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I’d never planned on staying in Madison after graduation. After five years here, I was ready for a change; something more metropolitan, with better concerts, shopping and warmer weather. With my closest friends in Kansas City and Des Moines, I didn’t have a lot holding me here.
While I struck out in my full-time job search, I was lucky enough to land a marketing internship at a firm in Madison, so in Madison I stayed. As I’m not much for the bar scene, I didn’t have the easiest time connecting with other 20-somethings and meeting new people. Or at least that’s the excuse I used.
It’s easy to feel isolated when your closest friends have moved away, and most people your age have well-established groups of friends. But, starting the next chapter of your life in the same city isn’t as impossible as I’d thought. If you put yourself out there, you’d be amazed to find that there are a lot of other young professionals in the same boat.
Start a book club. I love to read. I also love to talk. Unfortunately, when I searched for book clubs in the Madison area, all of them seemed to be “by invitation only,” or were just an excuse for soccer moms to get away from their kids and gossip under the pretense of discussing the latest Danielle Steele. Not exactly my cup of tea. In November, I logged onto Brazen Careerist and asked if anyone in the Madison Brazenite group would be interested in a book club. I didn’t expect much of a response, but was pleasantly surprised. We had our first meeting in November, and I sat nervously at Barriques, book in hand, feeling a bit like Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail (sans the whole romantic bit). Long story short, we’re going into our fourth meeting, and I feel really lucky to have met the people I have.
Host a board game night. Do more than just join a professional organization to expand your network – dive in and start something new. Take a page from the techies in Silicon Valley – suggest hosting board game nights (and offer to head up the effort). While any board game could do, I’d go for Settlers of Catan. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal quotes Mark Pincus, CEO of the gaming start-up behind FarmVille, as saying “Settlers is definitely the new live networking for our crowd.” The game “closely approximates entrepreneurial strategy…and the random rolls of the dice force people to revamp their strategies for winning.” Sounds like a winner to me.
Get a dog. When my friend got Bauer, his Boston Terrier, his number of friends on Facebook seemed to increase exponentially. When I asked him why, he replied with two words: “Dog Park.” It made sense – dogs are a great way to break the ice and meet new people. If you can’t have a dog at your apartment, or don’t want the responsibility of having one, think about volunteering at your local Humane Society. Chances are they’re in need of dog walkers, and you get some of the perks of having a pet without the downsides.
Move. It’s tempting to stay in the campus area of your city – it’s familiar, the rent is cheap, and if it’s anything like Madison, the night life is centered there. I moved to a new neighborhood just a mile away from campus, and it’s shown me a side of Madison I completely missed as an undergraduate. As it turns out, there’s still a lot to discover in this city.
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Comments
02.15.10
Great post! We all have choices. We can choose to feel stuck or isolated or we can choose to do something about it and the suggestions you make are first rate. What I think you will discover is that each of these actions will work when you move to that new city as well - if you choose to!
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