Stories of Struggle

Like many others who have traversed academia before me, my journey includes a lot of grappling with my own mental health. It is no secret that life as a graduate student is inherently challenging…

Doing a dissertation is an emotionally draining process - a known fact! Despite having several different ways of coping, I sometimes find myself crying. And I am not…

For a while, I felt demotivated thinking about my previous academic accomplishments. But I also knew that getting a PhD degree would help alleviate the sense of failure I associated with my…

Graduate school was a large immediate trigger for resurfacing my depression and anxiety which I had been able to manage for a few years in undergrad. I felt very…

I must admit that as a young academic, receiving a decision from a journal stirs up some strong emotions. With trembling hands I read the editor’s decision: Major revisions! Not a rejection, yay!…

Patient management was near to breaking point as residents started demanding necessary PPEs and that COVID019 patients be admitted and accommodated separately, away from non-COVID019 patients. One…

I spend a few seconds sinking into this emotion, shuddering from the reality that the life of a black man/woman/child is not valued the same as my white friends and coworkers. I feel guilty about…

But then my way of life was disrupted abruptly and terribly — I suffered a stroke while I was at home, eagerly waiting to start my PhD in the US.

I feel that academic life is notoriously insecure. It seems like we’re constantly scrambling for grant funding, pushing manuscripts through the…

As such the difficulties and variables in the project were tough to deal with; my supervisor’s behavior added unnecessary ambiguity and uncertainty to the situation, leaving me exhausted day after…