Beyond Research: Building Friendships that Carry you Through a PhD

According to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, “Friendship” is defined as a personal relationship between two people, called friends, who are concerned for the physical and mental health of the other, including a part of intimacy. Friendship undoubtedly plays an important role in our lives, as the concern for our friends belongs to a more general set of life concerns, and friends can shape our personality (Helm, 2023).

A PhD journey can be challenging, stressful, and time-consuming. In particular, if we consider the belief that PhD students must spend all their energy working in academia, PhD life could potentially be very isolating. As such, social life and friendships are also valuable during a PhD program, and a PhD student should have a life outside the lab. Particularly for students away from home, the importance of social life and friendships is doubled, considering the distance from old friends and family.

There are many advantages to maintaining a balance between research and social life. The PhD journey can be proven to be very long and emotionally unstable. Friends can offer the right emotional support system to get through difficult days. Research life is a rough-and-tumble ride; there are great days that one wants to share with others and bad days in which one needs someone to see through them (Riad, 2024). Friends can also offer a “productive” distraction from research work, when necessary, as long as it does not disturb you from work. For example, when experiencing a hard problem in the lab, it is probably smarter to leave it behind for a while by discussing a different topic with friends and return to the problem later with fresh eyes and boosted creativity. 

It may sound surprising, but there are different opportunities to make friends during the PhD with multiple benefits, such as: First, it is important to build friendships within the research group. You usually spend too many hours with colleagues sharing the same office and laboratory space. As a result, they need to have good relationships with their colleagues to take small breaks during a rough day or ask for help when something is not working. Furthermore, most of the time, projects share the same context, so it is easier to understand each other while facing similar problems. The disadvantage in this case is that colleague-friends may not be available to offer their help and time if they are also experiencing a difficult day. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it is easier to hang out or organise an activity directly after work with friends from the same working environment, since you have the same time schedule (Riad, 2024). The easiest way to socialise with your research group is to have drinks together, for example, on Friday evening after a tiring week. This is the best way to relax, relieve anxiety, and discuss anything that happened during these days. Furthermore, group parties every now and then are a good idea to give the opportunity to the group members to get to know each other and spend some time together outside the lab (Clark, 2021). These friendships should not be rushed and should be developed naturally over days, months, and years as you spend time together. At the same time, it is very important to find common ground not related to work; otherwise, it is very unlikely that the coworkers will become close friends (Riad, 2024).

If all the above are not possible, conferences are always a safe choice to build new friendships and expand your social life during organised coffee breaks, poster sessions, and dinners. Most people also attend conferences alone and are keen to meet new friends with similar working backgrounds and research interests (Clark, 2021).

However, we should not forget our friends outside academia. There are sometimes bad days in university, and just do not want to discuss it, or need a clear look and unbiased advice from someone external with a completely different perspective on life and work. This is where friends outside your research group and, ideally, outside academia are very useful to spend time with and help you forget any problems. Additionally, “outsiders” are nice contacts to have in your network, especially locals when you are away from home, to ask for recommendations regarding places and services in the city (Riad, 2024). Building friendships outside the university sometimes requires time, considering how much time PhD students spend at the university. Maintaining these relationships is more challenging when speaking about regular interactions that require more conscious effort from both sides. To make external friends, it is very useful to have a hobby or join a group where you can meet people with different backgrounds.

Finally, one should never forget old friends from childhood and the bachelor years. These friendships are well established, and the bond between each other is so strong that they can overcome problems related to distance and daily communication. Especially for students away from home, it is the perfect chance for friends to visit a new city or country simultaneously.

Overall, friendships, like every human relationship, can be very complex and have good and bad days. However, PhD projects can be even more challenging. For this reason, friends should be a part of the PhD journey. Social life is directly connected to well-being and helps maintain emotional health by adding enjoyment and satisfaction to daily routines. The university offers a wide variety of opportunities to build friendships, such as your research group, events, common areas that share with other colleagues, societies, and sports clubs. Therefore, just need to take advantage of these opportunities and go with the flow.

By Christos Moutroupidis

References

1. Clark, J. (2021) PhD Life: Socialising and Making Friends as a PhD Student, The Savvy Scientist. Available at: https://www.thesavvyscientist.com/phd-social-life/.

2. Helm, B. (2023) ‘Friendship’, in Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fall 2023. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.

3. Riad, J. (2024) A PhD Examined: Social Life How I Handled Social Life as a Grad Student, Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@joeriad/a-phd-examined-social-life-66d836c51265.