The importance of (some) social life in your PhD
don´t skip the Friday beer! (I usually skip it…)
When I started my PhD, I was in a new country, surrounded by new people and working on a new topic…I felt lonely.
Two and a half years later…I still feel a bit lonely, I will not lie, but the social life that I have (even if quite small) helped a lot to make my loneliness easier to deal.
Of course there are plenty of benefits in having a social life while during your PhD and I think that the best part of it is talking to people about your PhD. You have no idea of how many insights I got from people (specially after they drink a bit) about my research!
Some of the insights were actually pretty helpful (mostly if the person is sober!) and some of them even made me better in explaining my research…
When you have to explain your research to others you learn a lot about you and how much you know…I always try to make it simple, giving simple examples, since I don´t think that fancy words help people to understand what they don´t know about.
Social life made me learn to explain my research even to a 5 years old or a drunk person…not only that but it made me open to new comments, opinions and critics about my PhD.
I also tried to explain my PhD to my family and friends…sometimes with success, sometimes not so much…but just talking to them made me improve my speaking and social skills a bit! ( I don´t consider myself a social person)
It is very insightful to talk to people from different departments, different backgrounds, random people in general…even your mom ( I´m not really sure if my mom actually knows what I research)…
About the Friday beer…I usually skip it for 2 reasons:
- I don´t drink beer (it is a rare thing for me to drink beer)
- everyone there already knows what I do
Of course there is the social part of talking to others about everything except your research…and how a social life can help you to feel less stressed, help with sadness, make up go out of your office a bit, laugh…and I also enjoy those! :) but did you practice on how to explain your research to a 5 years old?
