Is Grad School Fun?

Today, I want to talk about the fun side of grad school. Is there a fun side of grad school though? Well, the answer is “of course!” Grad school can be such a fun time in your life and I want to go over why grad school is actually one of the most fun times in my life.

Of course, grad school is much different than undergrad. The fun that you experience will also be much different than that which came with the 4 years of undergrad. You will likely spend more time doing other things like movie nights and dinners rather than going out to the club each night. I have found that I actually find getting to bed early and waking up early outshines the lifestyle of going to clubs and bars and drinking until 2 am. Grad school has changed me lol.

Why Grad School is Fun

So, grad school is a ton of work which may have people thinking that it’s not going to be a fun time at all. Man, are they wrong! Grad school is chalk full of fun activities, meet ups, workshops, and a ton more that makes each day exciting and great. I am constantly getting bombarded with emails about the 5000 different activities going on each day.

Two Smiling Women Sitting on Wooden Bench

Meeting new people

The most fun parts about grad school involve other grad students. You will get to meet a ton of people, from a ton of different countries, doing different things than you. When you are in your master’s, you may take courses with people that are in different colleges than you. My statistics course had people from every department and college in the university. This is fun because you get to experience just so much. You can talk with people about their research. You can learn so much new information and grow as an academic. This is also a great way to find new friends this way

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Doing stuff you love

When you went to college or if you are going to college now, what did you not like about school? Was it taking classes that just didn’t interest you? When asking other students about what they love in grad school, one common answer is this, they love being able to do work they are interested in. When you are in undergrad, you may have to take a thousand credits of classes that you don’t find an interest in at all. This makes going to school not that fun. Trust me, I had to take quite a few courses that I hated to get a bachelors degree. I truly believe that one of the major things that makes grad school actually fun is being able to take the courses you want and are actually interested in.

People Throwing Pins

Doing activities rather than bar hopping

Don’t get me wrong, I do like going out with friends and grabbing a drink or two. I do find that I have been shying away from the Friday night club and bar hopping and focused my time on doing activities that don’t involve drinking heavily and pregaming. In undergrad, pre games then going to bars was the norm. Every Friday I would have people over to drink and then going to the nearby bars to drink even more. In grad school, I now focus my time on activities such as going to new town, seeing plays at theatres, going to the park and scootering around the neighborhood. My friends also like spending more of their time doing stuff like this instead of spending money at the bars. The appeal of getting drunk and stumbling home at 3 am has gone away.

You will find in grad school that the fun that you had in undergrad such as bar hopping tends to subside. Waking up with hangovers all the time just isn’t helpful in your studies and your interests will most definitely change. You will find fun in going to places like a bowling alley with other grad students or going to a trampoline park for a few hours. Heck, you may find fun in joining a running club or cooking class. These might be things that you didn’t really do in undergrad that you want to do now.

You get to research cool things

One of the most fun parts of being in grad school is being able to do research on things that interest you. Not only this, but you might get to work with technology that costs 10x’s more than your whole college tuition lol. Being able to use state-of-the-art research tools is definitely a fun aspect of grad school. you are also given a tremendous amount of freedom to do what you want, which makes the “mad scientist” in me very happy.

You might get to research some really cool things and potentially build stuff that no one has ever built. I have a friend who worked on and build a satellite that is currently orbiting the planet. That is one of the coolest things ever. Being able to work on projects like this is what grad school is all about. It is also what makes grad school so much fun.

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Reasons You Are Concerned That It’s Not Fun

I typed this exact search query into google when I started grad school. I was concerned. I was actually pretty terrified that grad school would be all work and no play. Man, I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Yes, grad school is a ton of work, but it is a ton of time to find yourself and explore the world of academia.

When you think of grad students, you may think of people staying in the lab all night. You might think of someone falling asleep on a stack of books. Rarely, do you think of grad students having fun and living their lives. This might be one of the reasons why you are searching this topic. You don’t want to be that person. Trust me when I say this, grad students have fun. We need to or else we might go insane. For master’s students, you can have fun every day of your life. Keep up the grades and you can technically be on vacation your whole 2 years. PhD students have to find fun or they will most likely suffer from a mental illness. So, scheduling in play time is essential.

Final Thoughts

If you are considering grad school, and want to know more about the fun aspects of it, shoot me an email. My email is benswaringen@yahoo.com. I would love to talk with you about grad school and any questions that you might have about it. I can tell you all of the fun things I do as well as other things that are also fun to do.

Overall, grad school is a fun and exciting time. Trust me, it’s not all work and no fun. That would make it a prison sentence, and we wouldn’t want that. I have found that grad school has been one of the most fun and rewarding times in my life. I hope you find it that way too. Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful day and I will see you in the next article post. Peace!

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