Why I Left Grad School

by Niels Hoven

I dropped out of Berkeley on a Wednesday. I remember, because the electrical engineering graduate social hour is on a Wednesday, and I figured that as long as I was going to go through the unpleasantness of formally withdrawing, I may as well get some free food out of it.

I've always excelled academically. I completed algebra in third grade, passed the AP calculus test in eighth grade, and graduated from college in four years with both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. I arrived at Berkeley excited and anticipating an extraordinary academic experience.

However, my first year at Berkeley was more than I bargained for. I felt overwhelmed by the work, intimidated by brilliant classmates, and suspected none of the professors cared whether I was there or not. I wasn’t alone though. According to the mental health survey that year*, 67% of Berkeley grad students felt hopeless at some point in the past twelve months. 10% of Berkeley grad students had seriously contemplated suicide. In other words, look around your classroom of 30 students. 3 of them are thinking about killing themselves. About 1 in 200 will actually attempt it.

So it blew my mind on visit day when the prospectives arrived and all my friends started telling them how great Berkeley was. Who are you people? Weren’t you telling me yesterday about how your fever just dropped below a hundred after you went four days without sleep to make a conference deadline that probably didn’t even matter? Didn’t we talk last week about how incredible it was that I was the only person in our class who managed to maintain any outside hobbies besides research and classwork? And wasn’t I failing because of it?

It didn’t make any sense. Prospective students arrive and all of a sudden everyone loves their advisor, the research is fascinating, and you can’t beat the weather.

And then I read a study on cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance theory states that people are troubled by inconsistency between their beliefs and actions, which motivates behavior to restore consistency. In 1959, Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith had participants engage in a mind-numbingly boring “experiment” for an hour, turning pegs on a board around and around. They then told the participants that they needed them to brief the next subject, and to please tell the subject that the experiment was interesting. Half the participants were given $20 for this, the other half were given $1.

Afterwards, the original participants were interviewed and asked how much they enjoyed the experiment. The participants given $20 said the experiment was boring, as expected. But the participants given $1 said it was kinda fun! One measly dollar was not enough to justify the lie they told and the time they wasted. Instead, they reduced their dissonance by rationalizing that they really enjoyed the experiment.

Festinger and Carlsmith would have a field day with graduate school. A bunch of grad students are miserable for a year. They’re paid a pittance. But they stay anyway. It makes no sense for them to stay. Forced to explain themselves to a prospective student, cognitive dissonance sets in. “Oh, I guess I actually love it here!” they think. Oh, cognitive dissonance, you keep academia in business.

But it's more than just cognitive dissonance. Before arriving at Berkeley, I breezed through every academic venture set in front of me. I saw any uncompleted task as a personal failure and bundled academic success into my identity. Leaving a degree before finishing it would force me to reconsider how I valued myself as a person.

But is dropping out really failing? Bill Gates dropped out of college. So did Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Ted Turner was expelled. And Richard Branson, now worth about eight billion dollars, didn't even finish high school.

Perhaps the question isn't "Should I drop out?"
but rather, "Why didn't I do it years earlier?"

Admittedly, these are exceptional cases. But anyone who has been accepted to grad school at Berkeley is inherently an exceptional case as well. And as a good friend pointed out to me, if you expect to distinguish yourself in this world, at some point you'll have to make a choice that no one else would have made.

Leaving a degree program isn't failure. It's simply another path which too often is ignored.

Why is that? Why does graduate school create such tunnel vision in students?

In research, there's no finish line. No matter how much work you've done, there's always another question to be answered or another proof to be written. Professors are at work at 11 PM on a Friday night because they love their research and there's nowhere else they'd rather be. Sometimes they forget that not everyone shares those same values.

Working 90+ hours in a week was not unusual for me. To make my first conference deadline I stopped sleeping more than three hours at a stretch in order to throw my body clock out of whack and work more hours in a day. Constant stress was the norm. My blood pressure jumped twenty points and my daily routine was gritting my teeth, tucking my head, and forcing myself to focus on only my most imminent deadline. Between classes, research, and teaching I couldn't allow myself to look more than a few days into the future for fear of losing hope.

In that environment, considering other options was a luxury I couldn't afford. The possibility of a better option out there when I was putting myself through all this pain would make it impossible to go on.

