I have a question: How much do people talk to their fellow students?

I live with one, and regularly go out drinking with, say, 6-7 more and have a football team with them (a lot of these things started because of me). I know my department wasn't very socialable at all before I joined, so I'm wondering what other people's experience has been.

Well as I live off campus, infact about 2 hours away, I have limited to no contact with fellow PhDs. The odd time I attend campus for events etc, my interaction with others is small which I think is a consequence of not being up there much and thus not being well known. For example, at a research student induction event, I spent the whole time chatting to faculty members, as opposed to other PhDs.

Whilst it is mostly a consequence of living far away and having a life/wife/mortgage/family where I live and thus not bothering to interact with the department much, it was rather regrettable when I attended campus last week and all the PhDs clearly had a daily dialogue and knew eachother very well, not really bothering to speak to me! However my own lack of effort is partially to blame too.

Not that I mind too much - I'm sure it will change next year when I teach regularly and most likely become more department-orienated. I'm happy in this first year to go off in isolation and work from home/archives getting my project up and on the right path.

Best wishes,

I'm now a year in and have gradually made a good group of people who I chat to. It's taken a long while though. Setting up a society at the union helped a lot, as does the fact that there is a large doctoral training centre just up stairs doing very similar work to mine. This means there are 30 guys and gals just upstairs whom I have something in common with.

My actual room was not that social when I got here but it's getting better as the room fills a bit more. My row is fairly sociable now and have just started "my tomatoing" together to link our breaks up.

I think it's very important to have someone to talk to as a friend at the uni, it helps when you need to rant (or just do it on here!).

I have had strongly ambivalent feelings towards my PhD. I love the work, but I get swamped with stress and anxiety which sometimes makes concentration impossible. However, deep down I know this is nobody else's fault but my own, and I'm working on it. I think because my stress was so obviously linked to my own life, it was pretty easy for me to see how my own attitudes were affecting my happiness at Uni. When I started to see managing stress and emotion as an ACTUAL part of doing a PhD, ie not something separate / unfair that was unique to me, I calmed down a lot. Now I just feel a bit sad at reading PhD grumbles about how unfair things are. Learning to deal with some level of unfairness -- managing busy supervisors, overcoming a sense of inferiority, dealing with procrastination, learning to overcome the overwhelming hurt and confusion that comes with realising you're ultimately responsible for yourself and your own work even if you don't reeeally want to be -- is PART of doing a PhD. It's as much a part of it as learning to manage a 3000+ article EndNote library and figuring out a question and feeling sick when you stumble on a paper that already did what you were intending to do (ten years ago, and better). There's more chaos and confusion in a PhD compared to 'real' jobs. I felt utterly gutted from my first week when I realised that my actual skill level was far, far lower than I'd believed it to be. The whole of my first year was spent consumed by panic and guilt and inferiority and feeling somehow as if I'd lied or tricked my way into my PhD (I really hadn't). I really feel as if I wasted everything in that first year through feeling bad about myself.

But overcoming that is PART of the PhD. It has to be, since so many other people go through the same thing. I think if supervisors were able to be more honest about it from the start... I'd like to see "Learning to Manage Own Emotional State," as part of a training needs assessment. I firmly believe this is where the bitterness and bitchiness of academia gets introduced. So learning to deal with that now, whilst I have time, is as much a part of the process as anything else. Since I figured that out I've started to love my PhD. I wouldn't want to wish it were perfect and problem-free, that's just going to set myself up for disappointment. I think that's how we all start, isn't it? "Others may be disappointed and lost, but MY PhD is going to be different to all of that..."

As far as socialisation goes, I think I get on well with everyone in my office. I certainly like them all, and we go out sometimes. I've also made some very good friends with other PhD students at different universities, friendships I really value. It's more comparable to a work environment than being an undergrad, but there's nothing wrong with that. It would be nice to go out more, I think, but that's as much about me as other people.

Great post, Cornflower. You've raised an important point about the value of learning to cope with research-based emotions and stress. Since universities tend to be highly political and complex work environments, a career in academia will likely entail plenty of frustration and stress about things beyond (not to mention within) your own control. I think coming to terms with that is a crucial part of understanding higher education!

I'm glad you've found that aspect of the research easier to deal with over time. :-)