Mental health of postgraduate students

By Alanis Olesch-Byrne, PhD Candidate, James Cook University  

This week we are discussing the mental health of postgraduate students. Postgraduate students are the future of research, innovation and teaching in academia, industry and government.

According to Dr. Cassie M Hazell, a lecturer in Social Science at the University of Westminster, there is ‘mental health Crisis' brewing in postgraduate students. Their research found that PhD students ‘were more likely to meet the criteria for clinical levels of depression and anxiety’. It was also found that 40% of students thought that having a mental health problem during your PhD is the ‘norm’- “There is a common belief … you must suffer for the sake of your PhD, if you are not anxious or suffering from impostor syndrome, then you are not doing it "properly”. Furthermore, over a third of students had considered ending their studies due to mental health. Unfortunately, the world of academia encourages a climate of over work and under appreciation. In addition, a report published by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) in Washington DC, stated that ‘graduate students face challenges, such as poor mentorship, the inability to access counselling services and a lack of training for non-academic careers.

I do not want this to be all doom and gloom, but it is important to understand what factors may contribute to these feeling amongst the postgraduate cohort. According to Dr. Hazell risk factors that could lead to poor mental health include financial insecurity, poor relationship with a PhD supervisor, lack of external interest PhD and the prevalence of perfectionism/imposter syndrome leading to a feeling of being isolated.

So, what can we do as postgraduate students to mitigate our mental health during our PhDs?

In a nature article by Nikki Forrester, some postgraduate students have found ways that they manage their mental health. These include taking time away from your work, going for a lunch time walk or reclaiming your weekends. Comparing yourself with yourself, PhD progression is not linear and if you can look back at yourself at the start of the year or start of your PhD you will see that you have made progress. Seek support networks, which can be easier said than done but placing yourself in a supportive environment is a wonderful place to start. This can include peer support networks, like the WOMEESA peer mentoring program starting in June or approach your Postgraduate representative at your university or email me (Alanis) and I can point you in the right direction.

Read Dr Hazell article in the conversation and this nature article.

Summer of science - starting off at sea!

If you’re heading out into the field this summer, working in the lab, starting a new project, whatever you’re involved in - we would love to share a bit about your work on the WOMEESA blog - get in touch through Twitter or email Jess!

On the 22nd October, a team of kiwi scientists from GNS Science and NIWA departed Wellington on board NIWA’s blue water Research Vessel Tangaroa and headed to the Tasman Sea. This represents a rare and noteworthy occasion for a geophysics-focused project where the majority of the science party are women, including voyage leader Dr Sally Watson and co-lead Dr Jess Hillman. 

There were two main goals of the trip: 1) to map the seafloor offshore Taranaki for the first time using multibeam echosounders, and 2) to image the subsurface in high-resolution to reveal the sediment cover over a buried mega-landslide. The underwater landslide that sparked this project is the largest documented in New Zealand’s geological history, with its deposit extending more than 200 km from the shelf break. Initial modelling suggests that this mega-landslide was big enough to cause a 70 m tsunami wave at the coast, impacting coastal communities on both sides of the Tasman Sea.

Whilst at sea, the team mapped >4,800 km2 of seafloor, revealing a series of never-seen-before underwater canyons, numerous pockmarks and a multitude of smaller-scale landslides on the seabed. This voyage represents part one of two voyages under a newly funded project, led by Dr Suzanne Bull, aiming to constrain the timing of this mega-landslide and determine whether it could happen again. The follow-up voyage is scheduled for March 2022, and will be focusing on gathering sediment cores and rock samples to assist in dating the failure event.

Working from home

Over the past month or so pretty much all of us will have been impacted in some way by the COVID-19 pandemic. For many of us, this has meant transitioning to working from home, and all that this entails! There are many challenges associated with this, and everyone is facing different issues, and dealing with this in their own way. Whether you’ve got kids at home, family members or friends who depend on you as a carer, an overactive new puppy, a really terrible internet connection, no space for a ‘home office’, or you hate having to cook every day………….there are going to be challenges!

This quote was sent out in an email by our HR group, and it makes a very good point - this isn’t just ‘working from home’ - there is just so much going on at the moment that we cannot control! Find what works for you, and above all - be kind - to yourself, and to others.

