Embracing Multiple Roles: What We Learned about Graduate Students’ Well-Being in this Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 has impacted everyone in a significant way. Many graduate students have shifted to work and study remotely, requiring major lifestyle adjustments. An increasing number of studies have explored graduate students' well-being as it relates to their studies from diverse perspectives, including remote learning and loss of peer connections. This article adds the stories of two Ph.D. students’ experiences during the pandemic using autobiographical narrative inquiry. Personal tellings and retellings demonstrate the complexity of graduate life and of embracing multiple roles. We encourage a new perception of graduate students as a whole person whose studies are one of many complex factors affecting their well-being. The authors emphasize that graduate student well-being extends beyond academic settings. The study aims to shed light on the wholesomeness of a graduate students’ well-being and apply this perspective to the post-pandemic context.