Why does the PhD experience feel like a humiliation ritual?
After talking with many friends at all levels (first-year, second-, third-, final-year, postdocs, etc.) there are some commonalities among all of us that I've noticed. I'm mostly writing to vent my feelings haha and I find myself in an okay mental state, albeit exhausted as I write this.
You are utterly and helplessly alone in the majority of decisions and things in general
Some PI's are genuinely weird and they do suck- and you are out of luck and options really when that's the case
The pressure builds and builds and there's no real release even after achieving milestones
It's such a massive and grueling energy pull from you, and it's normal and common that you don't have anything to "show" that- i.e. you just fail a lot of times at things and get a few things right that you can "show and tell"
PI's do quickly forget what it was like to do the things they ask of us back when they did those things as students themselves
Sacrificing time, life, hours, and normal adult life events is somewhat normal and even when we're on "breaks" we're all still working as if there's nobility to that
Doing the same thing, iterating on something for weeks and months slowly kills you
Seeking actual feedback that helps feels impossible many times- including validation of ideas or work
There's more and this list isn't exhaustive but damn like genuinely why does it have to be this way. And still? We keep going. We prevail.
