April 2019
Congratulations, you’ve made it to graduate school! Everything is new, shinny, and exciting! Your parents are proud (some might be mad) of your decision, your friends think your smart, and you? Well you just can’t wait to dive into your new research. You are excited about your project, and you want to do your part to contribute to the scientific world. Maybe you want to make the world a better place, maybe you need this degree to get that job that you really want, or maybe you always liked school and thought graduate school would be College 2.0. I too was a wide-eyed first-year full of awe and appreciation for just being “here”. I am still wide-eyed and full of appreciation. I still want to make the world better and I definitely want to earn my place as a scientist. But as a 5th-year graduate student I usually get more preoccupied with graduating and meeting deadlines.
As we progress through grad school, the demands of the graduate life start piling up and it gets easy to forget why you came here in the first place. Maintaining life-work balance seems unattainable many times, and the very nature of research will have you constantly dealing with set-backs and failures. You start spending more and more time working in the lab, writing, reading, grading papers, going to seminars, participating in meetings, preparing journal clubs, or attending conferences. No matter how prepared you for the grad school work or whether someone warned you about the challenges you’ll be facing, graduate school always turns out to be more time-consuming and demanding than you anticipate. Experiments usually take longer than you plan, even when you buffer in additional time and make generous estimations.
So, inevitably, you start rearranging your priorities little by little. You start missing family or friends’ gatherings, you exercise less, your leisure reading list piles up, and you give up most of your “non-essential hobbies”. I, for example, stopped rock climbing. I told myself I would jump back into it when I graduated because right now it wasn’t a priority. I used to go hiking every Sunday looking for good bouldering spots hidden in the mountains but I haven’t done that more than a couple of times in the last 5 years. I have never been a morning person, but back then I couldn’t be happier to wake up at dawn and carry my climbing equipment uphill under the scorching +100°F whether of the desert, with only water, cans of tuna, and good music.
I never really stopped to think about how many things I had given up or added to my “to be done when I graduate” list until one of my friends actually graduated. She landed her dream job at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a few days after defending moved to D.C. to work a full-time job. A few months after she moved, I sent her an email asking her to proofread a newsletter I was putting together. Given her new position I apologetically ended my email with “I know you are probably really busy, but if you have any time would you send me some comments?”. To my surprise, she responded that she wasn’t busy at all! She had all this free time now – she joined a book club, she was cooking fancy dinners with her fiancé, she was hiking every weekend, she’s was planning a trip to Ireland in a month, and she had caught up with all of her reading! I joked about how much I hated her for rubbing it in, I laughed and turned around to read the email to a friend that was sitting across from me expecting her to find it as funny as I did. Instead, my friend looked at me in silence for a while. She finally sighted and said - “That’s the type of person I want to be when I am older, a person with hobbies”. In that very moment, I realized I didn’t have any hobbies left either. More importantly, I realized how much I missed doing those things, and how unhappy I was making myself for giving them up.
Don’t get me wrong, working hard – in grad school or anywhere else – is very rewarding and it is fundamental to be successful. But mental and physical health are vital to stay motivated and focused.
It reminded me of a popular story a faculty member told us a few years back about a lumberjack:
There was a lumberjack that had too much work a particular summer. No matter how hard he worked there was barely enough daylight to complete everything he had to do if he wanted to finish the job by the deadline. One day, a man walking in the woods heard the lumberjack yelling and cursing, so he stopped to offer help.
What’s the problem? – asked the man.
Well I have been trying to cut down this tree for hours but my saw is blunt and it won’t cut the tree anymore – responded the lumberjack.
Wouldn’t it be better to sharpen the saw? – Observed the passing man.
I am too busy, can’t you see?! I don’t have time to sharpen or replace the blade. I need to finish this job! – snapped the lumberjack.
We are all probably guilty of having done this at some point or another. We have all been so busy that we decline an invitation to go out or deny us a break because we just don’t have time. Yet, we are so tired that we end up doing nothing for the rest of the afternoon other than feeling guilty about all the work we should be doing. Let’s be honest, work is endless and you can always be doing something more but unless you take good care of yourself, you cannot be your best and most efficient self.
