ICA presents. Welcome to Growing Up Comm, a production of the ICA Podcast Network. In this series we talk about topics mostly relevant for students and early career scholars. I'm your host Lara Schreurs. I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the School for Mass Communication Research at KU Leuven in Belgium. And today, I will talk with a close colleague of mine, Anaëlle Gonzalez, about the insecure nature of doing a PhD trajectory and also how that plays a role in our mental well-being. Here's Anaëlle.
Hi, Lara. So, I'm a PhD student at the School for Mass Communication Research at KU Leuven as well. I'm from France, originally. And my PhD is about the role of social media in adolescents' political socialization.
Okay, great. So you are doing a PhD at the moment. I just finished my PhD and in my opinion, doing a PhD is a wonderful opportunity because you get the chance to really dedicate yourself to a research question you're interested in for a couple of years, which is quite cool. And in my experience, it is a very exciting journey. But at times, it can be very challenging and stressful. So in our university, they are also paying increasingly more attention to the mental well-being of PhD students. And my first question to you is, do you think it is needed to pay, indeed, more attention to this? Is doing a PhD particularly challenging for one's well-being? And why is that?
I have a background in psychology. So I will, of course, answer that taking into account the impact on mental health and well-being are important. I think the PhD like any job that is quite competitive and ambitious - dealing with a lot of insecurities.
What aspects of doing a PhD can make you feel insecure? What is it about the job that is difficult for our well-being?
It's a very long process. So it depends on the country, but here in Belgium, it's four years. The rewards can be really extended. We might wait a lot of time before having, for example, publications or ending the PhD. Sometimes it's quite hard to get things within those four years that make us feel confident, rewarding, and gratifying as well. Other things that I'm thinking about as well, in my personal experience, is as an international students it can be quite isolating. When you're moving to a country for your PhD and you have to rebuild your support system in this country. It helps when you have a really great research groups with great colleagues, which is the case for us. But it's not so easy when you cannot always see your family and friends often. I think the PhD is one of those rare jobs and studies that people outside of it don't really know what it's like. It's a bit isolating that when you talk about it with people that are outside of your colleagues, it's not always helpful, they don't really know what to say, they don't always ask a lot of questions, because they're sometimes scared of feeling stupid, that they don't understand exactly what you're doing. So I think all of this can be participating in the insecurities and also the isolation.
Very interesting. And I totally agree. Would you say that doing a PhD is characterized by actually experiencing failure? Because many PhD students are often the best in class before and we're always very successful. And then suddenly, in this environment, there are not so many successes. What you said, indeed, it's a slow process and they often experience failure. So, do you think this is typical for a person that is doing a PhD? Does this relate to this process? Or what are your thoughts on that?
Absolutely. It's something we've talked about in the past. I don't want to talk for all PhDs, but I think from the people I know, we all had really good grades at school, often for many years. You can often situate yourself compared to the group because of the grades. So you know when you're doing well and you know when you're not doing well. When you're not doing well, you know exactly what is wrong and how you can work on it. It's really easy to situate yourself and to do something about it. But in a PhD, of course, you don't have those grades and published papers. Of course, you cannot really compare because sometimes your paper gets rejected, not because it's not good but because sometimes it's the wrong fit. We don't always know if it's objective - the reasons why papers get rejected. It's not always easy to know, "Okay, what should I work on? Is this me - the problem? Or is this, as well, the system that is not always fair?" I think this can help to work on some things that bring some rewards and gratifications alongside this process, where you can measure your success and progress in the meantime.
And what kind of things would you suggest that we can measure rewards? Because, mostly, we all see it as, a published paper is a reward. But as we said, this takes too long to have one or two rewards in four years. And then how do you navigate this - that you only have two times this feeling of success with these two published papers? What other things can we see as rewards?
I'm struggling with this as well. So, I don't really have the perfect answer. What helps for me is, for example, when I'm learning a statistical analysis and I realize that now I understand and I'm able to apply it and the syntax runs well, I think those things are little gratifications that we can take along the way. We often talk about building those hard skills within the PhD. But for myself, I know sometimes my strength or more on the soft skills. Like for example, I think it can really help to see that you are a valued member of the research group, and that people appreciate you, and that they come to you for help. Those things are also gratifying, even if they are not always research-related, to organize some activities with the people around. And each time you receive an email that is positive, like good feedback from your supervisor, we can look back on it. Because sometimes it's easy to only think about everything that went wrong and those negative news. And we always forget the milestone that we've reached, in the past.
You indeed describe some nice rewards of easy tick-off boxes that you can do and that can help you actually in the process to get the feeling of gratification. And I think that's something super important for all PhD students to just figure out for yourself, what these kind of rewards are because otherwise, it's just unbearable to do these graduate studies for four or five years without having these little successes, as I would like to call them. But it's also related to this topic - imposter syndrome as a term pops up. Is this something that you recognize? And what does it look like for you?
