Balancing school friendships and outside friendships

[coffeeandtv]

As a grad student, how much of your free time (ex. Friday evening) do you spend socializing with people in your program vs. with friends from other areas of your life? Did you ever feel like you had to choose between these and, if so, how did you find a balance?

My motivation for asking: I'm a first year grad student in a program that prides itself on the cohort all being friends. In addition to being in classes and doing homework together all week, we have a lot of social events outside of school. This is nice in theory, but I've found that it's really not that healthy in practice (instead of doing something actually fun we're complaining and stressing about the same issues over the weekend); however, I'm struggling with feeling like I don't have close friends in the program because I'm not around as much and there seems to be a very high expectation here. I think part of it is that a lot of people moved to be in the program and so don't know many people outside of the program.

I'd love to hear about your experience with this in general and any advice on my particular situation is appreciated too :D. 

[Adelaide9216]

I am probably going to pay the price for this in the long run but I mostly socialize with people in my program. It's paradoxal how I know a lot of people but prefer spending my time alone and focus on my studies. I'm definetly not an example of balance here.

[TakeruK]

I'm actually not sure what you are asking about in your post, i.e. are you asking how to build closer relationships with your cohort given that they are very cohesive and you're not around as much? Or, are you asking for general advice on how to be at peace with the current situation in your program? Most of what I wrote here is for the latter rather than the former. I don't know how to join a social group that is constantly doing things together, but personally, I wouldn't want to be part of such a group! I need my alone time.

6 hours ago, coffeeandtv said:

however, I'm struggling with feeling like I don't have close friends in the program because I'm not around as much and there seems to be a very high expectation here. I think part of it is that a lot of people moved to be in the program and so don't know many people outside of the program.

I'd love to hear about your experience with this in general and any advice on my particular situation is appreciated too :D. 

(bolded part added by me). I think the bolded statement describes many grad students in most places, including me! It's been over 7 years now since I lived in the place where I developed all of my non-grad-school friendships. But I can provide some general advice, I think!

I also empathize with the first part of what I quoted from your post---not being around as much. I moved to grad school with my spouse and we tend to do our own thing. I would say that my cohort and the other students in my department do many more social things than we do. There seems to be one or two things every week, especially in my first year, and I don't have time (nor the inclination) to be spending that much time socializing! During the first year, I probably participated in about 33% of social activities with my cohort and throughout the five years here, I think I average one thing per month (or maybe 3 things every 2 months). 

This is fine with everyone though---I think it's the right balance of being active just enough that we still get invited to everything, we just decline more often than we accept. And, I stay connected with everyone in the department during the work day by visiting people in their offices, sometimes having lunch with people and other departmental events. Also, we organize/initiate the event once in a while, which I think helps maintain connections even more so than just showing up to things. So, I don't think you necessarily have to be present at every single social event in order to stay connected to the group. Of course, every group dynamic is different so the balance would vary.

Another piece of general advice: grad school is a long process and people/groups/dynamics change over the years. I think the social dynamic of my department was very different in my first year than it is now. And, in my first year, I mostly hung out with my cohort because we had the same classes and stuff but now, my main social group is a mix of people in various years, so that I am able to spend time socializing with people who are more similar to me in terms of what things we do and how often we go do things. I'm sure there are other subgroups that I don't even know about which might do things a lot more frequently, but that's okay, I don't need (nor want) to be part of everything.

So that also leads to the last piece of general advice: You don't need to feel like you must be close friends with everyone in your cohort. If you value close relationships, then perhaps finding a few people that you really enjoy hanging out with and focussing on building good relationships there. I personally find it much easier for me to have 1-3 strong friendships at a time, instead of being close with everyone. Usually, as people change over time, the friends I'm close with also changes; some people go from being very close friends to just regular friends while others who might have been acquaintances before become closer to me. Again, not saying that this works for everyone, just saying how I try to find balance in my life.