<p>Hello I am a recent (December) graduate of a small suburban college in New Jersey. I am looking into graduate schools for Health Policy & Management and I have a few questions regarding the daily life of a grad student.</p>
<p>1.) How much do grads mix with undergrads? Are they ever mingled through clubs, campus events, etc. Or do grad students keep to themselves because of the increased workload?</p>
<p>2.) Are there welcome events solely for grad students similar to undergrad? (such as clubs, meetups) Or are graduate students largely treated as adults working full time?</p>
<p>3.) Do grads ever have free time for friends/dating? Is it easy to get isolated? Would you advise getting a pet?</p>
<p>Houston, TX & Chapel Hill, NC differ greatly in terms of the kind of cities they are. Coming from an undergraduate institution that had a great community feel, I would imagine Chapel Hill would be the better fit. However, I am not writing off Houston as the jobs & the Medical Center would definitely be a plus.</p>
<p>Very dependent on the university and the program. MBA, JD, and MD programs are often more like undergrad in terms of offering a lot of orientation, social events, etc. MA, MS, and Ph.D. programs vary enormously. If you want to take advantage of undergrad programming, consider whether you are on the same campus as the undergrads, as well as the rules for grad student participation (which may come down to the rules of a particular club).</p>
<p>As a law student, I participated in a lot of primarily-undergrad music and theater programs. Most of the theater groups and choirs allowed grad students to join (though not to become officers). The a cappella groups, on the other hand, were mostly undergrad-only. I was rarely the only graduate student participating in a big group, and we were made to feel quite welcome.</p>
<p>At my university, we were told rather bluntly to make our lives easier and not to socialize with undergrads, although the actual rule was that we couldn’t be friends with anyone we had in class (we could obviously be on friendly terms with undergrads but couldn’t hang out, chat, share personal stories, etc) and we absolutely couldn’t date or sleep with any undergrad for legal reasons (this was a blanket decision that had actual fine lines and differences depending on many things but once again under the “make your life easier” principle it was simpler to state it like that - and as far as I know it was followed.). Also, grad students didn’t live in fraternities although they belonged to honor societies and academic fraternities along with undergrads.
In most cases, grad students ARE adults working full time (and overtime and unpaid).
Overall though grad students didn’t want to socialize with undergrads. The two worlds are very different. Grad students have more low-key events like beer&barbecue or hiking&picnic, they can go to clubs and bars - many unviersity town bars cater to a specific age group (grad students I knew didn’t like the rowdy/let’s get drunk mentality of 21 year olds); many are involved and some are married/with children so they like to spend time with them obviously :).
However graduate students could enroll in clubs and participate in activities with undergrads, no problem.</p>
<p>As others have said, it’s going to depend on the particular school and the particular program within that school. It doesn’t sound as if you’ll have any teaching responsibilities. If you don’t, then fraternizing with UGs is less likely to be a problem. I found this link to student clubs for the program at UNC <a href=“Current Students - UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health”>http://sph.unc.edu/hpm/hpm-student/</a> I’d suggest contacting one of the officers via email and asking your questions. </p>
<p>1) Not much, to be honest. I think this is pretty universal - the amount of “not much” will vary by field but socially speaking, graduate students have different priorities and developmental stages than undergrads and don’t chill together much socially. This is not a bad thing.</p>
<p>2) The two are not mutually exclusive. Most universities have a variety of clubs, campus events, and social organizations for grad students. Not only that, but your chosen city will probably have social and professional orgs for young professionals, which now includes you. (This is also true of working adults, FYI.) How active they are will depend on the university and the students within, but they will be there.</p>
<p>3) Of course. Many grad students are married, some have children, many date throughout grad school and virtually all have friends. Honestly, many people make out graduate school to be this time-sucking awfulness, but even with mediocre time management skills the average grad student will probably spend 50-65 hours per week on schoolwork/grad school stuff. There are lots of other careers in which young professionals spend 50-65 hours a week on work stuff, and in some careers (like physicians, consultants, high-powered lawyers) you can spend even more. So grad students are not unique in being busy, and if a medical intern or Skadden, Arps lawyer can have a wife and a cat, so can you.</p>
<p>If you want a pet, get one. You’re going to grad school, not joining a monastery ;)</p>