Arranging visits in a long distant relationship

[oceanlover]

I'm starting grad school in the fall and had some questions about managing a relationship/getting time off. I've just recently began a long distant relationship, and although I know its going to be very hard and I won't have much time, me and my bf want to continue our relationship and give it a try. How exactly does time off work in grad school? We're far enough away that to visit would require a couple hundred dollar plane ticket, and we hope to see each other every 6-8 weeks, but it would have to be more than a 2 day weekend trip. For example, I know I have a 2 day fall break in October (giving me a 4 day weekend), would it be totally out of the question to take the remaining 3 days off or work from home? It would proabaly work better for me if he came to visit me, but i also hope to take time off somewhere and visit him for a week or so. or should i get this idea out of my mind now, for is it totally unreasonable to be able to dedicate this time to someone while also studying and doing research?

 

Is there anyone currently in a long distant relationship who could shed some light on the situation? How do you juggle visiting your significant other? Any grad school relationship advice would be super helpful. thanks!

[biotechie]

You're in Marine Bio, which is different than my field, so I don't know as much about your time requirements. I'm normally in lab at school 50-60 hours a week plus readings at home. My boyfriend and I have been long distance for a year and a half, but have dated a total of 4 years; he is a 13 hour drive away from me right now.

 

The short of it is a few things:

1. I work HARD. And by hard, I mean I'm in the lab almost all weekends. I do this because I want my data and I'm impatient, but also so that my PI knows I'm not slacking off. He is more than happy to let me spend a day or two out of lab if my boyfriend comes for an extended visit. Being in lab on weekends isn't uncommon for graduate students, but I don't take many days off.

2. He visits me almost every time. This is because I have lab responsibilities that I can't leave for more than a couple of days.

3. We limit the amount of time I'm out of lab when he visits to 3 whole days. This means I work a half day on Friday, off the weekend, half day on Monday, usually. Last time, I took both days off, though. Usually he will visit for 5 or so days flying in on a Thursday, leaving Monday night, and will work on other things while I'm in lab. Those days I work normal 7.5-8 hour days.

4. He visits at most, every 8-12 weeks, but we Skype at least 3 times per week and text often. We prefer Google Hangouts lately because we can watch YouTube videos together.

5. We constantly send the other things. Sometimes I'll come home, and there will be a package for me to pick up. He almost always sends me one of his t-shirts, but there are always treats as well. Sometimes just candy, occasionally he'll send me tickets to see a show or do something fun. I like to send him little drawings, return clean t-shirts, decorations for his apartment, and I bake treats to send.

6. We plan holidays extremely well, and now he has his own place, so this is easier. My PI wants me to take a full 2 weeks off at Christmas, so I will fly to him for a day or two, drive to my parents for Christmas, and then spend New Year's with him. He also made sure I took the week break at the end of May, and I think he will do that again next year. 

 

All in all, I get breaks to spend time with my boyfriend, but I also don't want to be in graduate school forever. You do have to work hard, but you also have to avoid overworking yourself. For me, this means I end up seeing my boyfriend 4-6 times per year rather than once every month like he would like, but I also have to look after my own health. If I could work 20 hours a day, I would do it. Thankfully, we have video chat, so we can at least hang out. You can make it work.

[TakeruK]

I am not in a long distance relationship but I take about 4 weeks off completely from work per year. Our school official policy is that grad students get weekends and all official holidays off and also 2 weeks of personal time / vacation time. I usually work some weekends extra and I work most holiday days unless I am going out of town or have visitors. I count working these extra times as "banking" vacation days for me to use in other ways (see below).

 

When family visit me (e.g. parents or inlaws) I take about a week off to spend time with them. Usually, they are here during the winter break or spring break so it's pretty normal for students to disappear at this time anyways. I also take a couple of weeks in the summer or added onto a conference/work trip so that I can have a vacation (usually my wife joins me after the conference). 

 

My work is not lab based so there is rarely any time where I have to be working. My supervisor does not really care if we work at home or in the office, or if we work 9-5 or 1-9 or whatever. The only commitments where I have to be working are when I observe at the telescope, when I go on work trips, and when I TA. This means I usually schedule my work around other life commitments so that I can take time off when I want/need to. 

