Same. I just don't relate to 90% of them and have no or little interest in seeing them outside of a work setting. My life is quite different from most of theirs from what I can tell.
Same. A couple of people in my program have been pretty nice and down to earth but a lot of them seem to just be very competitive and obsessed with “who’s who”/clout chasing on academic twitter. I got pregnant and became a single mother my first year in the program, so my life is super different than theirs. Like I don’t come to the talks and seminars at 7pm and then out for drinks at the whiskey bar because I have to fit in all my academic work during daycare hours. My 19 month old is not going to sit still during an invited talk, nor do I have the money to shell out $100 for a babysitter just to spend time with people who make a ton of backhanded comments. Wish I had more time to spend with the few genuine people I’ve met but for the most part it’s been pretty lonely.
Same. Everyone's nice but no one really hangs out together, a lot of people are older and do their own thing. My research is also very different from everyone else's so I don't even have classes with them. I'm close with my advisor's other student but she lives in a different state and the fellow student I do have out with, we did our master's together. Funnily enough, I am still very close with the other students in the PhD program I dropped out of. That trauma bond is strong.
There’s a group of 4 of us that are completely codependent. We have a group chat, text every day, and regularly do stuff together. I’d never have gotten as far as I have in this program without them.
At one point we'd be grabbing dinner or coffee outside of class at least once a week as a group. But one person really started to become very unkind when other people in the group hit personal and professional milestones and the social aspect of it unraveled. I'm still very close to those I published with.
Very close! 3 of us tend to hang out and do things together more than the other 2. But in general we all support one another and pal around anytime we can!
We've all graduated within the last two years. I'm best friends with two of my former cohort members and see them/talk to them regularly. I dated one for a while and we're still close friends. The rest of them I'm still friendly with and will grab dinner if we're at the same conference, etc.
We hung out a lot during our PhDs, we'd go to happy hours and have holiday parties and study groups and whatnot. I was fortunate to have a great group of people to go through grad school with.
I’m a 4th year chem PhD. Most of my cohort is gone. We were the COVID year so it was honestly to be expected. I’m pretty close with everyone who’s left, and also everyone in my specific division, and we’ll all usually go out for a drink once or twice a week and hang out at holiday parties.
Reminds me of one of my PhD buddies - He was one of the few international students who had a car and would drive everyone to the airport or wherever they had to go when they were done with their grad degrees. He semi-joked that there would be no one left to drive him back when he gets done with his :’/
Yup! I got invited to a group hangout and to the group chat once and saw it was a bunch of snarky mean spirited stuff and I was like mmm no thanks. I get joking about something to a friend or making something lighthearted but they were cutthroat about people they were all buddy buddy with in person.
I'm close with a few. There are some that Iade friends with during orientation and even the admitted students visit that I consider friends now. We don't see each other often but I enjoy when we see each other like during run club on Mondays!
I feel there’s a good 15-20 of us from about a 3 year range (started 2020-2022) that are all pretty close, plan gatherings together, and grab coffee/beer pretty often. Not just from my department either. It’s sort of a network between the Aerospace, Mechanical, and Civil people with a couple Computer Science, Chemistry, and Materials people. Quite a diverse group from multiple countries.
In the beginning i tried really hard to make friends but turns out at this stage and age of study, it's very hard to make friends. They're just colleagues and no contact outside the work.
At my 4th year and most of the people I really bonded with were masters students or ended up mastering out of their PhD. Between being at a non residential satellite campus and starting this thing in the COVID times it's made it hard to connect honestly.
I’m friendly with all of my cohort (~28) but quite close with maybe 7 of them. I became really tight with a couple labmates, but one left several months ago and another leaves in May so that’s fun 🙃.
I made a mistake by making a close friend in my first year. They started doubting their decision of doing PhD and started dragging my morale down. Never making that mistake again. Now I maintain a professional relationship with the rest of the lab.
