Communicating with your peers

Graduate students are in a unique arena when interacting with their peers during their studies. Peers are friends and coworkers, and often serve as both formal and informal supports throughout times of fun and sometimes times of extreme difficulty or personal hardship. Moreover, peers may be future colleagues of varying authority and influence.

When it comes to establishing patterns of communication with peers, be mindful of the more informal relationships of today but also of those that could arise in the future:

• Cultivate respectful, professional relationships with peers.
• Encourage the use of constructive, professional feedback processes in formal and informal settings: classes, presentations, thesis defenses, and the graduate student lounge.
• Set appropriate boundaries for when and where jokes, play-time, and work take place.
• Respect each other’s boundaries; be extra-mindful if the boundaries are different from yours.
• Respect differences and similarities, they can enrich the learning/working environment.
• Develop principles of integrity for interpersonal communications and put them into good practice (i.e., confidentiality, honesty, adhere to policies, etc).
• Do your own work.
• Unless the peer relationship is also a friendship, be judicious of disclosing or complaining too much about personal matters.
• Avoid gossip.