Community is one of the strongest assets in grad school. It can reduce isolation and feelings of loneliness, two constructs that can lead to even more mental health struggles when paired with the stressors of grad school (e.g, Levesque et al., 2017; Satinsky et al., 2021), like intensive coursework, qualifying exams, pressure to publish, or imposter syndrome (Gills et al., 2024; Keloharju et al., 2024). The bad news is that the concerning increase in significant mental health concerns in graduate school is reaching crisis levels, per Evans et al. (2018). Similarly, Gills et al. (2024) reported that the social determinant of “loneliness was the strongest and most consistent individual predictor across the three mental health outcomes: depression, anxiety, and [TRIGGER WARNING] suicidality” (Discussion section). The good news is, if you’re in grad school now and feeling isolated or lonely, you’re definitely not alone, and that’s why finding a community can be so beneficial.
In the last year of my PhD, I was probably the unhealthiest I’ve ever been. I spent too much time and energy comparing myself to other people in my program and feeling like I didn’t belong (My Imposter Syndrome was Imposter Syndroming big time). I tried to mask what I was feeling and experiencing from everyone, because I was embarrassed and ashamed that my cohort, my professors, and my entourage of family and friends would realize that I didn’t belong in a PhD program. It came to a head when I began waking up in the throes of an anxiety attack almost daily. My diet worsened, I became irritable, and my overall health suffered because I just wasn’t taking care of myself. To avoid further shame, I initially isolated myself and hid my struggles from others. The feeling of isolation emerged in Dr. Amy Murdock’s grad school experience as well which she artfully describes as being stranded in the middle of the sea:
I loved my cohorts but felt like I was afloat on the open sea the whole time….nothing was clear, ever. And I remember it was just so strange because this dissertation “assignment” was the hardest academic task I’d ever faced, and yet there was the least amount of clarity about expectations. This extreme polarity of challenge versus support made me feel that not only was I afloat on the open sea, but that I was drifting through fog and massive waves…you know…too much water coming in. And then the closer you get to land, the more you feel like you’re just one big wave away from sinking.
Do either of these experiences resonate with you? After finishing my PhD in 2018, I spoke to other grad students about the isolating and lonely grad school experiences, and discovered that they all had comparable experiences. This may be due in part to the small number of individuals that complete grad degrees, especially doctoral ones, and the proportion of students who enroll to those who actually complete their degree is stark. According to a survey during the 2022 – 2023 academic year, 1,820,000 students enrolled in a U.S. doctoral program versus only 89,090 students (4.89%) in a doctoral program in the US received their degree (Council of Graduate Schools, 2024). This is an extremely niche segment of the population. To put it differently, imagine being at a concert with 1,000 people. That means that no more than 50 people of that entire crowd would have earned a doctoral degree.
There may be several reasons that so few people earn a PhD, such as that it’s academically rigorous, the rules are vague or even unspoken (topic for upcoming blog!), but also that you have so few people to talk to about it, even those that are meant to support you, like your busy advisor who only offers vague advice or corrects your punctuation in your draft. Thus, not only is grad school academically challenging which is mentally draining but the lack of support and interpersonal connection can be incredibly lonely. Taken together, the mental drain and loneliness can be a recipe either for quitting a doctoral program (the vast majority do) or for slogging away for years until receiving a degree but also destroying oneself and suffering poor mental health outcomes along the way. Both options are cause for concern, but why does it have to be one or the other: Quit grad school or stay and suffer? Is it possible to stay in grad school and retain your mental health?
Even if social determinants like loneliness can predict negative mental health outcomes, others like having a community can help reduce them. The notion of community may vary slightly across grad students, but Charles et al. (2020) describe community for grad students as relationships “not only those with their peers, but a relationship with their institution that provides them with a sense of belonging in a positive social climate” (p. 1864). In sum, community offers grad students a support system that promotes a feeling of belonging and reassurance.
When I was going through my full-time in-person PhD program, I don’t know what I would have done without my cohort of fellow students, and having a community benefited me immensely. The benefits of community in grad school have been researched extensively (e.g., Berry, 2017; Denman et al. 2018; Matheka et al., 2025; Studebaker & Curtis, 2021), and there is evidence to show that community supports graduate students’ mental health (Mousavi et al., 2018; Posselt, 2018). Additionally, recent studies indicate that grad students who are part of a community have higher grades (Matheka et al., 2025), more academic self-confidence (Dilks, 2021), and are more likely to persist in their program (Posselt, 2018). Although the benefits of community to grad students seem overwhelmingly positive, finding or building that community is not always simple, especially for the increasing number of students pursuing their graduate degrees online or part-time while also working full-time and taking care of a family.
For those students attending grad school in-person, I highly recommend creating a study group with people from your cohort, joining a writing group, or checking out your university library to find opportunities for community on campus. In the third year of my PhD, the year of my comps (i.e., comprehensive/qualifying exams), all six members of our cohort met once a week to study together. Rather than putting pressure entirely on myself to prepare for comps, each member of the cohort was responsible for reading and taking notes on an article or seminal book chapter which we then shared between us. When we met, we would then discuss the notes and imagine what kinds of questions our professors could ask us on the exam. Not only did splitting the study work reduce responsibility and take less time, but the regular meetings also allowed us to reflect on the material together in a sort of collective. When I passed my comps and moved on to the two-year dissertation phase, I signed up for a biweekly writing group hosted by the Writing Center at my university. For two hours twice a week, I brought my laptop to the Writing Center and worked quietly amongst other grad students from various programs, most of whom I didn’t know. We didn’t even need to speak to each other, it was just comforting to be in the company of other grad students going through a similar stressful time.
Moreover, community in grad school does not have to come solely from other students, it can be found in a collaborative hobby or activity like volunteering or acting, spending time with family and friends, or building community online. At the start of my dissertation process, I volunteered at a local independent movie theater. Not only did I get friendly with the staff there, I also got to see tons of movies for free! On top of that, I randomly got into doing stand up comedy in my town. Both of these experiences with the movie theater and stand up comedy helped me see that life was way more than grad school and dissertating, a reality that grad students often forget. Dr. Amy Murdock echoes the importance of getting away from grad school:
For me, having fun and letting off steam, and just stepping away from the laptop for a period of time every day helped. So I would meet friends for dinner, go to Pilates, take my camera and venture out to a park or something. Changing scenery and getting fresh air can help reset your brain. You get back to your work with a fresh mind, makes a huge difference.
While students who pursue their grad degree in person may find community more readily available, more and more grad students are getting their degrees online. Per an Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System report released by the National Center for Educational Statistics, 1,255,929 students were enrolled in online US grad programs in 2023. The loneliness, isolation, and poor mental health outcomes that grad students suffer paired with the increasing number of students pursuing grad degrees online are two of the reasons why we launched the Dissertation Collective.
At the Dissertation Collective, our mission is to offer structured, collaborative academic support through a combination of coaching, writing sessions, and peer accountability. Check out our low-cost monthly subscriptions like The Circle or the Library Card where you can chat and work with other grad students like you. Are you an online grad student and you have a tip for building community?