I sometimes wonder if that's why my friends from graduate school have drifted away from me since my departure.

It's a terrible Catch-22. Grad school makes people depressed because they feel like they don't have any options, and they can't consider any other options because it makes them too depressed. What to do?

My solution came in an appropriately unexpected form, as solutions tend to do. From a pool of 25,000 applicants, I was chosen as one of the 8 nerdiest guys in the United States of America and given a place on the cast of the reality TV show “Beauty and the Geek”. Interestingly, one of my classmates had been cast on the show the year before. Apparently there's something about the Berkeley EECS graduate program that really appeals to “Beauty and the Geek’s” producers.

Disclaimer: Ask your doctor if reality TV appearances are right for you. Individual results may vary.

I arrived for the filming with a pile of textbooks in my bag. Missing a single day of class at Berkeley sometimes left me trying to catch up for weeks; I couldn't imagine what my life would be like if I didn't work for a month.

As it turned out, it wasn't my choice. The producers imposed a blanket ban on phone, internet, TV – and books. It was like I had been plucked out of my normal existence for an entire month. I was being filmed twenty-four hours a day, but all of a sudden I was able to relax. And I was happy! I can say without exaggerating that, after three years of graduate school, I'd forgotten what those emotions felt like.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I needed that month of forced vacation to be able to step back from my life and reexamine it from the outside. A real vacation, not just a winter break spent frantically cramming for prelims or a family reunion spent feeling guilty for not reading the textbook in my suitcase. That vacation allowed me to distance myself from my work and consider whether I was still on the right track.

A forced vacation was the first contribution to the perfect storm that led to my leaving Berkeley. The second piece of the puzzle arrived with my internship.

Once the show wrapped, I headed straight to New York for an internship with Philips Research. I'd had plenty of internships before, every summer from tenth grade onward. None of them had been completely satisfying, but each time I assumed, "Well, I just don't have enough education yet. Once I reach the next degree level I'll get more interesting work."

The internship at Philips was essentially the job I would have taken once I finished my Ph.D. I can't imagine a more supportive, flexible environment, with nearly complete freedom for whatever topics of research I wanted to pursue. The position paid well, there was plenty of academic freedom, my boss was supportive, and my coworkers were friendly. But for some reason, I still dreaded coming to work every day.

I struggled with this for a while and finally called my college roommate to talk. We talked about all the time and effort I'd put toward my Ph.D. We talked about pain and sacrifice, and then he asked me the best question of all time: "Is there anyone in your office that you can look at and say, 'Wow, I hope I end up like him'?"

And there wasn't. I looked around at my coworkers, and no one I’ve met in that world or academia really has the sort of lifestyle that I envy. If I don’t have any role models in my line of work, perhaps I’m in the wrong line of work?

For me, that was an enormous red flag. This was the job I would have after graduating, and it led straight to a lifestyle I didn't want.

And so, three years into my program, I decided to leave my Ph.D.

I didn't know what I would do next, but that's not a bad thing at all. Leaving graduate school to pursue a particular job or a specific business idea would have left me second guessing my decision in the likely event that the job turned out to be unfulfilling or the idea went under.

Instead, I left because I knew I was on the wrong path, and that knowledge kept me going during the search for the right one.

The most difficult part of the process was breaking the news to my advisor and to my mom. I talked to my advisor first. I'm not sure what that says about my priorities.

My advisor was incredibly supportive and agreed that taking a break from grad school is a good option for me now. He told me that life was too short to finish a Ph.D. just for the sake of finishing a Ph.D. Plus, I’m still young. Life doesn’t have to follow a linear path.

Having such a compassionate advisor actually made me want to stay longer.

The conversation with my mom was equally nerve wracking. As the son of an Asian mother who had come to this country for her own education, I knew my mom had been looking forward to telling her friends about "my son, the doctor."

I didn't want to make the call. I remember feeling nervous as I stood alone in the courtyard of Cory Hall, waiting for my mom to pick up her phone. I rushed through the words as I told her I was leaving Berkeley, and then I was quiet. My mom understood, though.

"I've been watching you for a while," she said, "and it looks like you've been floundering. I think this really is the best thing for you right now."

