Finding other students
Postgraduate studies usually offer you lots of flexibility, but often come with the price of feeling disconnected, out of the loop of university life, or lonely! This computer age, as much as it opens up the whole world on the internet, can make social communication more difficult. You might appreciate at first that you don’t have the hassles of long trips in peak hour traffic, and crowded lecture theatres. The downside of this flexibility is that you are not learning within a social context. You need to compensate for this by extra effort in organising your connection to university and its social context.
Loneliness can be a natural visitor at any time throughout your journey of life and in times of transition it’s most likely to drop in. You would not like it to become a housemate, though, so you need to be prepared to deal with it.
Tips:
- Reality check – Facing the reality of this mode of studies and all the implications on other responsibilities in your life can be the first step to change.
- As a postgraduate student you need to put an extra effort into contact on all levels. Get out of your shell, even if it means more juggling of responsibilities and commitments.
- Depending on your needs, contact your tutors/lecturers if you have study-related questions or make an appointment with an academic skills adviser, a personal counsellor or a careers counsellor. There is no such thing as a silly question, nor a silly issue!
- You cannot overcome your loneliness by just waiting for the feeling to pass by. You need to learn to feel good about yourself and build up your self-esteem. The first rule of overcoming loneliness is getting out and expressing what you feel. As a matter of fact, talking about your feelings helps!
- Make contact with other postgraduate students who do the same course or who are in a similar situation. In most cases you will find out that they have surprisingly similar experiences and similar needs. And you may find that they are happy to have been contacted and have company on the journey.
Further information