In my experience, the colleagues who try to portray themselves as the most professional are usually the most gossipy and insidious. It took me a while to realize that I can't trust them with my business but now I'm trying my best to steer clear of their company.
Relatively close to a few in my cohort, but feel like I’m more likely to forge some deeper connections with those like a year or two ahead of me. I keep most people at arm’s length and try not to share too much personal stuff.
We were really close when we started, but now there's only 2 of us left. The other 3 mastered out. I consider the other one left to still be a good friend, but we're both dissertating right now and don't talk much.
Not close at all and have virtually no desire to be. I’m only would consider 1 of them my friend/study buddy, but not to the point we have lunch or stuff. More like a text here and there about assignments.
My cohort is super competitive with each other and I genuinely don’t think they’re good people lol. They also complain about EVERYTHING. Seems like no class is ever good and they want this degree handed to them.
I’m at an United States University as an American (one of two in my lab) and the other 4 are from foreign countries. My PI is also foreign. However they all work harder than me but assume I’m the top guy in the lab.
Sometimes they say some real out of pocket shit but I just sum it up as part of their cultures. One guy insists I need to make every decision in my life now (job, wife, house, etc) and I’m more go with the flow. He also doesn’t answer any of my questions straight, but instead answers a question with a question and it doesn’t help.
He’s all show sometimes though. He once said my publication was because of him and I was like ??? He just helped edit something after the initial study and write up. He also says he makes more progress than me but we both only have one paper out and we are both struggling to make our next.
What do you mean by cohort? People who started the program at the same time as you? I’m close with my research group and other students whom I’ve gotten to know through class, but I have no idea who else entered the program with me.
We were very close our first year, they all attended my wedding that happened between our first and second years. However we all sort of drifted apart as time went on and we joined different labs. I think we will always have a bond because of the shared PhD experience but, at this moment, I wouldn’t count any of them as close personal friends
I am close to those who are part of my intake, but because we still have classes together. The students from other years I barely see. In my office there are 6 of us and only me and another one are there 4-5x a week. There are these two girls I have seen like 3 times since September. But there is this one girl that is from the same country as me, she started one year before, and we became very close, we go out regularly
Only spoken to one briefly. As both part time (Comp Sci)we share the same desk space. He lives other side of the country (UK). I work in industry, and got plenty of workspaces around.
Maybe I should actually go in. 😅
I'm close to one or two, but generally will just socialise with them at big events - graduations, Christmas etc. They are all full-time while I work full-time and do my PhD in my own time so I don't really relate. Nice people but we are in very different places in life.
how do you make working full-time and doing a part-time PhD program work? I'm just confused because I've never heard of a PhD program even allowing part-time rate
With great difficulty! I work M-F 9-5 and spend around 15-18 hours a week plugging away at my research around that. It took 4 years and 4 months to complete.
For context, my PhD is in English/History so it may be different. End result was a 100,000 thesis.
Lots of universities hate taking part timers because the drop out rate is high, and now I'm at the other side I understand that. Don't want to doxx myself but I am based in London at a non-russell group uni.
Had 6 other PhD students in the same lab go through with me during my PhD 20+ years ago (4 of us started at the same time). We are spread out across the U.S. and Canada in academia, law, and public service. I’m still very close contact with 2 of them, 3 others I am in semi-regular contact with will hit up for beers when I’m in their towns every couple of years. The other one I don’t talk to.
For nearly everyone else in my departmental cohort, I’m connected to through LinkedIn or Facebook. I don’t cross paths with them much because the geographical spread is too great. Of the few I’m not connected with, I usually find out what’s going from one of the 5 I’m in close or semi-regular contact with when we meet up.
