It’s me, your favorite honorary BFF, here to guide you through Year 1 of Grad school. As we all know, we're here to learn and get our degree, so education and assignments come first. But, as I’ve emphasized in the past (if you read my blogs, and you should!) you can’t throw your social life away or forget to take care of yourself.
To be honest, there aren’t a plethora of on-campus groups for graduate students, however I have found that the one which has become my favorite is the outdoors club. First of all, the wonderful humans who run the club are delightful – I find that the atmosphere is very welcoming and people are genuinely there to make good memories. And secondly, they make sure to be very clear about the hike difficulty. Even if you’re not particularly outdoorsy or haven’t got much experience hiking, I can testify that the outdoors club is still a good extracurricular activity. It's good to get outside and breathe fresh air and get out of your head for a while. The hikes are mostly local though they do go farther sometimes and do a range of difficulties. And the best part? In the winter we get to go skiing! I’d never skied before but the process was so easy (I’m sure it took a lot of planning on their part) and I HIGHLY recommend getting the lesson. It’s also an excellent way to meet people outside of Heller. I love my Heller fam but we are slightly removed from the rest of campus, and graduate students in general are very busy so it’s hard to meet up and mingle or make friends outside of your program/school. The graduate club brings together masters and PhD students from Heller, the math department, psychology, sociology, just everywhere. It’s incredible. All in all? 10/10 Brandeis Graduate Club!
I also can't forget to mention that once a month on Thursday evenings, the Brandeis GSA (graduate student association) hosts what they call “Stein Nights”. It’s a great chance to hangout with fellow grads on a weeknight and get free food and drinks! Even if you don’t go every time, make sure you go at least once to get the full grad school experience.