““If you’re finding working from home hard going, remember you are not working from home. You are at home during a pandemic trying to work. There’s a difference”. ”

For some of us, the transition has been fairly straightforward in terms of logistics. I have a sort-of-desk at home and all of my work is computer based, so it was simply a case of collecting an extra computer monitor from my office to make things a bit easier. I’ve got a nice quiet space to work in (aside from my partner occasionally swearing at his computer on the other side of the living room while he works), we don’t have kids, and we both love cooking - so overall we’re pretty lucky!

But it isn’t that straightforward - I’ve had to deal with two research voyages and an outreach programme being rescheduled, as well as a big trip to see family being cancelled. I hate uncertainty and like to have everything planned out, so having to cross out months of carefully planned and coordinated events has been heartbreaking!! And being far away from family when they need help is really tough.

How do you cope when life gets turned upside down?

Here are a few suggestions that WOMEESA members have shared:

  • Be kind to yourself - there will be bad days, don’t let them get you down!

  • Create structure - have a routine, for yourself and for the kids if you have them - some people find that this helps their kids cope, and it can help create a distinction between ‘work’ time, and when it is time to switch off.

  • Speaking of kids - home schooling is not easy, nor is juggling childcare and a job! There might be days when it all goes a bit pear-shaped and your child ends up with playmobile stuck up their nose while you’re in a conference call…….children are resilient, you’re doing an awesome job!

  • Taking naps at any age is perfectly acceptable - some people find it really helps with productivity and it can really help if you’re not sleeping well at night

  • Relax your expectations and trust your integrity! There’s a great article by Dr Melanie Smith here on working from home.

  • Focusing is tough, you might find that you have ‘golden hours’ where you can get far more done than you do for the rest of the day (or week!)

  • No one is perfect, don’t believe everything you read online, especially those people who claim to be cranking out six papers and a grant application whilst baking fresh sourdough every morning!!

  • Need some extra motivation? Join a #SUAW session with other WOMEESA members - keep an eye on your emails and/or Twitter for more details!

  • Have a stay at home house husband! - this one requires some forward planning……

  • You can salvage a bad day! There’s a lovely article from Aisha S. Ahmad here that tells you how.

I recently came across the Te Whare Tapa Whā model through a leadership workshop. The model was originally developed by Mason Durie to help understand Māori health and well-being. The same principles can also be applied to dealing with working from home, tackling problems, and getting through a crisis. The four ‘cornerstones’ of the model are summarised in the image below. We often find that when faced with an issue, one or more of these cornerstones becomes neglected.

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And to end, a few useful, and/or entertaining links that might be of interest!

  • Oliver Jeffer’s TED talk: An ode to living on earth

  • Charlie Mackesy’s wonderful drawings - guaranteed to make you smile on the worst of days

  • How to stay positive during COVID-19 - advice from a professor of happiness

  • Learn about newly discovered deep sea creatures offshore Western Australia

  • Support small local businesses with vouchers or donations - this is NZ based, but I think there are other equivalents elsewhere! Buy a voucher and look forward to enjoying a trip to your favourite cafe, bakery, restaurant, whatever takes your fancy!

  • Great list of educational resources for all ages

  • Craving chocolate cake but all out of eggs and butter? Try this dairy free recipe - trust me, its really good!

  • Love all things marine? Check out Monterey Bay Aquarium’s learning at home page. They also have live web feeds of some of their tanks - the otters are adorable!

  • Science fun for kids with Nanogirl Labs! New ideas to try every day.

Celebrating women in science!

During the 2019 Annual Conference of the Geoscience Society of New Zealand in Hamilton last week, WOMEESA hosted a lunch time session focused around celebrating women in science! While there are still many issues and challenges faced by women in science, we thought it would be good to focus on the positive side of things and talk about some of the amazing achievements of women in earth and environmental science in New Zealand. The image below summarises some of the recent successes for women from all over New Zealand. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully this helps to highlight some the great work that is being done!

During the session we did a little brainstorming, asking attendees to answer the following questions and share their ideas. The aim of this was to kick start some conversations, get people sharing ideas, and hopefully start the development of online resources that are useful for WOMEESA members.