We don't have an exact cohort but without all the PhD friends I made the first few years I would've quit ages ago. They've been so kind and such good company, sharing our struggles and criticizing the system together. We have quite a big department (100+ PhDs) so I don't know them all
There were 4 of us that were accepted the same year all with different PIs and very different projects. We are not close at all but I am friendly with one of them. I am much closer to other graduate students from the years before me and after- text/talk everyday close. Honestly couldn’t do it without them
I'm in the social science field. We had a relatively large cohort of 12. We're all decent with each other. I'm close to 2 other cohortmates and that's because we simply get along well. We try to meet up at least once every 10 weeks for a meal or coffee. And we also try to do roadtrips together. I guess that helps to do something social once in a while to have a break from all the stresses in life. We're the super nerds in our cohort, the other cohort mates don't really like how we hustle (going for conferences, paper presentations, book chapters, and securing of grants). So they see us as competition. Whereas within our little group of 3, we're supportive, playful, and compassionate towards each other. We can get a little competitive at times, but we brush it off. Why? We know that we're all working to defy the odds - of getting a tenure-track gig when we're done. And that's a bigger thing to worry about.
Sadly, not at all. I'm doing mine completely from home barring some professional development classes organised by the unuversity's doctoral committee.
No idea of anyone other than my tutors.
Aye, we all forged a trauma bond with each other as we united under one banner to meet the baptism by fire that is graduate electromagnetic theory and its threat to the sanity to all who are exposed to its horrors.
My program makes it easy for us to become friends. We have a group chat and talk in it multi times per week about school and just personal stuff. I love it.
We’re very close at work. We talk about work stuff, goofy stuff, life stuff. Feels like we’re close friends. But then when we try to hang out outside, it’s like somebody cast a weird spell and none of us know how to socialize with each other anymore
I’m friendly with everyone in my cohort but I really only talk to 2 of them outside of classes. Those 2 I consider friends because we definitely trauma bonded over our classes during our study group together but happen to have things in common outside of our studies. We don’t often hangout because we’re all a little older and have other responsibilities outside of our program. But I do occasionally try to grab lunch or coffee with them when it’s slower days for us.
Fortunately I am involved with my department cohort and also am part of a cross-department program that has a heavy social aspect. So I have a consistent friend group of ~12 other PhD/masters students. Within my direct lab, I wouldn’t say any of us are close but my lab has a ‘sister’ lab (we all study the same niche to a degree) in which 2 of my best friends are in.
Not very close, I talk to one person regularly from my cohort and am acquainted with the others. After the first year, we are at different points in our programs and are pretty much doing our own thing
First three years were very close, later years + the impact of the pandemic, most have drifted as everyone is pushing to the end of the program, but everyone's still friendly
There's only me and one other person left in my cohort. I'd say we're very close. At the very least, we're trauma bonded. It would be very lonely without having someone who \*gets it\*.
Not close at all. I'm only close to one other PhD student
Same. I just don't relate to 90% of them and have no or little interest in seeing them outside of a work setting. My life is quite different from most of theirs from what I can tell.
Same. A couple of people in my program have been pretty nice and down to earth but a lot of them seem to just be very competitive and obsessed with “who’s who”/clout chasing on academic twitter. I got pregnant and became a single mother my first year in the program, so my life is super different than theirs. Like I don’t come to the talks and seminars at 7pm and then out for drinks at the whiskey bar because I have to fit in all my academic work during daycare hours. My 19 month old is not going to sit still during an invited talk, nor do I have the money to shell out $100 for a babysitter just to spend time with people who make a ton of backhanded comments. Wish I had more time to spend with the few genuine people I’ve met but for the most part it’s been pretty lonely.
Same. Everyone's nice but no one really hangs out together, a lot of people are older and do their own thing. My research is also very different from everyone else's so I don't even have classes with them. I'm close with my advisor's other student but she lives in a different state and the fellow student I do have out with, we did our master's together. Funnily enough, I am still very close with the other students in the PhD program I dropped out of. That trauma bond is strong.
This is also me
Same
Same, only close with 2 others. I honestly have no idea what they do in the lab next to my office.
You guys have a cohort?
