College Life v.s. Grad School

[MovinOutWest]

Originally Posted by brit3218

I will be living in graduate housing in the dorms. How are dorms in grad school different from dorms in college?

I lived in graduate dorms for two years while in grad school. The one I lived in was different from undergrad dorms in a few ways.

- An older resident population
- A quieter environment, residents were more focused on academics
than social events. Each floor had small rooms/lounges that were
always being used for small study groups.
- A full kitchen for meal prep, nobody ate at the cafeterias (although this
may vary depending on where you are)
- Lots of international students. I was in the minority being an
American. It's a great way to learn about other cultures.

Most of my classmates lived off campus in apartments but I chose the dorms for financial aid reasons, but if I had to do it again I'd choose the dorms again even if I didn't need to financially. The multicultural aspect of it was a great learning experience and hanging out in the kitchen and tv lounge area was a great way to meet lots of very intelligent people in a variety of academic fields.

[janamc]

I found graduate life to be more "adult."

I completely agree with this. I went to grad school a few years out of college and most of my classmates were around my age or a little older, with just a couple who were straight from college. In grad school you're no longer a bunch of kids who are excited to go off to school and be away from your parents and be on your own and do lots of underage drinking. In grad school you're there because you want that degree. Sure there's fun and parties there too but that's not really the "lifestyle" like it is in college. Everyone's grown up; been there, done that. The profs also treat you more like adults and peers, in my experience.

Socially I made good friends with my classmates but didn't meet a ton of people outside my grad dept. Maybe we as a group were just more insular than others, but it definitely wasn't like college where you meet lots of different people from all the dorms and in all your classes. I only had room to take 1 class outside my dept, the rest of my credits needed to be from my grad dept, and those classes were filled with, you guessed it, other people in my dept. Not a lot of new faces encountered in my classes, unlike undergrad where I mingled with students from many different majors.

This depends on the grad program and on what your undergrad experience was like, but I felt more "in charge" of my time during grad school. My days weren't as tightly scheduled -some classes only met once a week, so I would have a few days in a row with nothing on my schedule, no classes, no need to be on campus. But during all that "free" time I had a ton of homework to get done. So I had to get used to long days of unscheduled time and using that time productively or else I'd be really screwed.