Should you inform students about burnout?

[marshwiggle]

In teaching students, whether you teach in the major or in service to some other major, should you tell students about burnout rates in that field? Or should you be completely unreserved in your encouragement of students?
What about if burnout is disproportionate to certain groups? ("Parents with young children quit this field frequently and never return.")
Does it depend on whether you provide sources for the students backing you up?

Just for the record, this isn't primarily referring to careers in academia. For instance, should someone teaching in a law school tell students the rate of people leaving the profession? Or the percentage of graduates who find careers outside their field?

[Ruralguy]

I would address the challenges without referring to all of it as "burnout."
Using this obviously pejorative term tends to suggest that people who leave the
academic track, or the field entirely are failures or maybe that the field or academia are
failing.

[Parasaurolophus]

I think you should be honest and give them the unvarnished truth, but also try not to make assumptions about their situation or motivations.

Even if they don't immediately take it on board, it's good for them to have heard about the challenges before experiencing them for themselves. That way it's not totally out of left field, and they know they aren't alone in experiencing them.

[ciao_yall]

It seems pretty universal, across all careers that...

1) People get bored with their jobs and want a change or fresh challenge.
2) Workaholism is an easy trap to fall into and by the time you realize you are exhausted it can be a tough hole to climb out of.
3) People change careers because new opportunities arise and they have transferable skills.
4) Moving up is not always desirable, though neither is remaining at the same level. And, sometimes it is.

I might frame these observations as being about life in general, rather than warning students about a particular field.

[Kron3007]

Yeah, I agree you should present the data but burnout is definitely a bad term.  It really inspired that the field ground them down and they couldn't handle it.  This is likely true for some of the people who leave, but there are plenty of other reasons people leave.

[jerseyjay]

I am not sure I understand the question. (Reading the title, I first thought it was about whether the OP should tell their students about their own burnout, but that might just be my own jaundiced view right now.)

I am a historian. A large number of my students are planning to become school teachers. Teaching has a high burnout rate. A smaller number of my students (especially in general education courses) become lawyers, nurses, and various other healthcare workers. All of these professions have high burnout rates. With the exception of a brief stint as a teacher--in a very different situation than most of my students--I do not have experience in these fields. Telling them that these fields have a high burnout rate would be like if I, as somebody who takes public transportation, were to lecture them about the danger of car accidents. It is not false, but I doubt it would do much.

I do try to model a certain "work-life balance" by, for example, not answering emails on the weekend or at night, but I am not sure this is helpful to them. At the same time, I do not really see my role as "encouraging" students to pursue certain careers. To the extent that it comes up, I try to give them various options and inform them what former students have told me about their own career paths. But I don't think it is my job to channel either Dante (abandon all hope) nor Pangloss (the best of all possible worlds)

On the other hand, I do think that programs that train professionals with high burnout rates (such as those I mentioned above) should integrate an understanding of the challenges that practitioners face as a way to avoid burnout. But I do not think this is the responsibility of individual professors (especially not in the field itself) but of professional education itself. I also note that many of these professions require graduate degrees, and it might be a part of graduate education.

If I were, say, an education professor with experience teaching in the public schools, or a nursing professor who had been a nurse, it would be appropriate to deal with my own experience with burnout.

[clean]

Im not sure I understand the definition of 'burnout'. 
However, in my limited experience, few people seem to think that it applies to them. 
An example.... In PHD School, I knew a PhD candidate in English.  While he was still early in his program He seemed to think that HE would be able to graduate early, get a job at a tier one school, but if things didnt work out he would 'settle' for a tenure track job at a CC. 
Of course he expected to earn top wages too. 

While it is certainly possible that this Could happen, the liklihood is that it would not.  There were many, many PhD candidates in English at that time, but few graduated early, or got tier one jobs, and even those that did were not 'overpaid'. 

He, however, was sure that HE would be THE ONE as he was Special! 

(The last I heard, he was teaching English at a private high school in South Florida, so he didnt get either the Tier 1 job or 'settle' for the CC job).

Similarly, I m not sure that students really fathom that bad things can or will happen to them.

[clean]

As a follow- up...
I sometimes teach the finance class required of all majors.  As part of the project in that class I have them go to the Occupation Outlook Handbook and report on the career opportunities (including salary ranges and such) for careers in their major and also a related career in finance.  For many it is the first time that they have even visited the Occupation Outlook Handbook to see what a career in their major even looks like! 
I am not really sure how people decide on their majors, but as I said above, even PhD candidates are sometimes uninformed about what the field prospects actually are! 

The bottom line is that many students have unrealistic expections about their chosen major or career opportunities within that major that perhaps an assignment to review something like the Occupation Outlook Handbook may cover what the OP is trying to cover and maybe more!

