Social exclusion in grad school?

[ruru107]

Sorry to bump up an old thread, but I've been feeling this way a lot too, and I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

I agree with the point about being professional and friendly without being friends, but nearly every other person in my program IS friends with each other. They get together for lunch, etc. and casually hang out and chat outside of class, while I feel like I've been point blank ignored.

 

Part of my problem is that I have some severe social anxiety problems and engaging in conversation stresses me out immensely, but I have been making an effort. I've joined a couple organizations and I try to attend as many events as I can, but it doesn't seem to be doing me any good. I'm not upset that I'm not making friends, but that I feel like I've been specifically targeted to not be part of their clique, and I don't know why. Can anyone relate?

[newpsyche]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. And I'm a social butterfly! Many have told me that I'm just "too nice", which is apparently cause for alarm. Are all grad students supposed to be cold, harsh, and cynical?

[splitends]

Yeah, it's funny. I had kind of given up on having the social life I had really wanted inside my department at the beginning of the semester, but over the first few months of my program things got a lot better than I thought they would.

 

At first I was really confused about how I should interact with people in my department-- how much should my social life be different from what it had been as an undergrad, how much can I expect to be friends with people who are also my colleagues, how professional any of it would be. And I think being a first generation college student in a world where half the people I meet seem to be professor's kids has kind of exacerbated that anxiety/fear that I'm doing it all wrong. But things have worked out really well. At some point I relaxed and realized that there's no reason most of us can't be friends outside of class, and with a little effort we found that people from older cohorts (who we thought at first were snubbing us) were happy to hang out if we just invited them to. I can't say that I'm besties with everyone (there seems to be some real social bifurcation along age and relationship status lines, though there are exceptions), but I was happy to find that a certain amount of openness and effort has left me with a pretty awesome social network inside my program.

 

I appreciate that different people want different things from this experience, and that there's a certain amount of luck of the draw when it come to who ends up in your cohort/department. But I definitely think that having real friends in the department makes the whole experience much better.

[Katzenmusik]

Yeah, it's a strange balance.

 

In my MA program the students fresh out of undergrad seemed to bond together more than we who had been out for a few years.  The older students treated the program more like a job, we were already rooted in the area where we chose to do our degree, and we were often involved in long-term relationships or were starting families.  Meanwhile the very recent college graduates tended to have moved from further away to attend, they didn't quite think of themselves as "adults" yet (their words, not mine), and they relied more on each other to build a social life.

 

I really liked a lot of my cohort-mates, and I hung out with them outside of class quite a bit.  But at the end of the day, I was there to do the program and advance in my career, not to make new best friends like I did in college.  

[SixandCounting]

When I came to grad school 6 years ago, I was told that we would just be the best of friends with our cohort, and that they would be our support group and colleagues forever and ever.

 

And they were really lame. No offense, all great people, but really lame by my standards. They were all competitive, negative, cynical, and they all seemed so unhappy. I have always been a positive and non-competitive person, and I just could no connect with them in the least.

After I shook the desire to bond with them (which led to 2 straight years of loneliness), I realized I needed to search out friends outside of my department. I did just that - joined clubs around campus and made friends with undergrads and grads alike. 

Don't feel too bad if you don't bond with your cohort or other colleagues. Feel free to make friends outside of your department, or outside of grad school entirely! Sometimes we need friends who aren't as stressed out as we are on a daily basis.

[Tall Chai Latte]

OP, you are not alone. And it's great to know that I'm not alone as well. My department is friendly and professional, but I don't really feel connected to anyone, faculty and students alike. Most of the time, it's usually like "ok hi, how are you doing? let's get this done" and end of conversation. 

 

Things got a little better when I started training for my half marathon. That shifted my attention away from not making any real friends, and on top of it, there is health benefit too. And now I have one more thing I can talk about during small talks with other students.

[SeriousSillyPutty]

Everyone in my department was really friendly and deliberate about helping me to adjust. Then just before finals last semester, one of the girls quit talking to me, but I think it was because she was stressed with dissertation stuff and was naturally a little introverted, so she didn't have extra energy to expel on being unnecessarily sociable.

There's a conference our department goes to, and I obviously don't know the drill because it's my first year, but I know last year all four girls in the office shared a room. This year I overheard two telling a third that they had just booked their tickets and hotel. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it was still a little disappointing. They've been really friendly to me, but they're not quite... welcoming... or something. Maybe I had different expectations because I have been involved in integrating "the new kid" into the social circle at work several times, and assumed they would do the same? Maybe it has to do with the fact that I (and another lady) were "tacked on" to the group that was there last year, without anyone leaving, so they envision the group as fixed? Maybe it's because I can't dish celebrity gossip?

