Hany Girgis, a fourth-year graduate student in the molecular biology department, works 12 hours a day. He teaches an undergraduate lab for MOL 350 in the afternoons and then conducts his own research experiments in the evenings.
"I'm most productive at night, when the building is mostly empty and I have the place to myself," he said in an email.
Such long hours spent in isolation are not uncommon to graduate students as they struggle through the four or five — or more — years required to finish their degrees.
Though resources exist to help graduate students, many still struggle with academic stress, isolation and pressure to graduate on time.
Girgis said he works hard because he truly enjoys his research, and he can take breaks by cycling with the University's team and visiting his parents, who live nearby.
"I can understand how students who don't really enjoy their area of study, and don't have activities outside of their work, can become very depressed," he said. "International students are especially vulnerable to depression due to feelings of social and cultural isolation."
As a House Adviser for the Graduate College, Girgis works to combat this isolation by creating a community for graduate students. But for some, the pressures of graduate life can still be overwhelming.
Stress and Isolation
Tom Kornack, a sixth-year graduate student in the physics department, also spoke of the potentially isolating effects of the University's graduate school experience.
"There's so much emphasis on solitary study," Kornack said. "You don't develop the same friendships you would as an undergrad."
Kornack tries to structure his work like a 9-to-5 job, but he said most professors remember working much longer hours when they were in graduate school and now expect the same from their students.
Kornack said he believes the administration should enforce a labor guideline to restrict hours.
"It's normal [to work longer], but that doesn't make it good," Kornack said. "Without formal recognition that graduate students are being paid to do a job, there's sort of a tendency for abuse."
Asa Rennermalm, a fourth-year civil and environmental engineering student, emphasized the significance of the student's relationship with his or her adviser.
"I don't think everybody has a really good relationship with their adviser, and that's a problem," Rennermalm said. "Sometimes, the department steps in and helps you out and maybe you can get another adviser, but in the end, if your adviser wants [to keep] you, it's your problem."
During a readmissions process all graduate students face every March, the adviser plays a significant role in deciding whether a student is asked to leave or not.
"I even know people who were very ambitious and did great work, but it didn't work out with their advisers, and they had to leave," Rennermalm said.
Other students may have to leave without a degree if they cannot pass their general exams on the first or second attempt. Though most people pass, the pressure of succeeding creates a lot of stress for students, Rennermalm said.
"I guess that's the big difference from undergraduates," she added. "The University always has that opportunity to say bye-bye."
Undergraduates often cannot understand the work that graduate students do, said Christine Percheski, a second-year graduate student in the sociology department and press secretary of the Graduate Student Government (GSG).
"Nobody would say it's their primary concern, but most [graduate students] say they would really like to get to know the undergraduates better," she said. "One of our goals is to try to improve the relationship."
A real community exists among graduate students, especially among those who live in University housing, and students are supportive of each others' work. Integrating this community with that of the undergraduates might help cut down on feelings of isolation and frustration common to graduate students, Percheski said.
"Undergraduates tend to view graduate students as that pesky preceptor," Percheski said. "It would be good to have a more accurate and complete picture of graduate students."
Post-enrollment Pressures
The GSG, a group of representatives elected to voice graduate student concerns to the administration, cited housing and post-enrollment benefits as the most problematic issues facing graduate students in recent years.
The administration has worked hard to address the housing concerns by building the Lawrence Apartments and later lowering the rent there, Percheski said. However, post-enrollment — a status granted to students that take longer than the fully funded four or five years the University allots them to finish a degree — still poses a challenge.
A post-enrolled student loses many student benefits such as access to the library, the gym, housing and health care.
Larger problems include student loans, which come due once the borrower loses student status, and visa status for international students who require either employment or student status to remain in the country.
Dean of the Graduate School William Russel estimated that from 200 to 300 of the graduate school's 400 Ph.D. students require post-enrollment status for at least a short period of time.
Percheski said that by making graduate students "sufficiently uncomfortable," the administration may hope to make students finish their degrees faster.
"But when 100 percent become post-enrolled, there isn't any real incentive to work faster," she said. "You're just setting up an impossible situation."
"Sociology has a program length of four years, but this year will be the first in many years where anyone has graduated in four years," Percheski said.
Other humanities and social science departments, such as classics and history, as well as the sciences, also have many post-enrolled students.
"We provide full support for the standard program length, including tuition, stipend and full benefits to all Ph.D. students making satisfactory progress," Russel said in an email. "At the same time, we recognize that the median time-to-degree has moved significantly beyond the standard program length, i.e. period in support, in a number of disciplines."
Russel agreed that the time limit on student status serves as a strong incentive for students to complete their degrees quickly.
Two years ago, the administration attempted to create an alternate status for post-enrolled students called Degree Candidacy Continued. This status could extend a student visa for up to a year, but it could not defer loan payments.
"We recognize that these are important issues and that deferral of loans and continuation of student visa status beyond the one year are justifiable while students are working more or less full time on their dissertations, though creating a status that might be continued indefinitely independent of that commitment is not appropriate," Russel said.
Resources
To counteract the isolation of the graduate school and encourage students to keep their work in perspective, Rennermalm works with Resident Life Coordinator Lisa Schreyer to coordinate social activities.
As a House Adviser in the Graduate College, Rennermalm has helped organize numerous excursions — including bowling, rock climbing, hiking, ice-skating and paintball — in addition to game nights and study breaks.
"What we do is community building," Rennermalm said. "There are a lot of resources for grad students to feel welcome and happy here."
She also recommended the D-Bar, the bar in the graduate college, as a place for students "to do something else than study."
Other helpful resources include meditation and counseling sessions offered at the Counseling Center through McCosh Health Center.
"[The University wants] to take care of us and make sure we have a good time while we're here, but they want us to work hard too," Rennermalm said.
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