I exhaled and a sense of relief washed over me. It was an amazing feeling to know that my mom understood so much more about me than I expected.

And with a newfound lightness lingering in my shoulders, I walked to my last social hour as an electrical engineering graduate student

Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" as pertain to the state of being a graduate student at UC Berkeley

While Abe Maslow may not be the most cited researcher in psychology, some of his work I find reallyinforms not really so much how to prioritize as a student here in Berkeley (since that in many ways takes care of itself) or in general,but how to be effective in the long run.

Basically, Maslow noticed that some needs are greater than others and made a hierarchy of the basics—physiologicals,the intakes and outputs of one’s physical person are at the bottom of the hierarchy because if those needs aren’t met it is biologically dangerous.

Depending on what you are used to,graduate school may be an increase in workload which will have a concomitant increase in stress which can interrupt sleeping and eating patterns. My colleague and I used to joke that there is sleep,academics,and social interaction and you can only really have 2 out of the 3. The fact of the matter is that with some time management and a willingness to get up earlyand work efficiently one can have 3 of the 3. Looking a professors with families can be inspiring in as much as you can see that these things are possible but it does require a readiness to socialize with the right people who will also have your best interests in their priorities. But the take home message is that taking care of your body is key if you’re expecting your higher order functions to work.

Next up is the safety and security needs. I think dealing with these is almost like adaptive testing: your first couple decisions are key and after that you can only shift your results within a pre-established region. I actuallyhaven’t moved around since initially moving into Berkeley and I lucked into a living situation with housemates who I trusted and a nice landlord who was friendly enough with the neighborhood that I felt vaguely safe when he was around. I know better than to walk alone in a non-vigilant manner at night and I certainly will shamelessly hound my current housemates about locking the doors though,because,as one of my old labmates used to say,“those bars aren’t in the windows for decoration.” I can’t realistically change my neighborhood within the time frame that I would love to feel safe in,but what I can do is establish patterns. If I am on campus after 9PM during the school year I take the door to door lines,and after 3AM I will call the owl line,also provided free by UC Parking and Transit. The Campus Safety Officers have been great in all my interactions with them. My one complaint would be about the gap between the limits in which one can apply for a campus parking pass and
the outer limit of safety shuttle coverage,but I live 4 blocks from what would be a perfect situation,if I wanted to pay that little bit more in rent. Basically I’m trading the establishment of savings for future financial safety for current feelings of occasional safety. I’m okay with that but you might not be.These are the trade-offs. But research your housing situation.

The third tier is the more social stuff that one feels a longing for after one feels safe and biologically sated. Feeling lonely or socially anxious is something that the local community can help with. There are plethora of graduate student organizations and one shouldn’t feel like organizations that are mostly undergraduates are necessarily exclusive. If you have an interest in the Brazilian art of dance fighting there’s a community for that. If you want to play video-games with peers there are groups that do that too. A non-negligible number of students showup to the bay area without prior friends or relations locally. Meeting people will happen through your department,certainly, but if you want to avoid talking about work all the time,making some non-departmental connections is key too. If you’re having problems meeting folks…there’s the gym, there’s public transit,you could even show up to GA meetings. My parents,who were both
international students used to go to grocery stores to meet people (and learn English). There’s opportunity everywhere.

The final level of basic or deficit needs involves respect,both from others and for yourself. The respect of others you can deal with by publishing.I think gaining respect as a graduate student is not necessarily something that ought to be conceptually new or different than what you know about gaining respect as a person in the rest of your life.

Dealing with self-esteem is probably the same. If you work hard to be achieve mastery of your area of study and become competent,confidence should follow. Low self-esteem can lead to some problems that can be dealt with over at the Tang Center (getting that monkey off your back sometimes is a chemical problem),however for more middling situations,there are options for confidence development through workshops in the teaching or career centers on campus.

If you don’t notice that you’re lacking in any of the previous areas,well, you’re doing well enough to survive,either based on your own preliminary work on maintaining yourself as a healthy individual,or on your instincts. These are what you have to take care of first so you can focus on the top of the pyramid, where self-actualization and self-transcendence are where thriving is. See, Maslow studied more than monkeys,he studied the histories of the best and the brightest. And,as you’re a graduate student,these probably apply to you more than most. This area is where…drive to be the best is. Not just drive, really. This is where the need and capacity to solve problems and resist pressures. Once you’ve dealt with the basics you can change your negative qualities and reallyflourish with…well with Gemeinschaftsgefühl. Those Germans have words for everything!

