[fruffy]

> Do you think more than half of all STEM graduate students had a similar experience as she did? Do you have actual data to support this?

Yes, her entire description about her experience (safe for that weirdness with the textbook sweatshop) is relatable. I am not sure what you are looking for but STEM PhD attrition rates speak for themselves. Those do not include PhDs that decide to leave academia after retrieving their PhD. Not to mention the frequently discussed mental health crisis that consistently gets Nature articles.

HN's negativity is comparable to the negativity I have seen with CS, Maths, and Physics PhDs and Postdocs in personal discussions. See also PhD comics: https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd072011s.gif

If you are an idealist you will of course be worn down by the way many academic institutions are set up. There is a ton of writing on this, e.g., https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/decline.txt