Written by Breanna Ransome, M.A.
Some graduate students struggle and feel they might not make it; others appear to “breeze through.” There are various reasons for this divide, but the one I’ll focus on is burn-out.
Burn-out
Burn-out is a real thing; anyone who’s worked toward a goal can tell you that, whether they were exercising to lose weight, working a nine-to-five to pay rent, or attending school to earn a degree (or all three). Graduate students in particular are at a heightened risk for burn-out: three hour classes, 25-page papers, countless hours of reading and research, possibly teaching, seizing resume-building opportunities, devoting themselves to professional development—in addition to their working, social, and personal lives.
Burn-out is addressed in countless self-help books and articles, is a topic of interest for psychology scholars and psychiatrists, is acknowledged by business networks like Forbes, and is now officially recognized by the World Health Organization, which has added “Burn-out” to its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) as a diagnosable condition.
Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions: 1) feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; 2) increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and 3) reduced professional efficacy.
ICD, QD85 Burn-out
The ICD specifies that burn-out refers only to “phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life” (QD85 Burn-out). We all recognize that graduate study is an occupational context; however, in case anyone wants to argue, since 2016, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) considers graduate study an occupation.
Signs that burn-out is imminent are exhaustion, feeling overwhelmed or overworked, irritability, lack of focus, and negative attitude. Of the resources available that advise on how to either prevent or cope with burn-out, the most frequently suggested strategies are:
- Put lunch on your calendar.
- Take a vacation.
- Limit notifications.
- Go outside.
- Get some sleep.
- Delegate responsibility.
- Talk to someone/Get support.
- Take care of yourself.
- Have creative outlets.
- Have a vibrant life outside of work.
And the list goes on . . .
Really? A lot of the advice is general self-care that should be practiced regardless of burn-out. And the rest? Slightly patronizing. Yeah, let me just have a vibrant life outside of work, as if that’s so easy, when I have three papers due and thirty papers to grade. Getting away from your work—”taking a vacation”—isn’t really an option for someone who’s put the pressure on themselves to graduate on-time and with an exemplary GPA. Instead—and maybe it feels counter-intuitive, but—get into your work. Having been through the ups and downs of graduate school and worked directly with struggling graduate students, I’ve realized that a surefire way that anyone, but especially graduate students, can prevent or cope with burn-out is to engage in passion projects.
Passion Projects
Passion projects are basically creative side projects that are connected to our deeper meaning and have tangible outcomes. During the process, we become renewed, re-energized, and refocused. It’s crucial for anyone working toward a goal to actively engage in passion projects along the way. Passion projects don’t even necessarily need to be side projects. We can incorporate them into our regular coursework, our assignments and research.
One of the ways to create space for passion projects is to find the fibrous connections between the things we’re doing in graduate school and the things we feel compelled to do or are interested in as individuals. For example, as an individual, I’m really interested in social media and figuring out how it, and the people who use it, tick. For someone who knows the ins-and-outs of social media engagement and analysis, I don’t post as often as you might think, but I’m fascinated with why other people do and how it affects them and their followers. In my theory-heavy Introduction to Graduate Literary Study course with Dr. Keith Green, I felt drawn to Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality (which is defined, in semiotics and postmodernism, as the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality). When Baudrillard was coming up with this stuff in the late twentieth century, a typical example of what a simulation of reality (or simulacrum) was was news media sources. For example, viewers watching war footage on television were really consuming simulacrum, something more real than the actual real that becomes “a real without origin or reality” (Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation). With social media often at the front of my brain, I wanted to find a way to discuss it through this lens of hyperreality. The connection between what I was learning and what I was passionate about became immediately clear; however, I was in my first semester of graduate school and didn’t necessarily have the confidence that I could explore that connection successfully. Luckily, my professor was encouraging and—even with my initial inability to defend why this project would be worthwhile—let me take a shot at it. Although, looking back, my paper requires much more research and “fleshing out,” at the time, I procured for myself a passion project. It helped me learn, it brought me closer to my goal of completing my graduate study (an A in the course), and it combated burn-out (I felt energized and engaged during the process and rewarded by the end result). I went into the next semester confident, refreshed, and immediately aware that these types of projects were my fuel.
Another way to create passion projects is to volunteer or focus some energy in outside activities. The suggestions from those aforementioned resources I didn’t necessarily appreciate touched on this; however, our first reaction is probably, “What? Make more work for myself? I can barely get everything done as it is.” I linked up with the Writers House Program Coordinator Leah Falk and volunteered to co-teach creative writing to middle school groups at Coopers Poynt as a part of an after-school program once a week. Of course most days I was tired and thinking about the seemingly impossible coursework load I had to tackle, but, after those two hours we spent with the kids work-shopping their writing and sharing fresh ideas, again I felt energized, engaged, inspired and experienced less symptoms of burn-out than I believe I would have if I never volunteered.
Something to remember about passion projects is that they’re supposed to have shorter timelines for completion (e.g., coursework you’ve customized, a semester-long of volunteering) that you engage in along the way to your ultimate goal. Once you complete one passion project, ride the high and then, when things start to plateau, start looking for the next one. The best passion projects marry your goal (i.e., graduating) and your deep-down interests. And, by the time you’ve completed your program, you’ll have a lot of things and experiences to be proud of (and all of your hair, hopefully).
As for taking a vacation? Check out Rutgers–Camden’s many Learning Abroad opportunities and available scholarships to cover the costs. Ever hear the saying “Killing two birds with one stone?” Get into your work, not away from it.
