Why PhD is SO Hard

Why PhD is SO Hard is a zine that explores the challenges of going on strike as a PhD student. Graduate students occupy overlapping roles as students, researchers, and workers, making it difficult to separate their labor from their academic progress. Through this zine, we invite readers to question the working conditions of doctoral education and consider what forms of resistance might be possible within these constraints. As part of this project, we are distributing the zine to people who hold positions of power within academia, including professors and university decision-makers. We see this act of distribution itself as a way to contest PhD working conditions and encourage those with institutional power to reflect on their roles and responsibilities.