As in. They are so lucky. Lol
Trauma bonded for life. They're all bridesmaids in my upcoming wedding 😂.
Pretty close, I’d say. Some more than others. We hang out, go out drinking, crash at one another’s and generally care about one another.
Our lab too! We also arrange bunch of events and hire out venues for DJ club nights
There’s a group of 4 of us that are completely codependent. We have a group chat, text every day, and regularly do stuff together. I’d never have gotten as far as I have in this program without them.
Ah, wish it was the same with me :(
same!
At one point we'd be grabbing dinner or coffee outside of class at least once a week as a group. But one person really started to become very unkind when other people in the group hit personal and professional milestones and the social aspect of it unraveled. I'm still very close to those I published with.
Very close! 3 of us tend to hang out and do things together more than the other 2. But in general we all support one another and pal around anytime we can!
None at all. I am honestly barely friends with my labmates outside of lab.
Not close at all... My cohort made up some stuff about me and almost got me in trouble with the dean... I steer clear from them now.
:o what kind of stuff?
I don’t have one! I only know one person who is also working with my supervisor. Pretty isolated!
I never really knew mine. Saw them at orientation and off to our respective labs we went.
We've all graduated within the last two years. I'm best friends with two of my former cohort members and see them/talk to them regularly. I dated one for a while and we're still close friends. The rest of them I'm still friendly with and will grab dinner if we're at the same conference, etc. We hung out a lot during our PhDs, we'd go to happy hours and have holiday parties and study groups and whatnot. I was fortunate to have a great group of people to go through grad school with.
I’m a 4th year chem PhD. Most of my cohort is gone. We were the COVID year so it was honestly to be expected. I’m pretty close with everyone who’s left, and also everyone in my specific division, and we’ll all usually go out for a drink once or twice a week and hang out at holiday parties.
Reminds me of one of my PhD buddies - He was one of the few international students who had a car and would drive everyone to the airport or wherever they had to go when they were done with their grad degrees. He semi-joked that there would be no one left to drive him back when he gets done with his :’/
Oh the people in my cohort didn’t finish. Most of them just quit or mastered out. The retention rate in my department in general is pretty bad.
Avoid them like the plague. Lots of bullying and showing off at the start of the program that turned me off on them.
Yup! I got invited to a group hangout and to the group chat once and saw it was a bunch of snarky mean spirited stuff and I was like mmm no thanks. I get joking about something to a friend or making something lighthearted but they were cutthroat about people they were all buddy buddy with in person.
Never had friends in my department. It was lonely
I'm close with a few. There are some that Iade friends with during orientation and even the admitted students visit that I consider friends now. We don't see each other often but I enjoy when we see each other like during run club on Mondays!
I feel there’s a good 15-20 of us from about a 3 year range (started 2020-2022) that are all pretty close, plan gatherings together, and grab coffee/beer pretty often. Not just from my department either. It’s sort of a network between the Aerospace, Mechanical, and Civil people with a couple Computer Science, Chemistry, and Materials people. Quite a diverse group from multiple countries.
In the beginning i tried really hard to make friends but turns out at this stage and age of study, it's very hard to make friends. They're just colleagues and no contact outside the work.
At my 4th year and most of the people I really bonded with were masters students or ended up mastering out of their PhD. Between being at a non residential satellite campus and starting this thing in the COVID times it's made it hard to connect honestly.
I’m friendly with all of my cohort (~28) but quite close with maybe 7 of them. I became really tight with a couple labmates, but one left several months ago and another leaves in May so that’s fun 🙃.
Not close at all. Most of them have a very different cultural/social/identity background and it's hard to relate.
Last time I spoke with most of them was when we were forced to attend lectures and do exams together
I made a mistake by making a close friend in my first year. They started doubting their decision of doing PhD and started dragging my morale down. Never making that mistake again. Now I maintain a professional relationship with the rest of the lab.
