I'm a first year and I don't have any friends in my cohort or at school in general. I don't find this to be a problem personally because I have friends outside of school and I do like my cohort/labmates. However, my lab had an alumna come and speak and she emphasized how important the personal connections/friendships she made with her cohort have been professionally. I have also heard this from other people including my PI.
I am friendly with people at school and I enjoy our classes and group projects but I don't have any actual friends. I wouldn't mind making friends with my cohort but they all seemed to form groups in the Fall (I had a weird schedule and didn't have much of a chance for connecting) and I feel like I can't really break into the established groups despite giving it some effort. Today, for example, I was talking to a classmate and another classmate interrupted me to ask her to hang out but did not ask me. Later I saw on social media that they and most of the cohort went out without inviting me. I don't feel slighted by this, I just think they don't think about me much because I'm quiet although I do make an effort to talk to my cohort and participate in class. My labmates are great but we don't interact much due to the nature of our lab and that most of them are 4/5th years about to head to internship.
So I've been wondering if it will be professionally detrimental to me if I'm not friends with people at school? Or is this a big enough issue that I need to find ways to make it happen?
I am friendly with people at school and I enjoy our classes and group projects but I don't have any actual friends. I wouldn't mind making friends with my cohort but they all seemed to form groups in the Fall (I had a weird schedule and didn't have much of a chance for connecting) and I feel like I can't really break into the established groups despite giving it some effort. Today, for example, I was talking to a classmate and another classmate interrupted me to ask her to hang out but did not ask me. Later I saw on social media that they and most of the cohort went out without inviting me. I don't feel slighted by this, I just think they don't think about me much because I'm quiet although I do make an effort to talk to my cohort and participate in class. My labmates are great but we don't interact much due to the nature of our lab and that most of them are 4/5th years about to head to internship.
So I've been wondering if it will be professionally detrimental to me if I'm not friends with people at school? Or is this a big enough issue that I need to find ways to make it happen?