Graduate school and a social life - an oxymoron?

According to Succeedsocially.com achieving a social life is fairly simple if you have the basics. They are:
• A fairly decent personality
• Knowledge of how to make friends
• Enough guts to invite people out fairly easily
• Enough internal desire to have a group of friends
• You like other people
Let me add one more item to the list:
• You aren’t in graduate school

Graduate school not only provides you with the opportunity to further your knowledge. It also keeps you busy and in some ways provides an escape from your current reality. It is demanding and time consuming. Graduate school is an excellent excuse for not having a social life. However, suppose you didn’t have one before?

Truthfully, I believe it is possible to have a social life when in graduate school. Like everything else, it just needs to be a priority. The challenge is I have so many priorities. First and foremost is to find a job and close on my house in Florida. Next is to do well in school and keep up with the assignments. Then there is taking care of my dog and myself, finding a good yoga class, finding a good church, maintaining the car, etc. The list of priorities goes on, so where in the list of priorities should “having a social life” fall?

I cannot blame graduate school for not having a social life. It’s just one more priority I need to consider. And if I really wanted a social life I could give up my facebook time. Then again, a social life is so highly overrated.

- ID #54