Grad students and campus community

An anonymous reader responded to my question "how can I help" last week with a few issues. I will address one each over the next few posts.

Here is the first issue raised in the post: "...what i am struggling the most with right now is feeling like I am part of the campus community. i am a fulltime student, commute to campus, and work."

Feeling as if you are part of the campus community, as a graduate student (who works) can be a challenge. Given that you are in student affairs (that is my background too!), I can imagine that you were an involved undergraduate so the transition is even trickier.

I encourage you to think more about how it is that you would really like to feel "part of" the campus community. Is it about having a group on campus with which you are affiliated, is it about connection with faculty, is it about contributing to the campus community? Other ideas?

I think that it is generally more difficult for grad students to get connected -- the opportunities are not as obvious as they were on the undergrad level, plus as you noted, in many cases, we are commuting to campus and/or working.

We'll talk about connecting with faculty later in the week. For now, a few other ideas (and keep in mind, I don't know what your time constraints are):

- Graduate student organizations? Graduate student government?

- Committees on campus that seek graduate student participation? Check with the provost and or dean of student affairs to explore this.

- Undergraduate organizations that may be interested in a grad advisor?

- Recruit others from your dept to field an intramural team

Do any of these resonate? What kind of campus connections you are seeking?

Cheers,

Harriet