I also agree with your mention of phd students and tenured academics getting disconnected from society outside the walls of the Ivory Tower. But, could you tell me more of what’s in your mind when you say that? Do you mean they can’t help their students find non-academic jobs? Or, is there more to what you’re saying?

I suspect that this isn’t the only cause of stress in grad school: a tough job market and repeated uprooting and isolation from outside community and once’s family and friends from before grad school also add to this. But as far as treating grad students like colleagues vs. not, I think unfortunately most faculty think of PhD students as *students*, not *colleagues*. I don’t know of any departments that treats its grad students like colleagues, but I do know one faculty member who treats (all? some?) graduate students as one would treat a colleague/ someone with loads of potential to groom and collaborate with, takes them to conferences, gives them constructive and clear feedback on their work, etc.

The stance at some departments is that graduate students are cheap labor. Faculty travel to conferences while grad students stay at home. Faculty in humanities are also often not used to collaboration, so what they call an ‘apprenticeship’ is not what I would call that.

Getting trained to do something which society doesn’t really need (with the exception of a few fields) or rather has too much of already given labor demand probably doesn’t help either. The fact that you are giving up freedom of geographic mobility and have to be thankful for any job with way over 40 hours a week at 20k to 55k a year that might be anywhere in the country or even the world — that can be pretty humiliating too. It probably also doesn’t help that phd students and tenured academics too get disconnected from society outside the walls of the Ivory Tower. Things can also take years longer than expected, which doesn’t help. And you realize you’re no longer quite as special as you thought you were before you went in? And also suddenly advisors can get really picky with your work — albeit even with the good intention of preparing you for the job market. Lots of reasons for a potential drop in self-esteem and adverse effect on personality.

This is terrific advice and very timely for me as I am about to head out to the International Coach Federation Conference.

Keep up the good work!

Jeannette

(1) Unfortunately, I see very few LinkedIn profiles in which people have actually listed their skills beyond the resume-like jobs/experience. (And, I’m even guilty of that myself!)

(2) Noticing these linkages with friends and their interests is a great counter to the question I often see, on why we should bother collecting a lot of people as “friends.” It’s a great way to get background on a person before you meet face-to-face, to help establish common ground in a conversation. — “It’s really good to meet you, and I noticed that your LinkedIn profile says you’re working on a (whatever it is). I’ve been doing some parallel research and I wanted to ask you about….”

(3) Yes, and those passing opportunities can work both ways! A friend of mine was “found” in LinkedIn by a business acquaintance who was looking for a web designer, but he didn’t know she did that as a sideline until he searched his local LinkedIn profiles for “web designer.” Both searcher and searchee were pleased with the result.

Thanks for the comments – I really liked your extension of the post.