Yea, of course, I can only talk about how it looks like for me. I'm still struggling with it somehow. But for me, as a first-generation academic - so nobody in my family did studies before me, especially not in academia - you have to figure out everything, the norms of academia, but also the norms of doing graduate studies. I constantly have the feeling that I have to catch up. And it's like this constant feeling of being behind and that you don't really have your place where you are among those highly intelligent people. And at some point, you're going to do something that people are gonna think like, "Hey, you have nothing to do with us, you're not that smart." So, this feeling of being scared of being found out. I'm working on this, but it's also this feeling I had in the past but this idealization of professors. I really felt like professors are ideal. They know so much, they do things perfectly, they have crazy organizational skills. It's such a perfect and ideal image that I had in my mind that I was always thinking, "I will never get there." The gap between where I am now and where I'm supposed to be to be taken seriously, or to be legitimate, it's just too big. But I think going to the first offline conferences also helped in getting rid of this idealization. Like for me, you see them in real life and you realize they are just human beings that also had their struggles when they were PhDs. They also had bad experiences. And actually, you can relate more to them. And it helps in creating this more realistic, imperfect, and better image of where we have to get or something.
How did you get to see this side of these big names during ICA? Were there specific sessions you attended? Or did ICA organize some things to get there or to connect with these big professors you're always citing?
There was this event for welcoming new ICA members that I found really helpful because all the ICA presidents were sitting next to each other, and they all talked about their experiences, and their advice to young researchers. And I remember hearing Professor Mary Beth Oliver saying that she was still struggling with imposter syndrome at this stage of her career. And she's such a great researcher that I really look up to, hearing this from someone that you admire - it's really useful to hear. I would say those kinds of events. And also the Political Communication Division organized this event - the reception where there were some mentors and they were really asked explicitly to go and mingle and talk to the early career researchers. So this was also helpful when they come towards you, because they know it's quite hard to go by ourselves talking to them. And of course, it can help to ask our supervisors to be introduced when they know the people we would like to meet.
So these are all experienced that helped with this imposter syndrome that you had due to offline context.
In a PhD, when you don't really have those external rewards, it's like you need to get the motivation constantly. But it needs to come from somewhere. And it's really hard to get up in the morning and work in a completely independent manner on things that you need to independently learn to do and to independently read. I think it takes a lot of mental strength to keep going.
I often see a PhD as being characterized by rejection. And then I don't only talk about conference rejections or journal rejections, but also to some extent about social rejection. That is because sometimes we can really lose ourselves and have the feeling that we have to work constantly. And we don't find the time to do fun things anymore. So, what do you think about this work-life balance for PhD students? Or is that actually non-existent because our PhD becomes our life?
When you're always in the same room, it's really easy to keep working, even after work hours, you keep working in the space where you usually sleep or you usually relax. So there's not really any physical separation between work and personal life. I've put a lot of importance to really stop, when it was possible, around five or six. Sometimes it can also be hard when your friends are your colleagues. It's hard to mentally switch as well because you talk a lot about work with your friends and colleagues. So in this regard, it can also bring work constantly in your off-time. But you cannot stop your life for four years. We constantly say, "I will have the time to have fun and see my friends when I'm done with this." So, if I was thinking work is the most important thing until I'm like 30-35, then actually, I think I would be looking back on those years and be thinking, "Yea, actually, I didn't really live." And I think you start wondering if it's worth it, because there was always a new goal that comes. After the PhD, then I could also say, "Oh, after the postdoc." And after the postdoc, "Oh, after this next position."
You're really an advocate for a work-life balance, that you really have to put these boundaries for yourself. What do you think about taking holidays? Because for us in the system, it's really integrated. But I know, for instance, in the United States taking a holiday - something that's not often really appreciated by a supervisor. It seems like you're not totally dedicated to the PhD. How would you engage in this conversation with a supervisor who is not supportive of taking free time?
I think our supervisor, Laura Vandenbosch, is really supportive of this. I actually didn't want to take holidays this summer, because of the third wave of the data collection. And she really said, "Anaëlle, you're going to take at least two weeks. It's an order." We're really lucky in this regard. But for other research environments, I think it's probably important to try to change the research culture. But of course, as a PhD, it's really hard because you have to think about your career and your supervisor really has the power to end it. I don't think we should put the responsibility on the PhD students for this. The faculty level or the university level should actually put some kind of initiatives of training the supervisors into mental health well-being.
You said you have a good connection with your supervisor, which is really nice. Can you also talk about these insecurities and the feeling of being rejected sometimes with a supervisor? And do you think having a good connection with your supervisor helps for that? Because we now talked about the holiday thing, but the more general thing we discussed in the beginning, about the insecure nature of doing a PhD - can a supervisor help with that?
Absolutely. I'm quite a self-reflective person. I write a lot. And I realized also, thanks to the student health center of KU Leuven and the team of psychologists, that I was struggling with perfectionism. I went to talk to my supervisor about this and she was really understanding and listening. And she added the style of supervision to those worries. And I also had the time to do the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction technique with the KU Leuven health center, which really helped. So I think the supervisors can be really helpful in listening and also redirecting the students towards those external agents, like psychologists, ombuds, well-being ambassadors.
