Hi all,
I am a regular here on the forums, but I'm posting under a different username to preserve my anonymity. I don't mean to offend anyone with my post, but I am deeply sorry if I do. If you could give me your outside perspective on this, I would be eternally grateful.
This fall, I will be enrolling in a science Ph.D. program at a very prominent university in a large urban area. I skipped the last few years of secondary school, entered college early, and am now graduating at 19. While I've made many friends (both among my similarly-aged peers and with more traditional students) at my undergraduate institution, I have never been in a relationship. I wouldn't say I'm particularly weird, and I try to be a genuinely nice person, but I'm a bit socially awkward and have been told I need to work on my self-confidence. (I'm fine on paper, but when I talk, I often can come across as emotionless or just a babbling idiot.) Most of the students on my undergrad campus are out of my age range (average age for undergrads here is 25), and I guess I just didn't "hit it off" with those who were younger. I'm now concerned about what might (not) happen in grad school and beyond. I don't want to be alone forever!
I'm not planning on hanging out with the undergrads too much during my graduate studies (though I do have a few friends who are currently undergrads at/near the school I'll be attending). I've never been one to partake in heavy drinking, loud music, or wild dancing, so I'm ruling out the undergraduate party scene as a possible social avenue. I've lived with my parents throughout college, but I don't imagine that I'd change my social patterns much as a grad student--even when I lived at a large undergrad university while doing a summer research program, I avoided going clubbing or partying with some of the other interns. And I think that even if I were to talk with some of the undergrads, they'd likely find me to be somewhat dim-witted (you know, with my definitively-non-Ivy League et al. college education) compared to the intelligence exhibited by the average undergrad at the school I'll be attending.
I decided to get on-campus housing for the next year, and I was assigned to what is apparently the most "social" graduate student apartment complex. I know that for many undergrads living in dorms, "social" basically means beer and loud parties, but I suspect the definition is different for graduate students (anybody care to enlighten me as to what social grad student living is entails?). I understand that a lot of socialization in grad school revolves around alcohol, or at least alcohol-serving establishments. There is a graduate student bar close to my assigned apartment, and I'm guessing that's where a lot of conversations between grad students take place. I don't drink (at least, not yet), but I probably wouldn't feel uncomfortable just getting a non-alcoholic drink and chatting with others at the bar. However, I don't think I'm allowed to do even that, as the bar's website specifies that entry is allowed only to students age 21 or over. By the time I turn 21, I'll likely have moved to off-campus housing. I worry that this closes off yet another social activity to me. So most all of the other grad students would be out of my age range, the undergrad scene isn't very appealing to me, I'm legally barred from entering bars, I've got no experience with dating to speak of, and just thinking about all this is very daunting. Do I just cross my fingers and hope that something magical happens during the next five years? Accept that I'll just have friends but no girlfriend? Find some other way of meeting people? (But what?) Was deciding to go to graduate school a major screw-up?
ekans the confused
