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Comment by isykt | Hacker News Reader

>”I think if someone takes more than 5 years the student is the problem,” the speaker replied tersely. I was devestated.

I’m always shocked when adults give any fucks at all what some rando thinks of them. Got a problem with my work? Let’s have it. Give me the run down and we’ll see if you have a point.

“The student is the problem” is a completely content-free statement. I wonder if this line is actually made up to make a point, because I can’t actually imagine someone in academia saying something so empty.

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> I’m always shocked when adults give any fucks at all what some rando thinks of them

It is completely normal human psychology to care about what people think. It used to be Nirmal I literally any historical period and is still normal.

That you think it is not virtuous and adults should seek to not care is one thing. But acting like it is shocking when people display normal psychology is weird. If you find adults caring about what others think shocking, then issue is in your social skill.

Not just “others,” but other people who have no business whatsoever making such a judgement.

If a person comes up to you on the street and, out of the blue, says “you’re ugly!” Do you care? Surely not! You don’t know them, you’re not attempting to get a date with them, they’re not on your hiring committee.. their opinion simply doesn’t matter.

Moreover, this analogy is a generous one. At least “you’re ugly!” Has some sort of meaning. “The student is the problem” is so vague that it’s essentially meaningless. It contains no actionable component.

Taking things personally is rarely beneficial, mostly because it’s rarely about “you” anyway.

Eh I think it's different when someone senior in your field makes a general judgement that would apply to you. That's not at all the same as a random person on the street. I also think it depends on how subconscious you are about the thing to begin with, and I imagine this student had their degree length on the back of their mind a lot.

Whether it's beneficial or not isn't really the question. But it's a natural human response in this sort of scenario, and it does make sense why that became a natural response. Someone with more power than you openly doesn't like something that you were already worried about in yourself.

Overcoming 'natural human responses' is key to growing as a person. Just because a response is 'natural' doesn't make it 'right' or 'healthy.' I get that the person who said this to the student is some kind of expert, but again -- taking it personally has no benefit at all. Until people learn how to differentiate opinions from people that matter from just noise, they'll continue to have anxiety about things they can't control.

It is not some rando, it is a speaker publicly propagating a horrible message that is already being used aggressively to filter out students from post-doctoral positions. It is one of the most prominent "soft" arguments to reject applicants in postdoc committees.

> I can’t actually imagine someone in academia saying something so empty.

The percentage of people in academia that aren't socially gifted is probably higher than in other occupations. I don't see any reason why hearing something like that in academia would be more rare.

I worked in an office with about 8 other PhD students, was in a research group with another 10, and was friendly with another 10-15.

Social skills weren't lacking that much (don't get me wrong, we were a bunch of weirdos by some standards), but mental health certainly was.

There is a lot of pressure on PhD students and anxiety and/or depression affected all but a handful. Most people go into the programme wanting to be academics afterwards, so you look up to the academics that are there, listen to what they have to say. At the same time a whole lot of your ego is tied up into the success or failure of your work. If somebody shits on your work, that can break you.

I had therapy while in my final year, and so did a bunch of my peers, it's a meat grinder.

I don't disagree but the statement is also weird from the perspective of objective reality in 2023.

My old PhD program's current 5 year graduation rate is way below 50%. I think it's like 10% if you don't count the MD/PhDs that are more likely to get pushed through quickly, but even including them it's not more than 25%. The 6 year graduation rate is barely hitting 50%! I don't know if it's field-dependent or if the Prof was just very out of touch, but graduation in 5 years is an anomaly at this point that actually suggests the person is more likely to have a planned industry (or medical school) exit. Weird to conclude the student is the problem en masse.

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