Yesterday, I asked our mailing list subscribers to answer a poll on their experience of PhD-loneliness.
The results are not particularly surprising to me, given that I spend all day every day helping PhD students navigate their PhDs, but for those who do feel lonely they may give you some comfort and show you that you aren’t alone.
There were four options to choose from, and the table below summarises the results from the 120 or so people who responded:
I currently feel lonely
56.6%
I have felt lonely in the past, but not so much anymore
39.5%
I’ve never felt lonely during my PhD
1.3%
None of the above
2.6%
When I ran a similar poll on Twitter, a whopping 80% percent said they currently felt lonely.
For those who currently feel lonely, take solace that your feelings aren’t unique. As hard as they are to deal with, you aren’t alone in feeling them and, worryingly, they are fast becoming the norm amongst graduate students.
Today I invite you to leave a comment and share any anecdotes or tips you have about loneliness, perhaps sharing your experience of it, or how you manage it.
Everything is treated confidentially, and the thoughts you share will anonymously feed into new resources on loneliness I’m putting together for publication on The PhD Knowledge Base.
