The epidemic of academic loneliness has been a long-standing issue, with many academic institutions attempting to find a solution to academic loneliness.
Academia is unlike any other profession where teamwork is essential and work is often carried out in welcoming open-plan offices or discussed over a shared workspace. In contrast, academiais a system built on the principle of originality; to be in academia, your study must be something original and unresearched. While this is what makes academia so exciting, it is also the cause of academic loneliness. Academics shoulder the weight of their research for many years alone, often cooped up in dimly lit libraries, solitarily sifting through books or spending days that roll into nights in a sterile lab, squinting through tiny lenses.
Academics are undeniably intelligent; it is the very thing required to pursue academia. With that said, academics’ intellect often lies in a very niche area and often their interests do not span across multiple disciplines. Therefore, while academics could conversate with one another on a general level in passing, there is a lack of human connection and a deep sense of understanding between coworkers that other professions get to experience. This is not a small issue that is easily dismissible because academia has higher mental health challenges than any other profession, and the increase in online learning threatens to exacerbate this issue.
While academics might be original in their research ideas, academics do share one thing, and that is a mindset of changing the world. The best example is in a postgraduate research welcome event.
The dean of postgraduate research said: ‘We cannot change the world with a PhD, but we will make a start.”
As those words fell from his lips, it seemed almost daring to tell a room full of eager researchers that they would not change the world; almost counterintuitive to begin a research degree by noting it wouldn’t be doing enough good in the world. But then, after much consideration, this wasn’t a man trying to put peers down, instead it was a very wise academic, knowing too well the mindset of his comrades who made it his mission to ease the pressure academics seem to shoulder. Many academics see a gap in knowledge or even an issue in the world and make it their life mission to understand the issue better and essentially save the world, or at least their small part of the world.
Therefore, there is more to academia than meets the eye, beyond great minds, fancy titles, and vast knowledge.There are people who see what is wrong with the world, whether it affects them, a loved one or is a problem that simply exists. But these people want to – and will – change the world with their research; it might be just a start, it might only change a small part, but they will save the world!