這種情況則比較罕見。在中國，一位學(xué)生不間斷地從小學(xué)入學(xué)直至博士畢業(yè)，通常要?dú)v經(jīng)寒窗二十多載，風(fēng)雨后見彩虹之時已近而立之年，而在美國，更是早已步入中年了。王國維提出做學(xué)問有三種境界，依次為：“昨夜西風(fēng)凋碧樹。獨(dú)上高樓，望盡天涯路。”“衣帶漸寬終不悔，為伊消得人憔悴。”“眾里尋他千百度，驀然回首，那人卻在，燈火闌珊處?！鼻懊鎯煞N境界，相信絕大部分的博士生們都經(jīng)歷了，但“驀然回首”時，等待他們的卻往往并不美妙。近幾年來在中國，這些所謂“最強(qiáng)大腦”畢業(yè)生（super-smart graduates）要在高校與研究機(jī)構(gòu)謀得體制內(nèi)的教職與研究職位，難度已越來越大。即便謀得一個較為理想的職業(yè)，待遇也很有限，生活會相當(dāng)清苦，在城市里要成立家庭、安居樂業(yè)實(shí)為不易，而他們的本科或碩士階段的同學(xué)恐怕早已有房有車有家庭了，他們之間的差別就是“讀還是不讀博士”?！袄硐牒茇S滿，現(xiàn)實(shí)很骨感”，這句前幾年在我們社會上流行的話真是對他們的很好概括！而在美國，情況也好不到哪兒去，投入與產(chǎn)出更是倒掛嚴(yán)重。

在美國，大部分博士生靠獎學(xué)金，靠當(dāng)助教或助研以及申請學(xué)生貸款來支付學(xué)費(fèi)與生活費(fèi)，甚至有的還需動用家庭、個人甚至配偶的存款。有調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，大約13%的美國博士生畢業(yè)時，其累積的助學(xué)貸款高達(dá)七萬多美元，文科學(xué)生更是加倍。然而更糟的是，他們中的絕大部分人在畢業(yè)時債臺高筑，卻工作無著。一個2014年的調(diào)查顯示，美國博士畢業(yè)生中無法找到固定職業(yè)的已占到40%左右。高期望與低現(xiàn)實(shí)之間的巨大反差，往往深深地刺痛了他們的內(nèi)心，更讓他們感覺無法向家人、配偶甚至多年苦讀的自我有個完滿的交代。有美國朋友告訴我，在這些年，你如果冒昧地問一位臨近畢業(yè)的博士生是否找到了工作，得到的回應(yīng)很有可能是其“驟然爆發(fā)的類似恐慌的癥狀（instant panic-like symptoms）”。在動物界，達(dá)爾文已概括出“survival of the fittest（適者生存）”的叢林法則，但愿在高度文明的人類學(xué)術(shù)界，為求生存與發(fā)展，不至于如此殘酷！