Graduate students find chances to let loose both on and off campus

“Grad students,” he said, “were never mentioned, [except to say that] we also had grad students here and there.”

The perception, Ayalon explained, was that graduate students “didn’t speak any English so we didn’t know what they said.”

Ayalon, the Near Eastern studies department’s representative on the Graduate Student Government (GSG), noted that “this [attitude] really represents the essence of the problem, of this disconnection between undergrads and grads.”

Maybe it’s because of age, schedules or interests, but graduate students agree that graduate school brings with it a social environment that contrasts markedly with that of undergraduates.

Many graduate students interviewed recognized that while some of the difference is natural, some of it is also spurred by structural and perceptional distance between undergraduate and graduate social settings.

A different world

For one thing, student mentality changes when transitioning to graduate student life, GSG social chair Yi Wang GS said. “Different people have different goals to achieve,” he explained.

GSG chair Christina Hultholm GS said that the different social scenes result from greater maturity along with new goals and responsibilities.

“It’s an age difference,” she said. “I don’t want to go to a party that resembles something at high school ... [which is] a difference that comes with being over 21.”

She equated the first year of grad school with the first year of professional life. “You have a lot more work and more responsibility,” she said. “[You are] becoming a professional in whatever field you’re studying.”

As a result, she said, “expectations are very different of how much free time you’ll have.”

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“You have to work weekends,” she added.

The demands of independent study may contribute to a less cohesive social scene. “Whereas I have a feeling that with the undergraduate students, their workload is dictated by when midterms are, et cetera,” Hultholm said, “you don’t have that same ‘everybody is busy at the same time [mentality].’ ”

GSG press secretary Anne Twitty GS also called graduate school a “professionalization experience” and said that the resulting environment brings with it a “fine line between being friends and being colleagues.” This can create anxiety, she said, because there is some uncertainty about what types of information you share with your peers.

The nightlife also changes.

“We do a lot less crappy beer drinking and less room parties,” Maria Korolev GS said, adding that she likes to take her friends, many of whom are international students, to New York City and other places around America. “It’s slightly more cultural,” she said.

Hultholm noted that “a lot of grad students have more outside options,” adding that many graduate students who are enrolled at the University live in New York or Philadelphia.

Indeed, when organized social events and on-campus gathering spots are not enough, graduate students often escape the narrow confines of Princeton. “I think [the social life] is actually pretty good,” Korolev said, “but we do end up leaving Princeton most of the time.”

The undergraduate scene

Twitty, reflecting on the undergraduate social scene at Princeton, noted that “people going out and going to parties is not a weird concept to [graduate students].”

While most graduate students encountered a similar type of undergraduate night life — cheap beer and loud music — at their own undergraduate institutions, the culture of the Street is a unique environment that graduate students often encounter with some degree of fascination.

“[The Street] is definitely a culture that kind of shocked me,” Korolev said. “Instead of going to frat houses, students go to these huge mansions.”

While some are content with a separate social scene, certain graduate students yearn for a place on the Street.

“I walk around Thursday or Saturday ... and I think to myself, I wish we had something like that,” Ayalon said. “I wouldn’t have time to party as much [as undergraduates], but even if I could have half of that I’d be happy.”

Graduate students also feel excluded, to some degree, from many of the undergraduate-heavy campus organizations. “It’s intimidating when [undergraduates] all know each other pretty well,” Korolev said.

Richard Chiburis GS, Graduate College House Committee (HC) chair said that graduate students may feel reluctant to join undergraduate student organizations because “they may not feel like they fit in.”

Though some undergraduate groups are important social structures for undergraduate and graduates alike, many of these groups have schedules that don’t match up with those of graduate students and are not well publicized to the graduate student body, Twitty said. “It’s hard to find out who they are, where they meet,” she explained.

Yet this doesn’t have to be the case. Twitty, who is a member of Pro-Choice Vox, said that “the reason that undergraduates and grad students [are both involved is] because it was reinstituted by a couple of grad students who saw the need to get undergrads involved.”

“When the opportunities arise, it works out well,” she said.

Under pressure

Graduate students’ heavy workload and the stress that accompanies it may also hinder full social lives. For the first two years, graduate students take classes, which culminate in generals, intensive exams in the student’s field. They then work on dissertations or master’s papers.

Ayalon, a fourth-year student, said that he and his fellow graduate students in the humanities spend about 80 percent of their time working in the library. “Firestone is our second home,” he said.

