students - how do you get the right balance?

[hatstand]

I have just gone back to univeristy to do a masters in something I am completely passionate about. It's a good university and part of the experience should be the exposure to other interesting students. I'm not interested in the social side like an undergraduate - no interest in beery nights in the bar - but I am interested in stimulating conversation over coffee. But I already feel guilty - I have so much less time than other - childless - students and I really want to do well (I have my eye on a prize but can feel it slipping away already )I am torn. Do you say no to coffee after lectures? If I want that prize I'm going to have to aren't I? If I do say no will I regret it? will I feel i've missed out on making some really interesting (and, not to put too fine a point on it, valuable) friends? What;s your experience been?

No experience as just started a course at university myself, but my feeling is...sometimes I'm going to go for coffee and sometimes I won't, plus a coffee doesn't have to be a long thing, a quick cuppa at the end of the day can do wonders so I'm finding...a quick break before I get home to see to and spend time with the kids.
Good luck with your course!

In my first year at Uni, but was at college last year and the only one with kids. I said yes sometimes, but especially at first so i could make friends. You can always get people back to yours for a coffee / chat after lectures if you live nearby too. After a couple of snatched braks, i found the opportunites came more naturally, cancelled / shortened lectures, that sort of thing.

I'm doing a part time masters as well as being a full time teacher and mummy too. The only way it works for me is to compartmentalise everything. Work is done at work, school is done at school and home is for me and family only. Having said that, I do the occasional bit of after lecture socialising, but I make a point of disappearing back to the library after a reasonable amount of time. My classmates have been bored already by pictures of the sluglet, so mostly they don't comment as I disappear off. I've made friends, but I'm also known as the one person who has always started the coursework first!

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