Now that I have been making time again for some of my old habits or hobbies, I have again found my purpose in science. I started remembering how much I love doing what I do. I again talk about my research and feel excited about what I am doing. So next time you are too busy to do anything take that small break instead. Find that movie, book, friend, game, workout routine, or nap you need, and then go back to work with a sharp new blade!
--- Mabel Terminel
Mabel Terminel is a Ph.D. student in the College of Science
As we progress through grad school, the demands of the graduate life start piling up and it gets easy to forget why you came here in the first place. Maintaining life-work balance seems unattainable many times, and the very nature of research will have you constantly dealing with set-backs and failures. You start spending more and more time working in the lab, writing, reading, grading papers, going to seminars, participating in meetings, preparing journal clubs, or attending conferences. No matter how prepared you for the grad school work or whether someone warned you about the challenges you’ll be facing, graduate school always turns out to be more time-consuming and demanding than you anticipate. Experiments usually take longer than you plan, even when you buffer in additional time and make generous estimations.
So, inevitably, you start rearranging your priorities little by little. You start missing family or friends’ gatherings, you exercise less, your leisure reading list piles up, and you give up most of your “non-essential hobbies”. I, for example, stopped rock climbing. I told myself I would jump back into it when I graduated because right now it wasn’t a priority. I used to go hiking every Sunday looking for good bouldering spots hidden in the mountains but I haven’t done that more than a couple of times in the last 5 years. I have never been a morning person, but back then I couldn’t be happier to wake up at dawn and carry my climbing equipment uphill under the scorching +100°F whether of the desert, with only water, cans of tuna, and good music.
I never really stopped to think about how many things I had given up or added to my “to be done when I graduate” list until one of my friends actually graduated. She landed her dream job at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a few days after defending moved to D.C. to work a full-time job. A few months after she moved, I sent her an email asking her to proofread a newsletter I was putting together. Given her new position I apologetically ended my email with “I know you are probably really busy, but if you have any time would you send me some comments?”. To my surprise, she responded that she wasn’t busy at all! She had all this free time now – she joined a book club, she was cooking fancy dinners with her fiancé, she was hiking every weekend, she’s was planning a trip to Ireland in a month, and she had caught up with all of her reading! I joked about how much I hated her for rubbing it in, I laughed and turned around to read the email to a friend that was sitting across from me expecting her to find it as funny as I did. Instead, my friend looked at me in silence for a while. She finally sighted and said - “That’s the type of person I want to be when I am older, a person with hobbies”. In that very moment, I realized I didn’t have any hobbies left either. More importantly, I realized how much I missed doing those things, and how unhappy I was making myself for giving them up.
Don’t get me wrong, working hard – in grad school or anywhere else – is very rewarding and it is fundamental to be successful. But mental and physical health are vital to stay motivated and focused.
It reminded me of a popular story a faculty member told us a few years back about a lumberjack:
There was a lumberjack that had too much work a particular summer. No matter how hard he worked there was barely enough daylight to complete everything he had to do if he wanted to finish the job by the deadline. One day, a man walking in the woods heard the lumberjack yelling and cursing, so he stopped to offer help.
What’s the problem? – asked the man.
Well I have been trying to cut down this tree for hours but my saw is blunt and it won’t cut the tree anymore – responded the lumberjack.
Wouldn’t it be better to sharpen the saw? – Observed the passing man.
I am too busy, can’t you see?! I don’t have time to sharpen or replace the blade. I need to finish this job! – snapped the lumberjack.
We are all probably guilty of having done this at some point or another. We have all been so busy that we decline an invitation to go out or deny us a break because we just don’t have time. Yet, we are so tired that we end up doing nothing for the rest of the afternoon other than feeling guilty about all the work we should be doing. Let’s be honest, work is endless and you can always be doing something more but unless you take good care of yourself, you cannot be your best and most efficient self.
Now that I have been making time again for some of my old habits or hobbies, I have again found my purpose in science. I started remembering how much I love doing what I do. I again talk about my research and feel excited about what I am doing. So next time you are too busy to do anything take that small break instead. Find that movie, book, friend, game, workout routine, or nap you need, and then go back to work with a sharp new blade!
--- Mabel Terminel
Mabel Terminel is a Ph.D. student in the College of Science