Graduate School Can Have Terrible Effects on People's Mental Health

“I was always gung ho about going to graduate school for some reason,” reflects Everet Rummel, a data analyst at the City University of New York. “That was naive.”

Rummel was indeed gung ho, embarking on a doctoral program in economics immediately after completing both his bachelor’s master’s degrees in just four years. He was only 22 years old. And Rummel was indeed naive, at least in his own telling of his plans. That plan—which for the average doctoral candidate roughly eight years—ended quickly, not because of Rummel’s characteristic efficiency but because he never