thatusername

It's really good to hear other people's perspectives It's funny because I'm Southeast Asian, too, but I didn't grow up in the US. I think in college, since you live in the same dorm with a lot of people, the socializing process is more organic. You also have more time to join clubs and so on. Now it's completely different, and I'm just unsure as to how to navigate the social life of a grad student. My cohort and I didn't go to the same interview weekend, didn't bond through orientation, and didn't take the first classes together. I was just wondering if I'm the odd one out here, or if people have gone through the same struggle when they first started grad school...

Hi all - I've read so many useful pieces of advice on this forum, and finally had something I need to seek advice for. It would be great just to hear your opinions, really, and stop overthinking things like I always do. I was wondering - for grad students, and specifically for American grad students, how much initiative is considered reasonable in socializing with your cohort? If you take too much initiative, do people think you're a complete weirdo? If you don't, do people also think you're a weirdo? First off, I have a weird situation: my lab moved mid-year, to another school not too far away, but far enough that I can't really see my friends at my previous institution as often as we'd like to anymore. And since I started in the Spring semester, the other people in my cohort already had time to establish their rapport. It has been quite challenging to break into their circle, because ....I don't really know, but there might be a few reasons. First, I'm a foreigner, and even though I spent a few years in the US before, I still find it a lot easier, just in general, to befriend Americans with the same ethnicity as mine, or international students like myself. My cohort, however, is none of those, and while I have had friends from different ethnicity before, they are usually either familiar with my culture, OR have the same sense of humor/interests (which is rare because, again, it's also related to my culture). Secondly, we also like very different things; I'm usually lost when they start talking about hockey, or obscure indie bands, despite my adequate knowledge of American pop culture. To be honest, I have not had a lot of chance to hang out with them, as I had to fly home for a while to attend to family matters. And because I still keep ties with friends at my old institution, I would accidentally schedule to go out with them, only to learn later that my cohort was going out for drinks on the same day! In short, it has been the "we don't click immediately" issue, and the bad timing issue. I tried to take initiative to talk to people during/before/after class since we take all the same classes, but it has proved not very successful so far in terms of establishing rapport. The good (or bad?) thing is, I do really like the students from other years in my department. This is a very social department, you don't find a lot of the stereotyped awkward/shy PhD students. The older students are really nice, and I feel like I click with them more, but we don't have any class together, so it's also been hard to strike up friendship with any of them. I also took the initiative to invite one of them (and his partner) to go out with me and my partner, and we had a great time, except since then we haven't seen much of each other either, and when we do we'd say we should hang out again, but then I'm just neurotic and don't want to be pushy and keep waiting for him to make it happen (and I don't think he's the type to say one thing but mean another). Anyway, I guess my point/question is, for Americans, specifically, how much initiative is enough? I'm still really trying to navigate this culture, which has been very confusing to me. Every time I fly home to hang out with my friends from home, it's simply astonishing how different the socializing processes are at home and here in the US. I don't want to blame it all on the culture, I just don't think I'm socially intelligent enough to figure this out on my own Hope to hear your opinions!