  • Best outreach activity, website, resource?

  • What’s your favourite mineral/element? (Inspired by MinCup!)

  • Best software/code - and where do you go to get help if you need it?

  • Favourite software for collaborative research? e.g., working on a manuscript, proposal with co-authors

  • Who’s your science heroine?

I’ve collated the answers we got onto the image here (the software ideas are combined) - thanks to everyone who came along and took part, hopefully you found this useful and got some new ideas! There is also a list at the end of this post for some of the resources that came up in the discussion, along with a list of grants that are available for women in science in New Zealand. If you know of any others, please let us know and we’ll add them to the list.

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Why do we need role models?

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Although it was published about a year ago, I only recently came across the latest addition to the Mr Men and Little Miss series – Little Miss Inventor – thanks to a Twitter post by Juliet Gerrard, the chief science advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand. I remember reading these books when I was a young child, the simple, bright, colourful illustrations were great – although I think Mr Tickle gave me nightmares! Little Miss Inventor is described as being "full of ideas, which she turns into extraordinary inventions in a shed at the bottom of her garden". The book was released on 8 March 2018 to coincide with International Women's Day and British Science Week. Roger Hargreaves, author of the Little Miss series, said "It's also been nice to write a story that promotes a positive role model and to challenge a stereotype, if only in a small way."

Seeing this latest addition to the expanding cast of characters in the series made me think about the role models that we have in STEM. The significance of role models has become more and more apparent as we try to tackle the gender gap across a huge range of careers, disciplines and topics. A study in 2018 found that the odds of female students persisting in Geoscience approximately doubled for each role model they identified (Hernandez et al. 2018). Role models can be defined as people that inspire others to follow in their footsteps to achieve similar success, or alternatively motivate others to avoid making the same mistakes that they did (Hernandez et al. 2018, Lockwood et al., 2002, Lockwood and Kunda, 1997). A role model doesn’t have to be someone that you know intimately, it could be from afar, someone you read about or heard of in the news.

“A lack of counter-stereotypic female role models communicates messages of not belonging or being different or incompatible, which may discourage women from pursuing degrees and careers in these fields (Herrmann et al., 2016).” – essentially, if you can’t see it, how do you know you can be it?

Experiments have shown that exposing women to successful and competent female scientific role models can promote more positive attitudes toward science, a deeper feeling of belonging in science, and stronger feelings of commitment to pursue scientific careers (Cheryan et al., 2011, 2013; Clark et al., 2016; Herrmann et al., 2016; Rosenthal et al., 2013; Shin et al., 2016; Young et al., 2013).

However; there is still some debate as to whether role models have to be gender-matched in order to have a positive impact. A 2016 study looking at the influence of role models in broadening participation in science found that engaging in authentic science and viewing female scientists as personable were keys to changes among students, rather than just gender matching between the role model and student (Carsten Connor and Danielson, 2016). A similar experiment in 2015 found that there were 4 critical factors in determining whether students connected with scientists as role models, these were; connection, passion, the ‘wow’ factor and lastly, the scientists ability to be an innate teacher (Farland-Smith, 2015). On the other hand, a 2018 study in France found that female role models in science had a greater impact on female students than on male students – so there is still room for debate (Breda et al. 2018). But they also found that female role models helped to reduce strongly-held perceptions that about the stereotypes of gender roles in science among all the students. So perhaps it isn’t just about being able to see someone who looks like you, doing the job you want, but it is also important to be able to connect with them, understand why they love what they do, and critically, for them to be able to convey that knowledge to any audience.

 

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Over the last 5 years Science & Technology Australia have been working to create a critical mass of celebrity Australian female scientists and technologists through their Superstars of Stem programme. The programme works to build public profiles of women employed in STEM, help them gain skills in public speaking and communication, empower participants to share their work, smash imposter syndrome and build confidence and directly encourage young women and girls to study and stay in STEM. This has been hugely successful, and we’re very proud to have several members of WOMEESA among the current group of Superstars including Dr Teresa Ubide, Dr Kate Selway and Dr Verity Normington!