“I think I haven’t quite hit all the stress,” said Korolev, a first-year student in the chemistry department. The month at the end of the second year when graduate students take generals is the most stressful time, she said.

“[Students are] worried about measuring up and maintaining quality work,” Twitty said. “When that finishes, then you’re responsible for writing what is essentially a book.”

It’s like being “thrown in the deep end,” she added. Though, Twitty said, “sooner or later you figure it out ... and it’s better.”

When some graduate students finish their general examinations, Wang said, they choose to focus more and attend fewer social events. Others, he said, feel that once they pass their generals, they have time to do the fun things that they haven’t done.

Going underground

Probably the most notable venue in the graduate social scene is the Debasement Bar, or D-Bar. Open every night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., the D-Bar is located in the basement of the Graduate College.

“The D-Bar is pretty good for a University-run bar,” Korolev said. “I think it just needs to be set up like a real bar; it’s a little too bright.”

Some graduate students are quite attached to the D-Bar.

“I can’t say enough great things about the D-Bar,” Twitty said.

The D-Bar hosts a variety of special events, including musicians, karaoke, quiz nights and a few “blow-out parties,” Twitty said.

“It’s so convenient given how expensive a lot of the bars in Princeton are,” Wang said.

Because of the D-Bar and other factors, the Graduate College is widely regarded as the most unified and active living situation for graduate students.

“The Grad College is a neat place,” Chiburis said. “It’s just like undergraduate college,” he added, citing the dining hall, television rooms, foosball and ping-pong tables, and the D-Bar as places where people can hang out.

A downside to the D-Bar, however, is that graduate students not living in the Graduate College or nearby houses must apply for membership and pay a $25 annual fee to gain access to the bar.

One annual event sponsored by the HC is “The Game.” Shrouded in mystery, “The Game” involves solving puzzles that lead participants on a Da Vinci Code-esque hunt around campus. The winner has the honor of running the next year’s game.

The HC also hosts a social hour every Friday with cocktails and milkshakes.

“[The Graduate College] a really nice place to live, especially for a first-year student trying to meet other graduate students,” Chiburis added.

“If you still live in the Grad College ... [there is] a little more social life going on,” Ayalon said, citing the events and facilities as “good opportunities to socialize.”

It’s sometimes difficult to make friends outside of one’s department, Twitty noted. “The Grad College helps to facilitate that a great deal. People that live in the Grad College know a significantly larger group of people.”

Beyond the College

In addition to the HC, other student groups, such as the GSG and Lawrence and Butler committees ,plan events intended to appeal to the entire graduate student population.

The GSG sponsors three large events each year that draw from 300 to more than 500 students: a wine and cheese party, a Valentine’s Day dance and Frist Frolic, Wang said.

He is also hoping to institute a party in Manhattan at which students could “mingle with friends from other universities as well,” he said.

While the GSG generally has large turnouts at these events, “it’s a challenge to appeal to people whose needs and wants are so different,” Twitty said, referring to the diverse interests of the graduate student body.

The GSG also helps other student groups sponsor events open to all graduate students, GSG Facilities Committee chair Jeff Dwoskin GS said. The Bulgarian Cultural Center, for example, held an event featuring Bulgarian folk dancing and food earlier this month.

The Graduate School’s administration also sponsors opportunities for graduate students.

“The Office of Graduate Student Life seeks to foster a sense of community among graduate students by organizing and planning intellectual, cultural and social events, recreational outings, public service and other activities,” Associate Dean for Student Life Joy Montero said in an e-mail.

The promise of Campus Club

While students who live in the Grad College have a sense of community, “most of the complaints [about isolation] come from [those] who live in the apartments,” Chiburis said.

On the weekends, when the shuttle is not running, it’s hard for students who don’t live in the Grad College to come to the D-Bar, he said. “You have to build your own social life.”

Graduate students look to Campus Club as an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students to unite.

“It’s really great,” Wang said, because it will mean “a lot of flexibility in terms of how large a group [the GSG] can accommodate.”

Others are more doubtful.

“I hope more people would want to hang out there,” Ayalon said. “I have to admit that I’m not so sure [Campus Club will increase interaction among grad students] ... as we both spend a lot of time at Frist already, and I don’t feel that this improves the communication.”

Dwoskin said that there is another option that the GSG Facilities Committee proposed to the administration this year. It asked for a graduate student center located on campus.

Though Campus Club will help the problem of isolation, Dwoskin said, a center for graduate students on campus would mean “more integration and opportunities to meet each other outside of apartment housing complexes.”