Thread by @AutSciPerson

You know, one of the worst things about your mental health tanking when you're in grad school is that when you kind of "zoom out" and possibly to other people,

your struggles look ridiculous and overblown. But academia constantly teaches you that you NEED it to live.

So you can't tell people easily, and if you do you can't expect sympathy because sometimes it does sound ridiculous.

And academia constantly reinforces the idea that you -need- X/Y/Z to survive, to live, to be a "productive" human being. So it's easy for your brain to believe it

And we're also taught that these artificial (and a lot of other -isms) road blocks that pop up during graduate school are part of the journey and that if you don't "overcome" them you don't deserve the education because you didn't "fight for it."

And of course these road blocks are very much not equal but we are taught that they are, that these milestones are equal, no matter what your support system, economic status, race, gender, religion, etc. is. And it's just honestly ridiculous.

I'll tell you a story -
For a class I helped with we have participation points. I was told at some point that we can take points off if they're not doing as well as we'd want them to or not 100% on task. I was told that this is okay because they're "high achievers."

Basically this meant - these students really care about their grades and want to do well, so you can take a few points off and then they will definitely work even harder to gain them back.

So if they're putting in more effort than average, make them put in even more?!

This reminded me of the time that I was getting C's in my first discussion class in graduate school. I didn't know the professor who taught it very well. There were 15 students in the class all trying to get their participation in and people would interrupt each other.

I tried to speak twice every week and even then it was a struggle to get a word in. At some point, I was so anxious about my grade that I met with the professor (had to be in person as of course this couldn't be answered through my original email question..)

At the meeting they just told me that yes, it was so more people would participate because last year not very many people did.

As if the people in this class were the same people as last year's? Nearly everyone participated every week!

Just meeting them I instantly started crying. I didn't even know I was autistic then but I knew I wouldn't be able to talk (was a shutdown), and I had to show them my question with a notebook that I wrote it in as a backup.

Academia is not fair or reasonable or kind. It is what it is. There are so many implicit social and political things that I'm sure happen right in front of me that I probably have no understanding of and never will.

It's so damn frustrating.

At the moment, I've concluded that the academic system is at its heart a political system. It's about connections, not burning bridges, knowing how to pretend to like people, knowing how to get what you want & of course - some of it is in fact research. I'm just not sure how much

I kind of wonder that if people were really honest about their opinions and what was going on, making implicit information explicit, that the entire academic system would slowly fall apart, because people would realize just how ridiculous it is in the first place.

I will say that of all of the faculty I have interacted with as a graduate student,

there was one faculty member who actually told me the implicit information explicitly and I am so, so grateful to that human being for just helping me and confirming my reality. It changed things