Last week, I wrote about the top 3 habits I picked up during my PhD.
This week, the topic is similar but it's a reflection on the 2 habits that I need[ed] to unlearn in my post-PhD life.
I'm going to spread out the posts on the two habits I'm trying to unlearn as I think they need a bit more attention than just one short blog post.
Habit One: The Belief that Academic Work is More Important than Other Work
One observation I made while doing a PhD (and during my Master's degree as well), was that some academics (e.g., professors, grad students, instructors, etc.) view their work as "more important" than any other work. I'm guessing this is due to the "status symbol" of working away in the "ivory tower," where creating knowledge is prized above all else.
I also met so many academics who do not have this belief and recognize this may not be everyone's experience or belief, I'm just writing about my experience.
I have those words above in quotes because they are not things I believed in starting my PhD, but I know they are subconsciously floating around in the heads of many people who are in academia or are academia adjacent.
As I've said before, I had worked for a total of 10 years in a variety of settings, albeit mostly related to education. I didn't quite observe this phenomenon in those settings as much as I see it in academia. Certainly, I've worked with many people who believe their jobs are the most important, but I hadn't observed it at such a systemic level until entering my PhD.
Of all the habits I'm trying to unlearn from my PhD, this one was the one I was most eager to get rid of and I do think and hope that it is mostly gone.
Trying to unlearn the belief that academic work is important is a challenge, especially when it's systemic
This is a hard one for me to even write about because having this belief one of the unspoken rules of academia. How do I know? There were many "emergencies" I encountered while doing a PhD or heard about from others: data sets that had errors in them (spoiler alert - all data sets have errors), conference proposal websites that crashed the day of submission, marking that's not done on time, co-authors who don't get back to you with revisions to meet the journal's deadline, students who want an extension, etc.
Reactions to these "emergencies" would range from making grad students work all weekend to remedy the data set, working long and late hours to reconfigure exams, hiding from co-authors that you hadn't done the promised edits and cancelling plans with friends and family to work, and all other sorts of bad behaviour that I won't mention here.
These are not emergencies. An emergency is a life or death situation and none of these are. If you are about to present with a data set that you know is flawed, nothing will really happen to you even if you are honest about it. However, being in a system where the view of an "emergency" is skewed means that my perception of emergencies was also skewed for a while.
I think this habit, when it is reinforced in a hierarchical system like academia, can often put a lot of pressure on grad students who are already at a disadvantage. It causes extra stress, anxiety, overwork, burnout, and the development of unsustainable work practices.
Post-PhD, I still noticed it when I was working on certain projects. I would have this little moment where I think I needed to proceed at the cost of other projects and myself to finish it. I'd start to give a false sense of importance to certain work that isn't actually important at all, rather than other, more important things such as my own physical and mental health, relationships, my community, world issues, etc.
This is why I think this belief was so hard for me to get away from: when any project or task that I was working on was infused with this "academic work is the most important work" belief, I think it negatively affected me in that I would push to finish tasks at a rate that was beyond sustainable.
The way that I have seen this habit slowly disappear in myself has been a relief, especially since I don't value anyone's work above anyone else's; we are all engaged in important work, however we define that for ourselves.
When I hear this belief popping up from grad students who are burnt out, stressed, anxious, and lack confidence, we talk about how the system they are in - their supervisors, peers, departments, faculties, and/or institutions - is likely heavily entrenched in this belief. If you are doing a grad degree at a "prestigious" school or are in a "competitive" program, you probably know what I'm talking about.
To close, I recognize that this is based on my own experience and I know many grad students who went through their programs without facing this belief. However, our beliefs about ourselves and our work are so important and I think that this is one I reflect on a lot, especially now that I'm three years out from finishing my PhD.
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