How many close friends do you have? Are they mostly grad students in the same field, or in different fields too?

[InquilineKea]

What about professors? Undergrads?

[Eigen]

Mostly grad students now, although I have a few friends that aren't who live reasonably close, and others I keep up with/who come visit that aren't.

They range across a number of fields, though.

I don't really have any undergrads I'm too close with- I did, but then they went off to grad school :-D

[Behavioral]

By the end of my undergrad, most of my friends were either grad students or grad school-bound. Absolutely 0 were in my current field (marketing) particularly because my school didn't offer it as a major. Many were econ, math, psych, and engineering/materials sci.

[Just me]

I wouldn't consider anyone in my classes to be a close friend. I can count on one hand all my closest friends - two are from undergrad and the rest are folks I met in high school. My one friend from undergrad was also in my major (the other one was in video production). I have friends in my class right now - two folks in my major and the same year as me I'd consider friends too.

But I don't really make friends that often anyway, so this isn't exactly a big surprise.

[jblsmith]

I feel blessed to have a lot of good friends, people who I go out on the weekends with or stay in close contact. Then I have a handful of really close friends, those I could go to for advice or other personal issues. None of these closest friends are in my field or even went to grad school. Most of them are football buddies from high school and college. Nothing brings people together like playing a varsity college sport. The time and effort it takes forges extremely strong interpersonal bonds.

Plus, I've never really fit in with the grad school crowd. One, because I'm American. Two, because I like to go out and have a good time on the weekends. I guess I just don't have much in common with someone from mainland China.

[psycholinguist]

Six. One from childhood, one from my mid-teens, and four from my undergrad school. Two of the six are also grad-students, but that's just how things have worked out. One is in the same field, but that commonality was only tangential to how we originally met.

That said, grad-school is a great social environment for me...and this is coming from someone who is quite introverted and who didn't start enjoying the company of larger groups until she finally, finally got out of high-school. By this point if you're still in school, it's (99% of the time) because you really, really, really want to be there. And in your department there are people who are excited by all the same things you are. Most grad-students are enthusiastic, bright, hard-working, down-to-earth, and delightfully nerdy. Love it. I sensed as a young child that there was something I really liked about being on a college campus, but I didn't realise until much later that it might have had to do with such places being full of the sorts of people I actually want to interact with.

[neuropsych76]

I hope I can meet some grad school friends because all of my old friends are 700+ miles away!

[starmaker]

Many of my close friends are not grad students at all. The ones that are are in a variety of fields, mostly STEM fields. Most of my close friends went to the same undergrad institution that I did. I have no close friends in my program (arguably no casual friends either - there are a few that I know and like and have collaborated with, but nobody that I socialize with outside of a school context). A few of my older friends (in the sense of their age, not how long we've been friends) are postdocs, a few are post-PhD industry researchers, and one is now a prof.

[katerific]

For like, the past three years (all undergrad), my best friends have been grad students in my field. I mean, we all did research, and we all liked to drink, so it made sense. Yup.

[Eisenmann]

Did you meet many friends through clubs or things like graduate student union? I know that I'll get to know everyone in my class well since it's so small, but being close friends with them is entirely different.

[ktel]

All of my friends are either from school or rugby. I have more friends from my club rugby team than from my varsity team. This mostly seems to be because I don't have much in common with many of the varsity athletes. A lot of them are just there to play sports and don't have very defined career goals.

I don't have very many close friends, I don't think many people do. It's hard to maintain a close relationship with a lot of people.