[mahagonny]

No, you shouldn't. Because burnout is a universal experience, pitfall of life. They already have a pretty good idea what it is.

Besides, academia is a haven for class warring. Some jobs, like tenure track employment, are considered important to everyone, so when a person on the tenure track has 'burnout' it's considered a threat to everyone's future. The person doing the work and their health are vitally important.
Whereas, half of the time, simply having a contract that lets you stand in front of a classroom and teach, grade, and award college credits, is purported to be getting done by people who are there because 'they want to give back to the community'. So if they experience burnout, the thinking goes, all that is lost to the community is that individual's satisfaction from being able to give back to the community, so they need to move on and let some other burned out person who knows enough to STFU about about his unimportant life take his place.
In the class war, someone's burnout will always be more important than yours.

As for it not being a question about working in academia, many people end up teaching for sustenance who didn't expect to when they were younger.

[marshwiggle]

I understand the point people have made regarding the term
"burnout". What I hoped some people would address was this point.

What about if burnout dissatisfaction is disproportionate to certain groups? ("Parents with young children quit this field frequently and never return.")
Does it depend on whether you provide sources for the students backing you up?

So for instance, in fields like law or engineering, if the proportion of people who leave the profession within 10 years is different for men and women, is that appropriate or not to discuss with students? If it is, under what circumstances?

[bacardiandlime]

What's your goal here? To talk them out of majoring in this field?
And women with children leaving more than men probably happens in EVERY field.

Are you telling female students who plan to have families to not bother?

[marshwiggle]

What's your goal here? To talk them out of majoring in this field?
And women with children leaving more than men probably happens in EVERY field.

Are you telling female students who plan to have families to not bother?

NO. (But this is the response I expected to hear from at least a few people.)

Treating people like adults means allowing them to make informed decisions. In medicine, "informed consent" is a legal requirement. Because no-one knows what the outcome will be for any specific person, the responsible and respectful course of action is to give people as much information as possible so that they can make their decision.

In many cases, (like the medical one), data suggest that there are certain factors which may affect the outcomes. Part of "informed consent" is making people aware of this context.

For those who are worried about concerns like bacardiandlime has raised, is there no responsible way to discuss information of this nature? What about if students actually ask about career outcomes? Is it justified to withhold information intentionally, and if so, when?

[Istiblennius]

I've definitely changed how I talk to students about career options over the past two decades of advising, because of many of the points raised in this thread. Not only have the job prospects changed but the nature of the work has changed. In some ways for the better, especially if you are cis- or trans- female or nonbinary. In some ways for the worse.
I'm curious, how much of the burnout that we experience is related to the lack of support structures - lack of PTO and family leave, childcare, healthcare, etc., is it a US phenomenon or is it broader? Interested in perspectives of colleagues working in other countries.

[Caracal]

Im not sure I understand the definition of 'burnout'. 
However, in my limited experience, few people seem to think that it applies to them. 
An example.... In PHD School, I knew a PhD candidate in English.  While he was still early in his program He seemed to think that HE would be able to graduate early, get a job at a tier one school, but if things didnt work out he would 'settle' for a tenure track job at a CC. 
Of course he expected to earn top wages too. 

While it is certainly possible that this Could happen, the liklihood is that it would not.  There were many, many PhD candidates in English at that time, but few graduated early, or got tier one jobs, and even those that did were not 'overpaid'. 

He, however, was sure that HE would be THE ONE as he was Special! 

(The last I heard, he was teaching English at a private high school in South Florida, so he didnt get either the Tier 1 job or 'settle' for the CC job).

Of course, maybe he's reasonably content with how things turned out. I'm sure community college teaching can be rewarding and enjoyable, but the kind of person you describe might be much happier teaching well prepared high schoolers English than he would be teaching a lot of composition courses to students of widely varying motivations and talent levels.

Its good for people to be realistic, and aware of the challenges in a field-whether those challenges are about getting a job, or after. However, sometimes people just think they'll enjoy something and it turns out they don't. Or they enjoy it for a while and get tired of it. I don't know if it helps to always view that as a failure.

[AvidReader]

Like jerseyjay, I try to model a healthy work-life balance for my students. I also tell them directly that it is important to start setting boundaries in college, because it is easy to set those aside at every stage of one's career.

I have taught a lot of general ed. and comp classes and often have research/writing assignments that are based on students' expected majors or careers (e.g. identify a challenge faced by practitioners in your intended field, research two solutions, and explain which solution or what balance of solutions would be most effective and why). In any given semester, across a range of fields, I tend to get at least 50% "burnout in [any given profession] is a major problem." If you want your students to know that these challenges are coming, can you set them an assignment that will help them find that information--and start thinking about possible solutions--on their own?

AR.