New study examines why college students with depression might struggle with research

College students are disproportionately likely to experience depression than most other demographics in the U.S. While just over 8% of adults in the U.S. have depression, nearly 50% of college students do –– a staggering number, which also leads to high numbers of students quitting their studies. 

Prior studies from the Cooper lab, which broadly studies students’ experiences with mental health and works to come up with ways to better support students, have shown that research obligations can exacerbate depression. Mary Kahraman, a first-year PhD student in the Biology and Society program, recently published a paper looking at why that is. 

Kahraman conducted 74 interviews with undergraduate and graduate student researchers identifying as having depression and analyzed those interviews using the “hopelessness theory of depression.” That theory posits that when people with depression go through a negative experience, they are likely to internalize it, believing negative things will happen because of their own flaws, stabilize it, believing that negative events will only continue occurring, or they globalize it and believe that their negative experience reflects how the world works.  

By analyzing the interviews she conducted through that lens, Kahraman saw that it applied to students who had negative research experiences.  

“One of the biggest events they experienced was failure,” Kahraman explains, “And so instead of just brushing it off... they’ll internalize it and say, ‘it’s something wrong with me, I’m stupid.”

Other students experiencing failure magnified the blame, according to Kahraman: “they were likely to globalize the event and just say, ‘research is not meant for me. I should just drop out while I still can.’” 

One of the most important reasons to understand how research exacerbates depression, Kahraman says, is to inform mentors on how to better support their students. 

“When students encounter these events, especially students with depression, it’s really essential for mentors to come in and relate to their experiences,” she says. 

As someone living with depression herself, Kahraman knows how much harder the condition can make it to be in school. She recalls being an undergraduate student: “Entering a classroom, I felt disadvantaged in some ways. I felt at a complete loss.” 

Indeed, depression affects a person’s ability to function, as people living with depression can have difficulty concentrating, low motivation, and feel near-constant fatigue, making it much harder to complete the endless responsibilities that come with being a college student.  

Going forward in her PhD, Kahraman hopes to both keep studying what factors exacerbate students’ depression and interventions teachers and mentors can make to better support the students who need it.