 

So, I think it's pretty doable to schedule your visits around your work if you don't work in a group/lab where you must be physically present. Also, for me, I did all my courses in the first 4 quarters so that I would have this freedom. Personally, I don't mind missing class for good reasons but it's usually more work than it's worth to play catch up (especially with 10 week quarters). But for important trips in the past, I have taken time off classes in order to do personal things (e.g. honeymoon) as well as work things (e.g. conference). Overall, I'd say the first year is the least flexible (and you want to establish firmly that you work hard to earn your time off) but it gets a lot better afterwards.

[rising_star]

Whether you can take the rest of the week off with your fall break depends on several factors like whether you're in coursework, what your lab responsibilities are, what your TA responsibilities are, etc. There have been times in grad school where I took a whole week off with a holiday (Thanksgiving, for example) but I never cancelled discussion sections to do so, even though I did sometimes miss a grad seminar. To me, a couple hundred dollar flight is not such a big deal and I'd try to do 3 day weekends whenever possible, utilizing late night and early morning flights to minimize the amount of class/lab time missed.

 

That said, you have to consider your department's broader calendar too. In my grad program, outside speakers typically came on Fridays to give talks so leaving on Thursday night or Friday morning to have a long weekend with my SO would mean missing those (which affects how profs in the dept view you and your commitment, limits networking with other grad students and faculty, etc.). I never missed those when I was in the coursework phase (so 2 years MA plus 3 years of PhD) because it was an expectation of my department and my advisors that I be in attendance, regardless of the topic and its (lack of) relation to my research. Just something else to keep in mind when you're trying to plan visits. Right now, I'm the one that does most of the visiting to my SO because they're in the lab long hours and I'm in the social sciences so most of what I do can be done on a laptop. It's far from ideal and puts a strain on our relationship from time to time...

[TakeruK]

That said, you have to consider your department's broader calendar too. In my grad program, outside speakers typically came on Fridays to give talks so leaving on Thursday night or Friday morning to have a long weekend with my SO would mean missing those (which affects how profs in the dept view you and your commitment, limits networking with other grad students and faculty, etc.). I never missed those when I was in the coursework phase (so 2 years MA plus 3 years of PhD) because it was an expectation of my department and my advisors that I be in attendance, regardless of the topic and its (lack of) relation to my research. Just something else to keep in mind when you're trying to plan visits. Right now, I'm the one that does most of the visiting to my SO because they're in the lab long hours and I'm in the social sciences so most of what I do can be done on a laptop. It's far from ideal and puts a strain on our relationship from time to time...

 

This is definitely true--there is a definite cost to you when you miss out on important department events, meeting visitors etc. But there is a cost to most actions you take, so in my opinion, it's an issue of managing the costs and paying the price you're willing to pay for whatever your ideal is (or as close as you can get). Personally, my ideal would be some balance of choosing to schedule my persona life over work sometimes but also reschedule work / miss a few events for important personal life events other times. My philosophy is that I'm in academia because I want to be happy but if I find myself constantly making choices that make me unhappy, then why do this at all? Obviously, there is a lot of good reason to make choices that might make you unhappy now but will "pay off" later, but there also should be a balance!

[Pitangus]

I've been in a long distance relationship for two years now. I'm in Ecology and I mostly only do summer fieldwork with very little lab work. My schedule is rather uneven in that I have a reasonable amount of free time during the fall/spring semesters, but during the summer I work 12+ hours a day with maybe four or five days off total.

 

I'm a 15 hour drive from my boyfriend (he still lives in our home state), and I go home to visit twice a year: winter break (for 2.5 weeks this past winter) and after the end of my summer field season (for about 7-10 days at the end of August right before the fall semester starts).

He comes to visit me for a week once a year when his work schedule allows; my first year he visited in March and this past year in late October. I still go to classes and attend meetings normally when he visits, but because I don't really do lab work I have time to spend with him.

 

Three visits a year might not work for some couples, but we are both independent people, and we've been together for over seven years already, so we've been ok with it.

I think the frequency and length of visits really depends on both the couple and the nature of the grad student's department.

[reinhard]

Skype meeting...?

[St Andrews Lynx]

The amount of time off you can get in grad school often depends on the individual advisor/lab culture. Some PIs won't mind you taking a long weekend off, it your average monthly research output is good, for example. Working from home for a few days is rarely 'totally out of the question' in any field.

 

Even if your boss is strict, supportive colleagues are usually willing to cover for you if you want to sneak off for a long weekend ("Oh, I think he's away taking [an instrumental measurement] right now. I'll pass the message on when he gets back."