Dandy Doctoral Candy

[rising_star]

I dunno. I wouldn't date someone you're teaching. But other than that... why not look at single faculty?

[LaraAnn85]

I am incredibly amused reading this thread, the sheer honesty is fabulous. I hadn't thought too much about this kind of thing, but I guess it is an issue. I guess I figure if you go to a big enough school in a big enough city, you're bound to find someone but maybe I'm wrong! I'm deciding between two schools, but for the dating scene I guess one of them having a med school and a law school are pluses eh? :wink:

[Minnesotan]

How utterly mercenary! =)

[sundaymonday]

Be careful what you wish for, especially if she/he is in the same program. They could turn out to be a complete psycho, or break your heart, or do an impression of your O face for everyone in your seminar group. I know WAY too much about the sex lives of the graduate students in my office, and I'm sure they have no idea.

Dating in the department is like dating people at your place of employment. Not ideal, for obvious reasons, but it happens anyway. Just remember that you're probably going to be stuck with them for the next 5 years.

[rising_star]

Be careful what you wish for, especially if she/he is in the same program. They could turn out to be a complete psycho, or break your heart, or do an impression of your O face for everyone in your seminar group. I know WAY too much about the sex lives of the graduate students in my office, and I'm sure they have no idea.

Dating in the department is like dating people at your place of employment. Not ideal, for obvious reasons, but it happens anyway. Just remember that you're probably going to be stuck with them for the next 5 years.

See, I don't know. I dated someone in my department for 2.5 months before anyone found out (we told people). No one other than our close personal friends knows anything about our relationship and that sort of thing. But then I'm in a broad discipline and we never had classes together or anything like that. It hasn't been a problem at all. Incidentally, there are two other couples of graduate students, one of which is getting married this summer. The other couples are all doctoral students; my boyfriend and I are master's students.

[sundaymonday]

I guess my only experience has been with more tightly-knit, smaller programs. The program I work for only accepts 10-12 students per year, and the program I'm entering into is the same way. Where I work, most of the students are in many of the same classes for two years. Sounds like you two are pretty mature and handled the situation well - and probably benefited from it being a larger (or at least more broadly oriented) department.

[zigazowohnow]

Just to be clear, when I speak of intelligence I mean natural intelligence. I consider an intellectual someone who is interested in learning and knowledge--I consider this trait to be correlated with, but not affirming intelligence.

Interesting...I've been struggling with my own personal belief on what I view as intelligence and trying to find a succinct definition. I am curious to know what you're definition of intelligence is?

[zigazowohnow]

I dunno. I wouldn't date someone you're teaching. But other than that... why not look at single faculty?

Can you do that??? and if you do is it a really big/awkward secret?

[zigazowohnow]

Dating in the department is like dating people at your place of employment. Not ideal, for obvious reasons, but it happens anyway. Just remember that you're probably going to be stuck with them for the next 5 years.

I would think it is worse than dating someone at your place of employment since you can always change jobs. However in academia there is a slim likelihood of you changing fields and someone in your department will always be your colleague of whom you will be inclined to run into at conferences. :oops:

[rising_star]

Can you do that??? and if you do is it a really big/awkward secret?

It's generally not acceptable just because you're in a position of power over the person that you're teaching. You could date once that has passed but you definitely shouldn't be dating someone while teaching them or advising them (if a faculty member).

I guess my only experience has been with more tightly-knit, smaller programs. The program I work for only accepts 10-12 students per year, and the program I'm entering into is the same way. Where I work, most of the students are in many of the same classes for two years. Sounds like you two are pretty mature and handled the situation well - and probably benefited from it being a larger (or at least more broadly oriented) department.

My department has about 15 incoming students each year, a mix of master's and PhD. So it's really not that much bigger than yours, we are a tightly knit department, and it really hasn't been a huge deal (at least not that I know). For whatever reason, lots of people that know him and I didn't realize we were dating until 6-8 months into our relationship. This included my advisor, a bunch of assorted other faculty, and the bartenders at the happy hour we attended every single week. In fact, the aforementioned bartender found out just in the past month or so, even though we bought all of our drinks on the same tab for over 6 months. *shrug* It hasn't been a big problem for anyone. I would say what helped was that we've always had a no PDA rule when on campus. So nothing more than holding hands when walking in or leaving. That makes everyone more comfortable, imo.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

Most schools outright ban dating between TA's and their students or professors and their students. I'm certain that your grad student handbook will spell out the school's policy in more detail than you care to read.

rising_star: that's pretty surprising to me. I suppose some departments are more prone to gossip than others, but I can't imagine a cohort of grad students sitting around before class or at a happy hour and not even speculating about who's going out with whom. Kudos to the both of you for being able to keep it quiet.

[rising_star]

Undrafted,

Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of people who did know! Most of the graduate students knew and some of the faculty. It came up a couple of times when like my class would get invited to a profs house and I'd send an email and be like, Hey can he come too?, and they always said yes. In fact, one of the invitations I got last year (which was to an event for everyone in my subfield) specifically mentioned that I should bring him because he's always welcome (dif subfield and all). So it was never a huge deal, at least not that I know. But honestly. My advisor found out like 6 months into our relationship because we were doing a faculty hire and they were out to lunch and he mentioned something about my work and she (my advisor) asked why he knew about my research and he answered that I'm his girlfriend. Then she told me about it at our next meeting.

But the happy hour thing... I never imagined we'd fool a bartender for a year, especially not one who saw us every single week.

My point in all this is that it can work. It may not be the easiest thing but it's definitely possible. I have to say, none of the three intradepartment couples have classes with one another (as in, guy and gal are never in the same seminar), which probably makes all of our lives easier. It definitely wasn't my plan to start dating someone in my department but it happened and it's been great for both of us.