Gatherings for graduate students

You won’t find Hilary Bergsieker GS at the Street on a Saturday night.

“As a student who came to Princeton already married and with a close set of friends,” she said, “I felt less pressure or motivation to go out and be social all the time than I did as a college freshman.”

Unlike the eating club-dominated social experience of undergraduates, graduate students said their social scenes are much more variable, making it impossible to generalize about experiences.

Bergsieker said that there is one major difference between the social lives of undergraduate and graduate students.

“My sense is that grad student parties are a little less ‘wild’ than some of what goes down at the eating clubs on the Street,” she said in an e-mail, attributing the difference to the more rigorous academic demands faced by graduate students.

Brookes Brown GS noted that the social experience also varies widely among graduate students.

“The Graduate School has almost 40 different departments and over 2,000 students covering a wide range of ages, career plans, native countries and family situations,” she explained in an e-mail. “I’m not sure that a 22-year-old straight out of college has the same social experience here as a 35-year-old with a spouse and two children.”

Abe Fetterman GS also noted that graduate students’ social experiences are highly variable.

“I have one friend who is really frustrated and unhappy with the lack of opportunities for socializing here, and one who is really happy and describes grad school as his real college experience,” Fetterman explained.

Social opportunities for graduate students

If you ask undergraduates where graduate students go to socialize, chances are that they’ll mention the Debasement Bar (D-Bar). With its central location in the Graduate College, student-friendly prices and full calendar of events and parties, graduate students often take advantage of the Graduate College basement hangout.

But it is not as popular as undergraduates may think, several graduate students said.

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“For me, the D-Bar doesn’t serve as a social hub, or even a place I’d like to go for a drink,” Fetterman said. “But there are definitely a lot of people who enjoy it ... and it is convenient for those who live at the Graduate College.”

Bergsieker explained that, while the D-Bar plays an important role in the early part of a graduate student’s time at Princeton, many students eventually seek other social outlets.

“For my cohort of psychology grad students, over half lived in the GC [Graduate College], and we’ve all gone there fairly often for birthdays or other themed parties,” she said. “Over time, most of us have transitioned to living and partying elsewhere, but the D-Bar remains popular with younger students.”

Fetterman noted that “most people fall into orbits where they get what they need socially, whether that is going to undergrad parties or hanging out together or going to the D-Bar.”

Some graduate students may also choose to venture off campus for social engagements, Bergsieker said.

“Particularly those who’ve lived in big cities or appreciate more active nightlife find [the social atmosphere at Princeton] too quiet or boring at times,” Bergsieker explained. “Many grad students head into New York City on a semi-regular basis for social or cultural events.”

Campus-sponsored activities

William Russel, Dean of the Graduate School, said in an e-mail that campus life programs and accommodations are designed to meet the needs and circumstances of a varied graduate student population.

“Campus life for graduate students focuses in different places for different students depending on their program, their living arrangements and their stage in life,” Russel explained. He said opportunities include the extensive range of student organizations supported by the Office of Campus Life, which is comparable to its counterpart in the undergraduate school.

Russel noted that graduate students’ departments also play a significant role in their social lives.

“The lives of many graduate students are very much focused within their departments,” he explained, adding that departments are responsible for organizing social activities. “Here, the situations vary widely.”

Russel also noted that there is overlap between graduate and undergraduate student organizations aimed at particular subsets of the student population.

“Undergraduates are welcome in most of these [graduate student] organizations,” he said. “In addition, many of the units on campus that support undergraduates ... also welcome graduate students.”

Some graduate students, like Ruth Ochs, have taken advantage of these opportunities.

“I have developed a rich network of relationships with undergraduates through my involvement with Sinfonia, and, earlier, also as assistant conductor of the Princeton University Orchestra,” she said in an e-mail.

Students’ college experience can affect their social experience as graduate students. For some, like Bergsieker — who had an active social life as an undergraduate at Stanford — the Princeton experience is comparatively quieter.

For others, the opposite is true. “I went to Caltech for undergrad,” Fetterman said, “and I definitely have more social life now, just due to having more free time.”

But the University’s relatively small graduate population may be the limiting factor.

“Because of the size of the University — Princeton is a very small place — there are fewer graduate students, and professors generally have more time to devote to their students,” Kyrill Kunakhovich GS said. “I find that to be beneficial, but the drawbacks of the undergraduate focus are felt more on the social scene. We don’t have a law school or a med school, so there are just fewer grad students around.”

“Academically, it works out great for us,” he said. “But there’s also a social handicap.”

This is the second in a five-part series on the lives of graduate students.