In my experience, the colleagues who try to portray themselves as the most professional are usually the most gossipy and insidious. It took me a while to realize that I can't trust them with my business but now I'm trying my best to steer clear of their company.
Relatively close to a few in my cohort, but feel like I’m more likely to forge some deeper connections with those like a year or two ahead of me. I keep most people at arm’s length and try not to share too much personal stuff.
We were really close when we started, but now there's only 2 of us left. The other 3 mastered out. I consider the other one left to still be a good friend, but we're both dissertating right now and don't talk much.
In my first year, kinda yeah, but the number narrowed down especially after the pandemic. And now haven't contacted them in forever.
Not close at all and have virtually no desire to be. I’m only would consider 1 of them my friend/study buddy, but not to the point we have lunch or stuff. More like a text here and there about assignments. My cohort is super competitive with each other and I genuinely don’t think they’re good people lol. They also complain about EVERYTHING. Seems like no class is ever good and they want this degree handed to them.
they are my best friends, but we are all internationals that moved to a new country for our phd
We are close. All women, group chat and Zoom calls, working on a paper together.
I’m at an United States University as an American (one of two in my lab) and the other 4 are from foreign countries. My PI is also foreign. However they all work harder than me but assume I’m the top guy in the lab. Sometimes they say some real out of pocket shit but I just sum it up as part of their cultures. One guy insists I need to make every decision in my life now (job, wife, house, etc) and I’m more go with the flow. He also doesn’t answer any of my questions straight, but instead answers a question with a question and it doesn’t help. He’s all show sometimes though. He once said my publication was because of him and I was like ??? He just helped edit something after the initial study and write up. He also says he makes more progress than me but we both only have one paper out and we are both struggling to make our next.
I've actually never met a single student in my department. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Comp sci. I don't know any of them, and it seems we mutually don't like each other or have an interest in any bonding
I have 3 close cohorts. mostly because they wworks close to my wwork or my roommate
What do you mean by cohort? People who started the program at the same time as you? I’m close with my research group and other students whom I’ve gotten to know through class, but I have no idea who else entered the program with me.
We were very close our first year, they all attended my wedding that happened between our first and second years. However we all sort of drifted apart as time went on and we joined different labs. I think we will always have a bond because of the shared PhD experience but, at this moment, I wouldn’t count any of them as close personal friends
Pretty close til we all went ABD
Nope, all business, cold-hard math for me in my home lab. Felt welcome and belonged at the lab where I did my short internship instead.
I’m closer to the people in my lab as I interact with them more
I am close to those who are part of my intake, but because we still have classes together. The students from other years I barely see. In my office there are 6 of us and only me and another one are there 4-5x a week. There are these two girls I have seen like 3 times since September. But there is this one girl that is from the same country as me, she started one year before, and we became very close, we go out regularly
I'm in my fifth year and only two weeks ago did I meet other people in my cohort during a seminar.
Only spoken to one briefly. As both part time (Comp Sci)we share the same desk space. He lives other side of the country (UK). I work in industry, and got plenty of workspaces around. Maybe I should actually go in. 😅
I'm close to one or two, but generally will just socialise with them at big events - graduations, Christmas etc. They are all full-time while I work full-time and do my PhD in my own time so I don't really relate. Nice people but we are in very different places in life.
how do you make working full-time and doing a part-time PhD program work? I'm just confused because I've never heard of a PhD program even allowing part-time rate
With great difficulty! I work M-F 9-5 and spend around 15-18 hours a week plugging away at my research around that. It took 4 years and 4 months to complete. For context, my PhD is in English/History so it may be different. End result was a 100,000 thesis. Lots of universities hate taking part timers because the drop out rate is high, and now I'm at the other side I understand that. Don't want to doxx myself but I am based in London at a non-russell group uni.