And again, everyone was really friendly at the beginning of the semester, and the chattier ones still talk to me now... I'm just still having flashbacks to middle school where there's no seat for me at the lunch table. :-/

[Armadilla]

I think that's part of the problem. She's an international student and talks to her family on the phone all the time, but she still complains to me. I agree about the enabling behavior. At the same time, I understand that she doesn't have many resources here. So far, I haven't had to go out of my way to help her--it has just worked out that we have similar schedules and her daughter attends the same school my kids do. If nothing else, I am cognizant of her daughter's welfare (at least my kids have each other to play with; being an only child can be tough).

I am sorry, but a lot of things in your initial rant sound clearly misleading. Of course it is extremely nice of you to help her out with her kid and give her a ride, but the way you portrayed her sounds like she is plain stupid, lazy, and unwilling to make an effort. Now, here comes a bit more realistic side of the situation: SHE IS AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT. English is guess what..probably not her native language and the legal immigration system in the US is one of the most disorganized, unfair, and stressful immigration systems in the world (I can rant about it endlessly). If you are gonna make an argument, such as "then why does she even come here??" or "why do all these foreigners come here if they can't handle it?", then you are running into a fundamental problem here: having foreigners in the US and in your program benefits YOU, as well as other American students and the US academia as a whole. It attracts a lot of grant money, foreign investment, foreign tuition/room/board/visas/US  taxes expenses etc.

All these foreigners contribute tremendously to making YOUR country and YOUR program one of the best in the world. For your information, education is one of the top services US economy provides to the world and in this current economic crisis these foreign funds should be at the very least appreciated. In other words, if you or any other person does something minimally altruistic to a foreign student, that will make YOU a better person. And yes, that might be a little uncomfortable because you are taught from your very upbringing to be independent and highly individualistic but you also live in a very globalized world and this is not how the rest of the world works. I am sorry for my rant, but I, as a person who has gone through the worst cycles of the US immigration system just really want to see US citizens being a little kinder and more open to foreigners who make so much effort not only to stay here, but to make this country intellectually competitive. 

[Dal PhDer]

I am sorry, but a lot of things in your initial rant sound clearly misleading. Of course it is extremely nice of you to help her out with her kid and give her a ride, but the way you portrayed her sounds like she is plain stupid, lazy, and unwilling to make an effort. Now, here comes a bit more realistic side of the situation: SHE IS AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT. English is guess what..probably not her native language and the legal immigration system in the US is one of the most disorganized, unfair, and stressful immigration systems in the world (I can rant about it endlessly). If you are gonna make an argument, such as "then why does she even come here??" or "why do all these foreigners come here if they can't handle it?", then you are running into a fundamental problem here: having foreigners in the US and in your program benefits YOU, as well as other American students and the US academia as a whole. It attracts a lot of grant money, foreign investment, foreign tuition/room/board/visas/US  taxes expenses etc.

All these foreigners contribute tremendously to making YOUR country and YOUR program one of the best in the world. For your information, education is one of the top services US economy provides to the world and in this current economic crisis these foreign funds should be at the very least appreciated. In other words, if you or any other person does something minimally altruistic to a foreign student, that will make YOU a better person. And yes, that might be a little uncomfortable because you are taught from your very upbringing to be independent and highly individualistic but you also live in a very globalized world and this is not how the rest of the world works. I am sorry for my rant, but I, as a person who has gone through the worst cycles of the US immigration system just really want to see US citizens being a little kinder and more open to foreigners who make so much effort not only to stay here, but to make this country intellectually competitive. 

 

I don't think wildviolet was frustration had anything to do with her being an international student. It sounds more like she didn't want to be around a negative Nelly (which, who does? grad school can be rough on it's own, you don't need to constantly be shouldering someone else's complaints), and felt that she was asking an inappropriate favour around the readings and class facilitation - which, regardless of her international status and native language, she should be able to do without wildviolet's help. 

 

I respect that immigration is a strong and personal topic for you, but I think you're critique of rant is a bit off. If I was in Wildviolet's position, and there was a student constantly complaining, and wanting me to help them with their projects and work (over an above peer-review and discussion), I would probably be frustrated too!  

