Graduate school is truly a metaphor for life. It’s stressful and demanding. How you cope totally depends on the type of person you are.
One of my supervisors told me a story about a young woman she just met with. Apparently, this woman epitomizes the “worst case scenario.” Her dissertation advisor died and she’s still in the last stages of her dissertation process. Furthermore, she’s a novice teacher and her students have given her horrible feedback because she asks questions that are too hard. Her new advisor told her to cater to her students’ needs instead of challenging them to think. Since she can no longer refer to her dissertation advisor for positive references, these students’ criticisms are all that she has. Her credibility is up the creek, she has developed clinical depression, and her skin is pealing uncontrollably.
So yeah, this sucks, but it’s not an anomaly. People’s dissertation advisors and committee members die. People’s lives are challenged and things change. People have unplanned pregnancies and DUIs (not that I’m likening an unplanned child to a DUI, but just go with me here). The bottom line is that some people handle unfortunate events, and some people break down completely.
The goal is to learn how to deal with stressful situations. Nothing’s perfect and crap happens. We all have to learn to adjust and move forward.