Impostor Syndrome

Guest post by Dr Jackie Webb, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Like many in academia, I battle with impostor phenomenon (IP). More commonly known today as impostor syndrome, IP revolves around feelings of inadequacy, including anxiety over intellectual phoniness and the persistent self-doubt in abilities. Often viewed as an internal struggle within individuals, IP remains a largely unaddressed issue in academia, with limited support for those experiencing it. However, this is a universal problem affecting the research strengths of institutions as chronic IP is unknowingly limiting the success of highly capable early career women scientists.

Reasons why women feel like an impostor

Research shows that a higher incidence of women in STEM careers experience IP. In fact, the origin of the term was first coined by a female psychologist, Dr Pauline Rose Clance, who found that IP was rife in a subset of 150 high achieving female students and scholars (Clance and Imes 1978). 

Image source: XKCD

Image source: XKCD

Although it is now recognised that individuals of any gender and background can experience these debilitating feelings of low self-worth, impostorism can be more detrimental to women advancing in the workplace (Young, 2011). There are many reasons why women in science can feel like impostors. This can be because science is still viewed as a very much male-dominated culture. Women are navigating careers and moving up in leadership roles, but men still hold the majority of these positions within higher education. With this lack of representation, it is no surprise that women in academia feel intimidated and sometimes unwelcome. The competitiveness of science can also in-adversely create a toxic work culture. The many different objective measures of success in academic roles can heighten the blow of rejections, and this combined with unmoderated criticism from all directions can greatly devalue an individual’s self-worth.

Given that many early career female scientists feel overwhelmingly insecure in their roles, it's important that we create more awareness so that action can be taken to support women battling with IP. I'd like to share my own personal story with IP and offer some advice in what I have found helps with managing it.

My story

My young age and self-imposed high standards seeded a lot of my own feelings of self-doubt as I progressed through undergrad and graduate school. During my undergraduate degree, my confidence went downhill pretty fast. Straight out of high school and moving from a small Island in the south Pacific to the Australia mainland, university was a scary time for me and a huge adjustment. Many students were mature age in my Environmental Science course, and to me everyone appeared a whole lot more comfortable in themselves which heightened feelings that I didn't belong. I did not know what IP was at the time but looking back, I had it bad. 

Despite achieving high grades, my insecurity became so extreme that I was seriously considering dropping out at the end of my second year. A lot of convincing from my now husband kept me going. I'm glad I did stay on as in my third year I found some units that really sparked my interest, enough for me to forget about IP feelings for a moment, and this founded the path to a career in research.

I went on to complete my honours and PhD with some inspiring and highly supportive scientists. My work in carbon biogeochemistry of ecosystems was very rewarding. I experienced more that feeling of accomplishment that comes with unravelling findings from your own data and publishing in peer review scientific journals. I loved the work and was convinced I had found my calling. However, I often found myself intimidated by my more senior peers and I was still questioning my own abilities. I put myself under a lot of pressure with my both my work and personal achievements. I criticized myself every day and this would often lead to feelings of not being good enough, no matter how insignificant the task. Once again, I was one of the youngest lab members and everyone was highly productive and achieving great things. I felt the most inexperienced and sometimes thought I might be a burden to my supervisors and team members.

Then I started my postdoc at the ripe young age of 25. After successfully completing my PhD in three years, I found myself in a new highly qualified role, in a new country where I was not a student anymore, and surrounded by highly qualified colleagues. The stakes are higher in terms of establishing your career during a postdoc, with research outputs and more managerial responsibilities. Despite having the qualifications and proven track record on par with any other postdoc, I was super conscious of my age and at times felt I wasn't deserving to be at this career level. The age gap felt wider here as I was in North America where graduate school generally takes much longer. It didn't help that I was often mistaken for a student within the institution and at conferences, which lead to thoughts like "maybe it’s because I speak naively and just don't have the maturity that comes with being a qualified scientist"?

During my PhD and postdoc, I did learn to push myself into opportunities that I did not feel prepared for, and found myself rising to the occasion and succeeding. I handle paper rejections and critical reviews of my work much better now by letting those first emotions arise, acknowledging they are unrelated to me personally, then pushing them aside once I'm ready. I have been fortunate enough to have really supportive colleagues who made a point of letting me know my value to the team. I am very grateful for these ‘believers’ and aspire to be a believer to other students one day. IP feelings still arise but I learn to just acknowledge them and precede anyway. There are still some falls and mistakes made along the way, but this is the only way to keep moving forward in my role as a research scientist. We are all our own worst critic, the trick is to not let this become debilitating. 