[Armadilla]

Dal PhDer, first off, I do appreciate your opinion but we do not know the specifics. I have no idea how much help and assistance the student is asking for, so this is very hard to judge and make assumptions. Second, if the author of the post is a mature individual (which I presume, she is), she will straightforwardly and yet candidly express her concerns to the student in question instead of ranting on an online forum (on another note, if you have an issue and have a problem, are you really THAT lonely and isolated in your life that you need to take this problem to an online forum?I, for instance, do tend to rant about immigration because this is my immature way of increasing awareness of the issue since, in light of the latest immigration debate, the general population does not seem to be very educated on the subject; but if I have a personal issue I talk to my family and friends, I obviously do not passively express my irritations on a public forum). Basically, why not have an honest conversation with this person instead of posting more semi-exaggerated examples of a vile and pessimistic international student?Sounds like high school. And again, the problem I see here is not only the lack of communication but also the classic individualism vs. collectivism values clash that I have observed here so many times. And very few people make an effort to be a little bit open-minded and see the other side.

[wildviolet]

I am sorry, but a lot of things in your initial rant sound clearly misleading. Of course it is extremely nice of you to help her out with her kid and give her a ride, but the way you portrayed her sounds like she is plain stupid, lazy, and unwilling to make an effort. Now, here comes a bit more realistic side of the situation: SHE IS AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT. English is guess what..probably not her native language and the legal immigration system in the US is one of the most disorganized, unfair, and stressful immigration systems in the world (I can rant about it endlessly). If you are gonna make an argument, such as "then why does she even come here??" or "why do all these foreigners come here if they can't handle it?", then you are running into a fundamental problem here: having foreigners in the US and in your program benefits YOU, as well as other American students and the US academia as a whole. It attracts a lot of grant money, foreign investment, foreign tuition/room/board/visas/US  taxes expenses etc.

All these foreigners contribute tremendously to making YOUR country and YOUR program one of the best in the world. For your information, education is one of the top services US economy provides to the world and in this current economic crisis these foreign funds should be at the very least appreciated. In other words, if you or any other person does something minimally altruistic to a foreign student, that will make YOU a better person. And yes, that might be a little uncomfortable because you are taught from your very upbringing to be independent and highly individualistic but you also live in a very globalized world and this is not how the rest of the world works. I am sorry for my rant, but I, as a person who has gone through the worst cycles of the US immigration system just really want to see US citizens being a little kinder and more open to foreigners who make so much effort not only to stay here, but to make this country intellectually competitive. 

 

Frankly, you need to work on your analysis skills if you dare to deduce all of that from my post.

 

You are ranting about the perceived status of international students, not me. And, by the way, I am not a US Citizen, although I've lived here since I was a year old. I brought up the point about her being an international student because: (1) she is, and (2) it means that her support network here is limited (her family isn't here).

 

In case you haven't figured it out, GC is a safe online space for us to rant, if we want to, about issues that affect us in grad school. So, you can rant all you want about issues that are important to you--just don't attribute that to me! In my case, I was answering the OP's post and providing an example of someone--me--who was doing the excluding. I don't normally like to exclude anyone, but, in this case, I felt that it was justified.

 

Four months later, and we are pretty much at the same point. She told me that she was available during the winter break for social outings, but I never took her up on her offer. I've developed closer friendships with others in my cohort, and these relationships are nothing like the time I spend with her. Her status as an international student has nothing to do with how I feel towards her--her behavior is simply annoying! At the same time, I see no reason to tell this to her face. What good will that do for anyone?

 

On the other hand, when she was having trouble in her TA section (she was arguing with a student during class!), I told her point blank what I thought she needed to do--back off, calm down, and rethink her standards to fit American standards (sad, but true). She looked like she was about to cry, but I told her as neutrally but firmly as I could. So, I see this action on my part as helping her survive TAing professionally. But, I'm not going to tell her my personal feelings about her--why does she need to know?

 

And, just for the record, we have lots of international students in our program, and I love having them here.

[Armadilla]

Edited January 23, 2013 by Armadilla

[wildviolet]

With all due respect, Armadilla, the topic of this thread is social exclusion, not immigration and international students. I object to your characterization of my post, and I disagree with your conclusion that "If you are gonna make an argument, such as "then why does she even come here??" or "why do all these foreigners come here if they can't handle it?", then you are running into a fundamental problem here."
 

I never made this assertion, nor do I think my original post reflects this position, and I am offended on a professional level that you would deem to make such an outrageous inference from the information available.

 

I was not looking for any accolades when I described the situation. I do try to be a good person, and there's nothing wrong with stating that. My actions speak louder than my words. I offered her a solution to a childcare problem when I saw that she had not thought ahead to arrange for childcare--she didn't have to take me up on my offer, but she did, and I do not regret it. I also see nothing wrong with sharing my feelings here, but I do not see any value in telling her my personal feelings. She's not my friend, significant other, or family member--if she were, I would have no qualms saying what I thought needed to be said for her own sake. However, if she were to ask me directly, then I would tell her what I thought.

