Outings
I have started doing outings with my research group, every few months. We go for dinner or drinks, with significant others welcome to come along. They seem to like it, and hopefully do not find it too weird to hang out with their professor once in a while. (For whatever reason, they have taken to calling me "Professor" rather than "Shellie," and I am too amused by it to correct them. Maybe after they pass their qualifying exams?) One of my students, who is from China, particularly likes learning the names of new foods and is always full of questions. He usually asks whether the food we are eating is "typically American," and then seems slightly disappointed when I say it is not, but is actually far better than typical. Today, for example, we had a long conversation about American cheese and how it came in two types, orange and white, and how it was different from the aged Gouda, manchego, and blue cheese we were actually eating. One day I will invite them over for Domino’s Pizza, mac ‘n cheese, and Bud Light, and we will see if they enjoy typical American food.
Before I started here, I wondered whether it would be weird or even possible to "hang out" with my PhD students. I have a good mix of students in my small group (male and female, American and international), and this helps a lot. We also don’t "hang out" every day… I don’t want to be one of those professors that appears to have no friends, except for their own PhD students, who they go drinking with at the pub every night after work. But doing something together every month or two seems good, and if they all hang out together without me more than that, all the better.
I think once every month or two is good. I always though (before grad school) that it would be weird to hang out with my PI. But it’s not, and I think that’s a good thing.
Comment by SouthernGradGirl — October 19, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Suggestion: Take them canoeing when the warm weather returns, if at all possible. One of *the* most hilarious things I’ve ever heard was our Chinese postdoc lamenting that she did “not know how to drive this!” as we floated merrily down a river. That’s several years ago now, and I’m done with grad school and working in industry. I’ll never forget that silly canoeing outing, though.
Comment by Threadspinner — October 24, 2008 @ 12:07 pm