Welcome to Phase Two of Epic Quest. We’ll be sharing and comparing answers to some general questions that affect us all. We’d like to hear our readers’ stories as well, so please feel free to jump in in the comments. This week’s question:
What’s your social life like? How does that interrelate to your career and/or job search?
DoctorWhom: My social life is pretty dry but not nonexistent. I sort of have two, my school life and my DC life. In DC, socialization and networking are pretty much the same. A lot of my friends are also contacts, and a lot of my contacts are also friends. And contacts give you tips, names of people to talk to… My family in particular has always been big on helping out friends when it comes to opportunities– being aware of the opportunities, that is. Friends give you a leg up on getting internships, positions in field work, that sort of thing, but you still have to work for it. No one’s gonna hire or accept someone who isn’t qualified.
Tau’riJedi: I don’t really have very much of a social life. Most of my socialization is with online friends through blogging, NANOWRIMO and a few other projects, which helps a little on the career path because it provides me with a lot of contacts. It’s great for networking, but it can still be difficult since a lot of the time the people are international. As far as my external social life, I have a lot of social anxiety and I am not very good at making friends, so my socialization is mostly limited to my sister and her friends, and the few friends I maintained from high school. While those connections have come in great for my fiance’s job search, it hasn’t helped much for me, since there are not many full-time job opportunities in the town I live in.
Day-Dreamer:
My social life this summer has been slim to none. My boyfriend lives two counties away on weekdays to work, and all my friends in the area went to the university and have graduated and moved away. I email and text a lot to keep in touch, and have made two trips to New Hampshire to visit friends, but essentially live alone, and really worked alone until this new job.GodzillaStar:
It’s, um, actually kind of empty. Sadly, I have more friends online than locally – not that there’s anything wrong with that. But, I do get lonely a lot, and that makes it harder for me to stay focused and motivated. Also, because I haven’t had a paying job in months, I have to be choosy about going out because everything costs money. It’s even affected my independent projects. There are a number of things I’d like to do that require collaboration (such as making a short film), but I can’t find trustworthy people to work with. There are a handful of people I’d trust, but they all live in British Columbia or the US or England.