Below is a summary of advice on how to lessen the effects of IP based on my personal experiences.

  • Acknowledge that it is OK to be critical of your work, but not of yourself. Understand that doing a PhD is HARD. You are pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and advancing science. This process involves engaging in a critical mindset but this should be aimed at your work and not your personal capabilities.

  • Take some time to yourself to acknowledge every little success. Academia has a very forward moving work culture. Often before we finish one thing we are already looking onto the next 10 things. It's easy to lose sight of hard work you have already accomplished. Or the stepping stones you built to set the foundations of your current project.

  • Accept compliments and avoid responses of self-deprecation. It is far more common to find women de-valuing their compliments compared to men. Attribute your success to yourself, and not to external factors. 

  • Give compliments. This one is more for the supervisors, mentors, and PIs out there. Give your students and junior colleagues positive feedback. Too often we focus on how things can be better and, perhaps unknowingly, set high standards to be successful. If a student has done well, or have shined in a task, let them know. It's not about feeding egos, it's about fostering a supportive work environment where everyone feels valued.

  • I'm not a fan of the saying "fake it until you make it". I ignore this advice as this just reinforces that voice in your head saying you're a fraud later on when you have earned your position. In my experience, performance and success is governed by how you apply yourself in the moment. Even if it is a first time task, like writing a grant or giving an oral presentation, you are not faking it by any means. Putting your best self forward in any challenging task is what defines "making it".

  • Take some time to internally reflect and try to identify the reason for feeling like an impostor in a situation. You can become overwhelmed by the feeling if you are unable to identify the external source. Sometimes it may be something strikingly obvious why you are feeling uncomfortable, like realising you're the only woman at the meeting. Then set that aside and engage with the moment.

  • Break down big tasks, such as that PhD, into smaller more manageable chunks. You are likely to be setting yourself up to disappointment if you try and tackle a huge project over several months. During my PhD, snack writing made things really manageable for me as I felt crippled if I thought about my PhD in its entirety. Snack writing is a practice I use all the time now in my work, and even completing just one paragraph of writing in a day leaves me with a feeling of accomplishment.

  • This one is really important. Talk with other women and you'll find you are not alone. Through talking with other female colleagues, I found out that I was most certainly not alone in feelings of IP. Being able to express your fears and doubts with understanding women has really helped put me at ease. Speaking out, listening, and supporting is something we can all do with a lot more off.

  • And finally, put yourself out there and take a seat at the table. Acknowledge that you may not feel ready but do it anyway. It's amazing how much we can rise to the occasion and achieve great things when we put ourselves out of our comfort zones. 

In summary, I believe overcoming IP is a lot about practice, as with a lot of things. Practice pushing yourself into uncomfortable situations (for me this was giving talks at University and conferences), practice acknowledging your doubts, practice recognising your achievements, and eventually you’ll see that you can. IP can be a paralyzing fear as suffers usually keep their feelings private. As a woman, I think opening up to friendly female colleagues about insecure feelings really helps with this overcoming-IP practice, as we likely share similar fears and doubts.

a few Links that might be of interest:

Faking it - Chris Woolston

The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention - Pauline Rose Clance & Suzanne Imes  

Feeling Like an Impostor Is Not a Syndrome - L V Andserson

ImpostHER

The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It - Valerie Young

Why we have too few women leaders - Sheryl Sandberg

Who are we? An introduction to WOMEESA

WOMEESA was officially launched on International Women's Day 2018. The aim of the organisation is to create a unified Australasian network of women working in Earth and Environmental Sciences in academia, government and industry. 

We currently have over 800 members from around the globe. As the organisation develops we are hoping to increase membership from countries around Australasia to create a representative group of women in earth and environmental science across the region. 

The purpose of this blog is to host entries on a wide variety of topics that will be relevant to our members, from academia to industry and students to seasoned professionals. We will have guest entries written by members of WOMEESA, as well as some written by the committee. Please get in touch (WOMEESA.network@gmail.com) if you are interested in contributing to the blog! 

