Friday, July 20, 2018
By:
For those following my activities, every week so far has been full of exciting events, projects, and undertakings. Well, this week was essentially the opposite. I made no plans for the week, and didn't have much going on at work. We are one week away from August Recess, so there's not much going on at our office for interns to work on. Added to this, I've been quite sick all week, so I really only worked two days. I'm thankful to have a wonderful and supportive mentor, who ensures I take the time to care for myself. This is something that I always struggled with in school, and really never came to master. Since I have no exciting news from Congress to share this week, I would like to take the opportunity to address the topic of self-care and health amongst physics students.
When I started a degree in physics, I did so with the knowledge that I was not in the best health. Throughout my undergraduate physics career, there was not a single semester in which I was not hospitalized for one thing or another. This of course, is not common, but I do not speak only to students who are fighting through chronic illness, disability, or other crises. I speak to the students who caught the flu but are too afraid to miss a day of lecture, the students who don’t see a counselor because they can’t fit it into their class schedule, the students who have haven’t slept in 3 days because they are confident their professors won’t grant an extension. The field of Physics, and many other STEM fields, tends to create an atmosphere in which students feel that if they aren’t giving their all, 100% of the time, they will not be able to succeed, and that’s simply not true.
I regret that I didn’t learn these lessons until well into my academic career. There have been times that I took exams with a fever above 102 degrees. I’ve had to run from lectures to make it to a restroom to throw up my breakfast, only to immediately return to my seat to continue taking notes. I’ve finished exams and proceeded directly to the Emergency Room for medical care. I’ve been discharged from the hospital and gone straight to class, still wearing my hospital wristband. I’ve let my grades suffer because I felt sure that “not feeling well” for weeks at a time was not a valid excuse for an extension on homework or projects. These may sound extreme, but I guarantee that students in your classes have done similar.
During my senior year of undergrad, I had the experience of one of my professors asking us to fill out a “getting to know you” type form to start off the semester. At the end of this form there was an open question, “Is there anything else you would like to tell me or that I should know.” I had just switched into this course after dropping another, in which the professor told me I would fail the class if I missed more than two lectures, with or without a valid excuse. Knowing this course was also based strongly on in-class participation, I explained my situation and that sometimes I felt too sick to follow along in class very well or participate very much in discussions, and sometimes would have to miss classes. This isn’t something that I usually addressed outright with my professors (often waiting until I ended up in the hospital to even bring it up), so I didn’t know what to expect. My professor later emailed me to let me know that he understood and to not worry about it, that of course there would be no negative consequences and I should take the time I need to take care of myself. He also told me if I ever needed any extensions or help with anything, to please email him, no questions asked. This was my first experience with a professor really telling me to put myself before my academics. This prompted me to contact my other professors in a similar manner, and shockingly (to me at least) all of them responded similarly. It turns out that professors do actually care about their student’s wellbeing.
That year was the most supported I had ever felt as a physics undergraduate. As I shared these experiences with friends in my classes, this inspired other students dealing with various problems to talk with our professors about them as well. It was such a relief for us all to know that a professor would accept an assignment late because we had just had two projects due and couldn’t go another night without sleep. Missing lecture due to a bad cold seemed detrimental, but our professors were more than happy to explain the concepts from class in their office hours. Why had we been so scared to ask for help? No one in physics wants to seem like the “slacker” in class, we all want to prove ourselves, and often feel that that takes precedence over our own selves, after all, we can worry about taking care of ourselves after landing a good job. Over the past couple years, I have seen so many more programs in physics emerging to help break down these toxic ideas. I’m so grateful to have been involved with some of these, but I know that many students aren’t involved with student groups, they don’t have a support base at their university, and they just struggle through it, unaware there is any other way.
I love physics, and I love the physics community, but this is only one of the many flaws that afflict this and other scientific fields. During my senior year I made the decision that I didn’t want to go into scientific research, instead I wanted to find a way to support students like myself who struggle, thinking that is what is expected of them, and that asking for help will just be perceived as a weakness. I want to change how the field of physics views personal challenges, and build our community into what it should be, a place for cooperative and humane scientific work, where everyone can learn and thrive.
Sarah Monk