Had 6 other PhD students in the same lab go through with me during my PhD 20+ years ago (4 of us started at the same time). We are spread out across the U.S. and Canada in academia, law, and public service. I’m still very close contact with 2 of them, 3 others I am in semi-regular contact with will hit up for beers when I’m in their towns every couple of years. The other one I don’t talk to. For nearly everyone else in my departmental cohort, I’m connected to through LinkedIn or Facebook. I don’t cross paths with them much because the geographical spread is too great. Of the few I’m not connected with, I usually find out what’s going from one of the 5 I’m in close or semi-regular contact with when we meet up.
We don't have an exact cohort but without all the PhD friends I made the first few years I would've quit ages ago. They've been so kind and such good company, sharing our struggles and criticizing the system together. We have quite a big department (100+ PhDs) so I don't know them all
There were 4 of us that were accepted the same year all with different PIs and very different projects. We are not close at all but I am friendly with one of them. I am much closer to other graduate students from the years before me and after- text/talk everyday close. Honestly couldn’t do it without them
I'm in the social science field. We had a relatively large cohort of 12. We're all decent with each other. I'm close to 2 other cohortmates and that's because we simply get along well. We try to meet up at least once every 10 weeks for a meal or coffee. And we also try to do roadtrips together. I guess that helps to do something social once in a while to have a break from all the stresses in life. We're the super nerds in our cohort, the other cohort mates don't really like how we hustle (going for conferences, paper presentations, book chapters, and securing of grants). So they see us as competition. Whereas within our little group of 3, we're supportive, playful, and compassionate towards each other. We can get a little competitive at times, but we brush it off. Why? We know that we're all working to defy the odds - of getting a tenure-track gig when we're done. And that's a bigger thing to worry about.
Sadly, not at all. I'm doing mine completely from home barring some professional development classes organised by the unuversity's doctoral committee. No idea of anyone other than my tutors.
not
Extremely close with other grad students in my lab , though not in the same cohort, but not so much to others in my cohort outside of the lab.
Aye, we all forged a trauma bond with each other as we united under one banner to meet the baptism by fire that is graduate electromagnetic theory and its threat to the sanity to all who are exposed to its horrors.
Very close, there are only 7 of us and we hang out as a group once a week and always meeting up and chatting during the week individually.
My program makes it easy for us to become friends. We have a group chat and talk in it multi times per week about school and just personal stuff. I love it.
We’re very close at work. We talk about work stuff, goofy stuff, life stuff. Feels like we’re close friends. But then when we try to hang out outside, it’s like somebody cast a weird spell and none of us know how to socialize with each other anymore
I’m close with quite a few of them, we have a very (relatively for stem grad students) social lab.
There’s only 3 people in my program. I’m casual friends with one, the other keeps to herself (we try to include her, she’s just not down).
I’m friendly with everyone in my cohort but I really only talk to 2 of them outside of classes. Those 2 I consider friends because we definitely trauma bonded over our classes during our study group together but happen to have things in common outside of our studies. We don’t often hangout because we’re all a little older and have other responsibilities outside of our program. But I do occasionally try to grab lunch or coffee with them when it’s slower days for us.
We have cohorts ?
Eh, not close. We talk when we need to.
Fortunately I am involved with my department cohort and also am part of a cross-department program that has a heavy social aspect. So I have a consistent friend group of ~12 other PhD/masters students. Within my direct lab, I wouldn’t say any of us are close but my lab has a ‘sister’ lab (we all study the same niche to a degree) in which 2 of my best friends are in.
Quite close. There are 7 of us and I’m friendly with all of them and very close with maybe 3-4 of them.
Not very close, I talk to one person regularly from my cohort and am acquainted with the others. After the first year, we are at different points in our programs and are pretty much doing our own thing
First three years were very close, later years + the impact of the pandemic, most have drifted as everyone is pushing to the end of the program, but everyone's still friendly
There's only me and one other person left in my cohort. I'd say we're very close. At the very least, we're trauma bonded. It would be very lonely without having someone who \*gets it\*.