As well as discussing the challenges that are faced by women in science, we also want to highlight the positives and provide a platform to showcase the awesome research being done by women across Australasia. One great way to do this is through our member spotlights, so please contact us if you would like to be featured here. 

In the next few months we are hoping to cover a range of topics in our blog posts, including:

  • Creating a work-life balance

  • Women in leadership roles

  • Unconscious bias

  • Sexism and harassment in science 

  • Juggling parenting and work

  • Imposter syndrome

  • The gender pay gap 

  • How to discuss issues in the media with non-scientists - e.g., climate change 

  • Dressing for success? 

  • Mentoring networks

Hopefully there will be something of interest to everyone, and if you have an idea for a blog post topic that you would like to see being discussed, please let us know!

These charts give a quick overview of our members so far - we've got a good range of experience levels covered. It would be great to have more members from non-academic roles as well so please encourage your colleagues to join!  

We've also taken the results of the WOMEESA survey and your comments (below) and used your responses to help build relevant blog pages.

Work-Life Balance

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In today's work environment the idea of a work-life balance can seem like a myth.

First of all - here are a few things to remember: 

  • Work-Life Balance does not mean an equal balance - trying to schedule an equal number of hours for each of your various work and personal activities will generally not work and is unrealistic. Life is and should be more flexible than that.

  • Your individual work-life balance will vary over time, often on a daily basis - find what works for you, and adapt it as needed when circumstances change.

  • There is no perfect, one-size fits all, balance you should be striving for. The best work-life balance is different for everyone because we all have different priorities and different lives.

It seems a little ironic to be writing about work-life balance while I am at sea on a research cruise. Out here I suppose the ‘balance’ can be achieved by spending a few hours a day in the ship’s gym, or reading a book, or watching the waves and albatrosses swooping past from the deck. We’ve actually started a sort of fitness ‘club’ on this cruise, where we meet on the bow every afternoon (weather permitting) and do an hour or so of circuit training exercises – so that makes a nice break from being in the lab and gets us out in the fresh air! But in reality, you can’t escape the fact that you are confined to a 75-m-long vessel with 29 other people and a rather limited amount of space to ‘escape’ from the work you are here to do, day in, day out, on a month-long voyage! Anyway, this post is intended to discuss work-life balance in a more day-to-day context, so that’s enough about life at sea.

There is a huge amount of pressure on scientists these days to publish more papers, be involved in more projects, apply for more grants, win more contracts, add more to your CV and so on, and so on. In all of this the scales can easily get tipped in favour of work and the ‘life’ side of things falls to the wayside. But at the same time, we are increasingly aware of the potential mental health issues and stresses of working too much.

So how do you achieve a ‘work-life balance’? I’m certainly no expert in this, and I think I still have some way to go to get the balance right, but I do try and set time apart for ‘life’ and take breaks where I can escape from the work side of things. For me, this means going running, cycling, cooking and reading books. I discovered trail running while doing my PhD and quickly found that it was the best cure for a bad mood when I had had a rough day in the office. I will never be a fast runner, but for me spending time on trails and focusing on breathing, not falling over tree roots and jumping puddles is a good way to make myself forget about almost anything else. I try and cycle to work a few times a week as this gives me a great opportunity to switch off my brain for an hour or so (my commute is 25 km each way) and just focus on the world around me – cycling on the busy roads requires concentration!

I’m also trying to learn how to say “NO” more often. Whether this is to requests for extra projects at work that I don’t have time for, or going out for dinner when I would really rather go home and have an early night. Learning to prioritise the things that are most important, and that mean the most to you in the long-term is never easy, and you’ll find that inevitably those priorities will change with time.

I don’t think there is a perfect formula for a work-life balance, everyone has their own way of switching off and re-grouping. It is more a matter of finding whatever works for you, whether it is taking up old hobbies, trying something new, committing to schedule or just re-arranging things so you can get a bit more down time. There will always be phases when the balance gets a bit off-kilter, during field seasons, grant deadlines, the end of the financial year when budgets are due! It happens, but try to re-evaluate things every now and then and find that balance again if you’re feeling snowed under.

There is a wealth of information available online, but here are a few articles that might be of interest, and of course we would love to hear any comments or thoughts you might have.

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