We started our Ph.D.s during COVID-19. Now, we’re graduating into political chaos

From ScienceMag:

Five years ago, I got the email I had hoped for. “We are very pleased to offer you admission to the Neuroscience Ph.D. program,” it read, as confetti in the school’s colors rained down the screen. My parents didn’t have college degrees. I didn’t meet someone with a Ph.D. until college—and now I was going to be one, training in my first-choice program. My friend and I decided to celebrate by making some homemade mac ’n cheese, and we headed to the grocery store for milk. But there was none: The date was 13 March 2020, and COVID-19 had been declared a pandemic 2 days before. Now, I’m nearing graduation in another time of crisis—hoping to draw strength from the lessons I learned the first time around.

My graduate school experience was not what I expected. Soon after starting, I received another email: “Nonmedical students, including Ph.D. students, are not considered essential workers.” I wouldn’t be able to attend in-person classes or meetings with professors, or work in certain lab spaces. Orientation events, where I should have been getting to know my fellow classmates, would be online. In my new apartment, far from friends or family, the sounds of traffic and the birds chirping in the bushes were my only company—those noises, and the many houseplants my father had lovingly carried up two flights of stairs for me. I felt anxious and alone, but found consolation by immersing myself in rigorous and exciting neuroscience.

When I feel myself drifting toward despair, I think about what I learned during the pandemic.

• Paige Nicklas
• University of Rochester

At the same time, I began to experience dissonance between my personal and professional lives. I watched as family and friends posted on social media saying the virus was not dangerous or spreading misinformation about the vaccine—even while a loved one was hospitalized with COVID-19. At first I felt helpless. But when I began to share how I was feeling with my classmates, I learned many were having similar experiences. And I realized I had both the capability and responsibility to make change—by connecting with scientists and nonscientists alike.

In addition to building community with my fellow scientists, I started to take science communication classes, attend workshops, and get involved in outreach. Writing science news articles, visiting local elementary schools and museums, improving my data visualizations—anything that helped connect me with nonscientists, I would do it. The follow-up questions, feedback, and personal anecdotes I heard energized me. I envisioned a career dedicated to both innovative research and imaginative science communication. I was going to get my Ph.D., and then do everything I could to help prevent the confusion felt during the COVID-19 pandemic from repeating itself.

Now, it’s not just the public that is bewildered, but the research community, questioning the future of science after rapid-fire actions by President Donald Trump’s administration against scientists and universities. Last month, another email popped up on my phone, from my institution’s leadership: “While awaiting further guidance from federal agencies … we remain deeply committed to the well-being of the University community and to our values as we pursue our research, health care, and education missions.” It may have been a wellintended statement of support, but the platitudes did not help much.

I have been watching my friends lose their postgraduation jobs and seeing layoff announcements at places where I thought I might work. The opportunities we worked so hard to pursue are evaporating in front of us. Some are considering leaving the country after graduation. Others may leave science entirely. For trainees from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds, these and other worries are an even bigger burden.

It is difficult to absorb all the uncertainty and still hold on to hope—to remember the feeling I had while watching the blue and yellow confetti flutter across my acceptance notification. But when I feel myself drifting toward despair, I think about what I learned during the pandemic, the first crisis of my Ph.D.: Build community and keep sharing the value of science. The way through this, as with all challenges, is with each other.

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