Anybody out there?

[Hugh_Tomatillo]

Hey everyone, I’m a first year Phd student at a school that, to be honest, wasn’t my first choice. It’s a good school, well funded, puts out lots of research and in many ways is ideal. However, I’m approximately 5 years older than most of my cohort members and honestly I don’t feel like I fit in at all. I’m originally from NYC, so attending grad school in the South is something of a culture shock, but I’m finding more and more that it’s hard for me to have anything in common with my classmates and I haven’t really found any friends that I can hangout with or even talk to outside of class. I pride myself on making an effort to be social but the combination of sports I play, life experiences, age, heritage, difficulty with classes is making me feel homesick, lonely and frustrated that I’m not fitting in as well as I would like. Before coming to grad school I had a healthy social life, strong support system and felt fulfilled at work but I feel like I’m missing something.

Has anyone else felt like this?

[Gatech_ST]

I met a lot of my friends from being involved in actives and organizations that are outside the university, definitely try that! 

I also heard good things about meetup.com !