UC Berkeley graduate students exhibit higher rates of depression than the average population, according to a new graduate student well-being survey from the Graduate Assembly and the campus’s Graduate Division.

The report, released Wednesday morning, found that doctoral students, students who self-identified their race or ethnicity as “other,” and lesbian, gay and bisexual students tended to score as more depressed than other graduate students. The study found no significant difference based on gender, citizenship status, race or ethnicity, apart from those students who marked the “other” box.

Almost half of students pursuing a doctorate and 37 percent of those pursuing a master’s or professional degree scored as being depressed. Graduate students in the arts and humanities tended to be the most depressed, at 64 percent.

The last UC Berkeley graduate student well-being report was released in 2004. Part of the university’s goal in improving graduate student health is making students more productive and successful, and more likely to be employed.

“It’s to say, look, the science has been clear for a while now — it’s time for our policies to catch up,” said Galen Panger, the survey leader and doctoral candidate in the campus School of Information.

The report found 10 top predictors of graduate student well-being, with the foremost being career prospects. The next two were overall health and living conditions.

“One of the problems underlying the results of the wellness study is that there’s a hopelessness if one feels that one’s doctorate is only equipping one for an academic job,” said Graduate Division Dean Fiona Doyle.

UC Berkeley graduate students expressed worry over career prospects after graduate school and frustration with department advisers who only have work experience in academia.

“They have no idea about getting a position in a district, because they’ve never worked in a district,” said Leah Faw, a fifth-year education doctoral candidate. “It’s one thing for a tenured Berkeley professor to tell you (academia) is rewarding, but it’s another matter when we’re staring at our first job.”

Another one of the top 10 predictors was “social support,” and graduate students anonymously quoted in the report mention the isolation common in the graduate student experience.

Graduate Assembly President John Ready said he was “saddened” by the stories but was unsurprised.

“Me, personally, I work in the basement of a building, and if I didn’t make an effort, I could go weeks without human contact,” he said, citing the social barriers present in working on an individual project in a highly specific field.

The Graduate Assembly has been encouraged by the recent success of the wellness referendum, which intends to use fees for the purpose of promoting mental health services.

The Graduate Division, which heard preliminary results from the survey conducted last spring, has begun recruiting for a graduate community coordinator.

Contact Anna Sturla at [email protected].