 

This situation is not a conflict between two people--it's my personal feelings about a person. Whether I choose to share them with her is up to me and depends on the context. As of right now, I see no benefit in me sharing my personal feelings with her. She has developed a support network consisting of other graduate students from her country and other members of our cohort. It's not like I'm the only person she talks to. Also, I do not equate maturity with the inability to keep my mouth shut.

 

What is immature is you going back and up-voting your own posts and down-voting those that support me. I mean, whatever, but I'm just letting you know that I noticed that, and I personally don't view that as mature, even for an online forum.

[fuzzylogician]

Guys, I don't mean to interfere in your discussion but I think there's a little bit of a gang-up mentality going on in the up- and down-voting in some recent posts. I understand that these issues can be personal and people get quite emotional, but I think several posts have used words that are stronger than necessary. I don't mean to tell you what to write, but please remember that there are people on the other end reading what you write who take things just as seriously and personally as you do. It's easy to misconstrue tone and intentions on a written forum like this. I truly believe that everyone here is well-intentioned, and I hope that we can go back to being the supportive community that we all try to be.

[Armadilla]

With all due respect, Armadilla, the topic of this thread is social exclusion, not immigration and international students. I object to your characterization of my post, and I disagree with your conclusion that "If you are gonna make an argument, such as "then why does she even come here??" or "why do all these foreigners come here if they can't handle it?", then you are running into a fundamental problem here."

 

I never made this assertion, nor do I think my original post reflects this position, and I am offended on a professional level that you would deem to make such an outrageous inference from the information available.

 

I was not looking for any accolades when I described the situation. I do try to be a good person, and there's nothing wrong with stating that. My actions speak louder than my words. I offered her a solution to a childcare problem when I saw that she had not thought ahead to arrange for childcare--she didn't have to take me up on my offer, but she did, and I do not regret it. I also see nothing wrong with sharing my feelings here, but I do not see any value in telling her my personal feelings. She's not my friend, significant other, or family member--if she were, I would have no qualms saying what I thought needed to be said for her own sake. However, if she were to ask me directly, then I would tell her what I thought.

 

This situation is not a conflict between two people--it's my personal feelings about a person. Whether I choose to share them with her is up to me and depends on the context. As of right now, I see no benefit in me sharing my personal feelings with her. She has developed a support network consisting of other graduate students from her country and other members of our cohort. It's not like I'm the only person she talks to. Also, I do not equate maturity with the inability to keep my mouth shut.

 

What is immature is you going back and up-voting your own posts and down-voting those that support me. I mean, whatever, but I'm just letting you know that I noticed that, and I personally don't view that as mature, even for an online forum.

Believe me, I really do not care how many positive or negative posts someone gets on an online forum. The fact that you, an adult, care about such things and accuse someone of even more ridiculous behavior is sad. You questioned my intellectual ability and this is absolutely inappropriate. In case I said something that I offended you, I already apologized. You, in turn, cannot admit the fact that you went overboard and you were clearly disrespectful. Instead of considering the other side's opinion, you are counting "likes" or "dislikes," question one's intelligence, and act defensive. Even the way you are handling this "virtual misunderstanding" is  illustrative.  I don't know what kind of relationship you have with this student, but the fact that you act in such an immature and rude manner online is beyond inappropriate. 

Either way, I am done with this discussion and hope you have a great day/night and I wish you all the best with your graduate studies.

Edited January 24, 2013 by Armadilla

[1Q84]

Sorry to bump up an old thread, but I've been feeling this way a lot too, and I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

I agree with the point about being professional and friendly without being friends, but nearly every other person in my program IS friends with each other. They get together for lunch, etc. and casually hang out and chat outside of class, while I feel like I've been point blank ignored.

 

Part of my problem is that I have some severe social anxiety problems and engaging in conversation stresses me out immensely, but I have been making an effort. I've joined a couple organizations and I try to attend as many events as I can, but it doesn't seem to be doing me any good. I'm not upset that I'm not making friends, but that I feel like I've been specifically targeted to not be part of their clique, and I don't know why. Can anyone relate?