And even if you really don't think the connection is there with the supervisor to do that, then there should be other people in the institution that can help you with it.
You can reach out to a mentor in another institution. I don't think we always have to only stick to the supervisor. There are many great researchers around that you can have a better personal relationship with.
Can you elaborate a bit on what is a mental well-being ambassador? Because I know you are holding this position in our research group. What is this? And what do you do within this position?
It was something that had been put into place in our research group before I arrived. It became apparent that some PhDs and postdocs were struggling with the academic culture, but also insecurities and mental health issues. We asked the group to elect two people that people trust and feel like they can talk to. After they've been elected, we just have to let our door open and people have to know that if they're experiencing some issues, some stress, they can come talk to us about it, of course, privately. Especially for starting PhDs, sometimes I think it's hard when you don't really know other people, and you're stressed, and you don't know if the strings are normal, if it's just you. If there is someone that is a well-being ambassador, I think it helps in saying, "I can go talk to this person. People trust this person, apparently." Of course, it doesn't mean substitute - like we're not mental health professionals, we're not clinical psychologists. It goes to a certain extent. We can always re-direct, like, "I think, right now, you should go to a therapist or to a mental health professional because it goes beyond my capacity." And also, we are not trained to take the other's problems on our shoulders. Aometimes it can be quite heavy. So, it's also something we need to stay aware of, what's beyond and in our control.
Do you think every research group should implement this procedure?
I think it helps. But I think it depends on the relationship between people in the research group. We trust each other and we all get along quite well. Of course, it helps. But it really has to come from the PhDs to decide who should be this person that they trust, someone within or outside the research group.
When something doesn't work out, or data collection is not working out, or you are not succeeding in your analysis, it always feels like the end of the world. And really, your daily life gets affected. I'm really wondering how can we become more resilient, that our daily life is not affected through these little things that actually happen and that always get resolved in the end?
Yea, that's the question worth 1 million euros. For me, something that's really helped is trying to divide the PhD from my identity. So instead of saying, "I'm a PhD student." Of course, I am but I try to say, "I do a PhD." It's my work and dividing your self-worth, like that your self-worth is not entirely dependent on your job and to have other sources of things that bring you self-confidence and self-worth outside. So, for example, I write a lot. And I think it's also a matter of mindset. Some people when they fail, they think that it's because of them, like it's a problem in themselves. But with a growth mindset, it's just a matter of working. So, a failure is just a part of the process. It's a learning experience. So I think it can help - shifting our mindset on failure and saying, "Okay, it's not because I'm not smart enough, it just means that maybe I have to learn a bit more on this analysis. Maybe I need to read a bit more on this or maybe I need to choose a different journal, because it was not the right fit." And of course, a lot of the time rejection is a big part of academia. But sometimes it's also a signal like, yeah, maybe we have to work a bit more on this and we were not ready. It's always harder to do in practice - to see failure as a learning opportunity. But I think reframing those thoughts can be helpful. And look at the trajectory of people who succeeded, they didn't have a linear learning process. And maybe it helps to have those conversations where we talk about our failures and our rejections to see that it's not only us.
It's typical to mask insecurities and only brag with successes. It's typical that Twitter environment or academia, we only post about published papers. And sometimes we see now a little bit of shift. When the conference deadline came up, or the results of a conference came up, that people also post about, "Okay, I had so many papers rejected for the conference." So you would think this is a good trend, actually, to post about our failures and to have this conversation with each other?
Absolutely. Especially when you're starting, you start thinking how it's not normal, "I'm the only one that gets a paper rejected," or, "I got this reject from two journals before I even got to the reviewing process." So if other people say like, "It's normal, I had something worse," or, "It's just how it is." So I do think those things are good things, especially when it also comes from professors, that we see that even professors still get rejections to their papers, to conferences, to journals. It's just the nature of the working environments that we're in.
We all should have more conversations with each other about our trajectories, and about the failures, and our insecurities that characterize the trajectory. Because especially with starting graduate students in your research group, it can really help them have a healthier PhD trajectory, I would say. So this is a message to everyone listening to just do that. I want to thank you, Anaëlle, for sharing your experiences. I really loved having this conversation with you because I know you're very open to it and you're an advocate to help everyone have a nicer PhD trajectory and enjoy the nice things of doing a PhD. So, thank you for sharing your personal experiences with the ICA community.
Thank you so much, Lara. I really enjoyed the conversation and I really hope it inspires other people to be open about those topics. Thank you very much.
Growing Up Comm is a production of the International Communication Association Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate In and Jacqueline Colarusso. Our executive producer is DeVante Brown. The theme music is by William Van De Crommert. Please check the show notes in the episode description to learn more about me, my guests, and Growing Up Comm. overall. Thank you for listening!