I don’t know how much of dealing with the need to live up to potential is something you can actively do as opposed to something you will naturally be inclined to do,(I’m not in the philosophy department,I imagine they have more answers on this,) but I think this is where your work as a scholar lies. I don’t know. If you want advice with certainty backing it…ask a professor. They’re usually past this phase of doubt. Or they can fake it. That might be something you need to learn too. Good luck!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being…a Graduate Student.

First things first,and take this to be a general rule: DON’T PANIC.
(I don’t mean to confuse Kundera and Addams in your mind.)

You are here because, somewhere along the line, you impressed enough of the right people to the point that they vouched for your levels of motivation,critical thinking, communication skills, or research ethics sufficient to answer any questions as to whether or not you were deserving. You might see a peer forget this and voice an immediate feeling of inadequacy, or maybe notice their forgetting this manifesting as an empty melancholy in a few years—an angst about being out of place and not knowing what one is “supposed to do” as a graduate student. This note is as much for those looking to reassess their situation as it is for those who are new and maybe not sure what is going on,so if nothing else,remember that you got here for a reason.

So, after all that, we get to the point: what is it to be a graduate student?

In most cases, graduate students are paid to attend and contribute to the university: paid, especially if in the process they are doing research,and/or teaching. The overall educational goals for you are to “create” knowledge and extend the field (outwardly), as well as for you to to develop skills: critical and synthetic abilities that ought to help you in the future that you choose.

You show up to campus and what you do know, you will further develop,and what you don’t know, you will learn. This learning may involve some classes you’ll likely have to take anyway. Figuring out your department’s requirements is essentially phase 1. It’s easier than collecting underpants. The initial classes taking period of your time as a graduate student is also a good time to read papers in your field and study the methodology and challenges or opportunities that you’ll spend the next couple years analyzing. This will be assisted usually by an advisor or investigator of your choosing whose expectations areas important to figure out as those of your department. Arguably that’s where the “real” learning is.

Unlike most jobs, graduate students go through a process of picking an advisor or group. Think about it like renting out your skills. The good news about this is that you are picking your manger, and an “academic family”. If you want a distant advisor, those exist; if you want someone who will provide you with constant pressure, there are plenty of those too. Tenants come in all kinds. Other students in your department will be an invaluable resource for making this kind of selection, particularly in telling you how they deal with the workload and desires of their bosses. Priorities vary,but taking a quick look at the 4C’s (Concentration, Character, Confidence and Cash) will often be at the very least a good way to limit the 4P’s (Putrid projects, Personality clashes, Presumptions, and Prostitution). You’re looking for a project you feel passion about, pleasant personalities in the people you will be dealing with for the next 2 to n years, with open communications about expectations and,ideally,financial support. You’re getting paid to think about a topic for a while, you might as well enjoy thinking about it.

Your advisor will often have specific desires of you (often along the lines of “x papers in y years”,or “build this by next week.”). These vary based on field and boss and mood and planetary alignment. However,I think that there are some standard desires that the professoriate have, namely that you manage your time in an effective, efficient, and diligent manner. I have a policy of always trying to have something new to say when you see your advisor. The “something” means "I’ve been effective", the “always” and “new” imply that "I’ve been efficient", and the fact that he sees me means that I’m at least diligent enough to cross paths with him in a regular fashion.

Now, slightly further down the road are proficiency exams. When these are,with respect to the amount of research toward graduation you have done, varies depending on departments. In most cases,a committee of faculty will attempt to assess the breadth and depth of your comprehension of fundamentals in your field. By gauging your command of the practical aspects of your study area, they can figure out your ability to design and produce dissertation quality work,so this exam will help you to target your future activities and experiments for you to get or continue to get publishable results to garner you and your boss and the institution with visibility and grant money. That being said,if you’re reading this,you are new and the main point of bringing exams up is to remind to that you can tailor your classes to help you to be ready and really, the readiness is all. Good luck!