PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

My Graduate School Tribe

It was difficult, but also simpler times

Photo by Mathias Reding on Unsplash

Graduate school occupied a unique in-between status in my life. Although legally adults, graduate students like myself were in a time-suspended limbo where we did not make decisions like someone with full-time employment, such as starting to save for our retirement.

When I think back to those times, lunch time is a special memory.

Alice Coutand so eloquently described how the French and English approached lunchtime differently. I think my graduate school tribe had our own customs and identity as well.

Lunch was serious

Like the French, graduate students also took our lunch breaks seriously.

I worked in the health sciences building, where we were fortunate to be allocated a lunchroom for staff and students. It was a convenient spot for laboratory-based graduate students to stop, heat our lunches, or make coffee. Excursions outside of this building were rare due to time and cost considerations. The sun-filled lunchroom overlooking a pretty pond became a graduate student sanctuary. We met around noon, and most of us planned experiments that allowed us to have time for meals.

Lunch hour was important. It was a mental break. It was a physical break, especially after mornings hunched over samples, noisy equipment, or our computers.

It was a space away from our supervisors. Some of us had harder times than others working with our professors, but regardless, the lunchroom was a professor-free space. We rarely had one of them poke their head in.

Lunch time was for feeding and sharing

We shared. There was an ease with how we fell into friendships. One was even comfortable enough to give himself insulin injections. One confessed to getting fired by Tim Hortons (a famous Canadian doughnut place) — for consuming the cream for Boston Cream doughnut straight from its dispenser. He is now the President of a Canadian university.

Moments of commiseration

We groaned about getting old and how it was affecting our metabolism. We talked about checking for grey hairs. We complained about strange new symptoms that could be signs of aging.

We shared painful details of relationships. We shared wedding plans. We shared joys and admiration, such as the friend who completed the Iron Man two years in a row. Some of us were expecting babies, and we had robust baby-name debates.

Some of us had our first mortgages if we were lucky to have working partners. So we had our home improvement discussions.

Lunch was defined by research work

We were all overachievers in our own ways. We were passionate about our research, and our lunch times were usually defined by little timers. It was not unusual to have a few timers on waistbands or pockets. When these wound down close to zero, it was time to go. We had our priorities.

Cocoon of safety

That lunchroom, now that I can reminisce, while it was just a benign space, added to my fond memories of graduate school. I still have some of these friendships, decades later. And I treasure these very much.

Support writers. All our non-profit’s offerings here.

Brand art by Gael MacLean