 

I totally feel you here. During undergrad, I had what I guess you could describe as "social anxiety" (in scare quotes because I never actually considered that I might be afflicted with that but looking back, I guess I was). I was so terrified during class of raising my hand and attracting attention that I sat there with my heart in my throat as I contemplated contributing an idea. By the time I finally steeled myself to say something, everyone was getting up to leave. The longer the class progressed, the more awkward it would be for me to suddenly speak up. So I just stayed silent for 4 years. I wonder why it was so difficult for me to apply to grad school the first 2 times...

 

The point of that story is that despite that awfulness, now I'd like to think I'm extremely outgoing. How did this happen? I started working at Starbucks. And it was being forced to socialise (literally, in order to get paid) that made me get over the anxiety. Once I jumped over that first hurdle, the rest came naturally. I mean of course there were blunders and embarrassments in the first couple weeks but afterwards, I looked back and wondered what I was so scared of this entire time. Maybe your cohort is not the best place to embarrass yourself but like it was in elementary school, middle school, high school and undergrad, people have pretty short memories and are pretty forgiving, in general.

 

The point of that story was that I think that finding a way to force yourself (by your own will or otherwise) to be put into that uncomfortable situation so you can rise above may do the trick. It may not be The Answer, but it worked for me. Here's a vote for taking the plunge and going up to that exclusionary group and asking if they wanna grab a coffee.

 

ETA: This post was not sponsored by Starbucks Coffee Ltd. :/

Edited January 24, 2013 by 1Q84

[wildviolet]

Guys, I don't mean to interfere in your discussion but I think there's a little bit of a gang-up mentality going on in the up- and down-voting in some recent posts. I understand that these issues can be personal and people get quite emotional, but I think several posts have used words that are stronger than necessary. I don't mean to tell you what to write, but please remember that there are people on the other end reading what you write who take things just as seriously and personally as you do. It's easy to misconstrue tone and intentions on a written forum like this. I truly believe that everyone here is well-intentioned, and I hope that we can go back to being the supportive community that we all try to be.

 

Thanks for moderating, fuzzylogician. I didn't realize about the gang-up mentality until I read your post and went back and looked at all the up- and down-voting that must have taken place very recently. I don't know the people who did this, and it was not my intention for people to do this--so I apologize to Armadilla for this happening. Sorry!

[practical cat]

Thanks for moderating, fuzzylogician. I didn't realize about the gang-up mentality until I read your post and went back and looked at all the up- and down-voting that must have taken place very recently. I don't know the people who did this, and it was not my intention for people to do this--so I apologize to Armadilla for this happening. Sorry!

I respect that you're being the bigger person here but I'm personally not super thrilled with being accused of "ganging up" on someone when I just happen to agree (very strongly) with something one person says and disagree (equally strongly) with something another person says. Just because my trend over several posts was to agree with what one person said and disagree with another in no way reflects anything other than my judging each post by their own individual merits. I may upvote armadilla and downvote wildviolet at some point in the future. It's so not personal. I think, as someone who was the victim of pretty vicious hate speech that went unmoderated, the moderation of these boards can be really misguided.

[wildviolet]

I respect that you're being the bigger person here but I'm personally not super thrilled with being accused of "ganging up" on someone when I just happen to agree (very strongly) with something one person says and disagree (equally strongly) with something another person says. Just because my trend over several posts was to agree with what one person said and disagree with another in no way reflects anything other than my judging each post by their own individual merits. I may upvote armadilla and downvote wildviolet at some point in the future. It's so not personal. I think, as someone who was the victim of pretty vicious hate speech that went unmoderated, the moderation of these boards can be really misguided.

 

I don't know what happened... all I know is that I posted, came back at some later point, and there were what appeared to be a group of up-votes and down-votes, and a message from a moderator. I'm sorry to hear about your experience, and I also understand your point of view. When I up-vote or down-vote, it's for exactly the same reasons that you state. This whole experience makes me wonder about the decision recently to enable us to view who up-votes/down-votes. Before, it was anonymous (I think).

[fuzzylogician]

Guys, I'm not trying to blame anyone of anything, and girl who wears glasses - I'm sorry there was an event of down-voting that made you feel uneasy. We don't always happen to be around when such events happen and normally we try and keep out of such incidents if the posters seem to be calming down on their own. The board went a little bit crazy over the past two days in other places as well - I don't understand why exactly - but I hope that's all behind us now. All I am saying is I hope this thread can go back to discussing the topic it was started for, instead of the quite unproductive back-and-forth of the previous couple of days that wasn't making anyone feel particularly good.

[mouse13]

I have recently felt excluded in one of my classes that has older students in it. I try to be nice but the exclusion remains and is sometimes encouraged by the professor. It is continually upsetting because I am still adjusting to the reading workload. All my other classes are filled with supportive people and professors.