The Duck's Life website asks whether it's different being a postgraduate than it is being an undergraduate. Is it inevitable that to be a postgraduate is to be condemned to "leading a lonely life, or not fitting in among a group of young carefree undergraduates?" In my experience, this is a common caricature that deserves some correction. So, for your enlightenment, I'm going to elucidate the main differences between being a postgraduate and an undergraduate, which I hope will be of service to anyone considering postgraduate study in the immediate future.

To begin with, I'll outline the academic requirements of my course, which is an MA in Social Research: the five of us on the course have 6 hours tuition per week this term, spread over two modules. Apparently, first-year undergraduate Sociology students, a comparable discipline, have around 10 hours per week of lectures and tutorials with which to occupy their time. The difference comes in the respective workloads at each level: MA students have assessed essays and several assessment exercises, and also an MA dissertation, mine is 15,000 words minimum. The dissertation involves selecting an area to research, designing the research and methodology, carrying out said research, and documenting its findings to a minute level of detail to satisfy the examiners.

Not only is an MA academically demanding, there's the issue of finance: being a postgraduate isn't cheap. Unless you get a university scholarship, or are funded by a research funding council against fierce national competition for their limited budget (http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/gso/gsp/finance/resfund.htm), you can expect to pay for the majority of your course yourself, or your parents will have to pay on your behalf. You could take out a Career Development Loan from some of the major high street banks however; they will loan up to £8000 under this scheme, the catch being that repayments start relatively quickly after the course ends (about three months later on average) so they are not exactly without risk. My tuition fees are about £3000 for a home student for one academic year, and my accommodation on campus in Halifax costs £3700 for a 51-week let, which allows me to stay in York over the summer to complete my dissertation. You can pay all fees by installments, but the university does recommend you should expect to budget approximately £10,000, including living expenses, if paying for the course all by yourself without any outside assistance. You could get a part-time job to alleviate debt; the university allows up to 15 hours of paid work, and there are temp agencies in York or a range of jobs at the university itself, where average pay is about £7 per hour.

That's workload and finance out of the way, but the question still remains: do postgraduates "lead a lonely life?" I think there are two factors which determine whether you'd be lonely which are independent of being a postgraduate. The first factor is whether you live on campus or not. If you live on campus, you are close to the centre of student life, and close to much on-campus entertainment, and quite simply it provides a far greater sense of being part of the university than living out, and there's a sense of being part of an academic community on a campus which I feel is hard to emulate elsewhere. That's not to say living out isn't a viable option of course: it's probably cheaper, and you may feel more integrated into the life of the city as a whole though it isn't inevitable, and campus can feel very isolated and extremely damp and cold and unwelcoming when it's pouring with rain. But one consistent theme I've noticed in conversations with postgraduates is that those who choose to live off-site often consider themselves to be somewhat detached from goings-on at the university, having little connection with it except as a place to go to lectures and use the library facilities. That sense of disconnection is probably felt most by people who come to York to do their MAs or PhDs from other academic institutions, whether from the UK or abroad.

The second issue regarding postgraduate loneliness is whether you already know the university itself, as it's an enormous advantage to your social life if you've already comfortable with York and its university in the first place. Many postgraduate students at York University have already been here previously, and stay for further qualifications: according to the university's own statistics for 2002/03, the last year for which figures were available, returnees to York made up 26% of all the new postgraduates. There are considerable advantages to staying in the same place, as familiarity is a powerful pull factor to studying at your first institution, providing a sense of continuity, especially if you have a good relationship with your lecturers in your department. I wouldn't have stayed at Oxford to do an MA myself, , I thought it would be constrictive and repetitive to stay in the same place for too long, and I enjoy the change of scenery that York offers me, a chance to see a new place and meet new people. But then I've always had a bit of a wanderlust – only you can know if staying or going is the best option for yourself.

As I've moved to York from a different university, do I feel that I am "not fitting in amongst a group of young carefree undergraduates?" This statement, I think, does have a ring of truth to it. I don't really feel disorientated by my new surroundings, but when I'm with undergraduates, I'm aware of the age difference. It's not that the undergraduates are juvenile, as the undergraduates I know are a pretty mature bunch all round, but nevertheless I'm acutely conscious of being older than them. Partly, this is to do with a sense of time – my MA only lasts one year, while the undergraduates, until they reach their final year, have a sense of being somehow isolated from worldly concerns. I remember being an undergraduate, the long luxurious days which that brought with it, doing work and socialising with little concern for what the future may hold in store. To quote Wordsworth from an entirely different context, "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,/ But to be young was very heaven!" Anyway, I'd argue the undergraduate and postgraduate sense of time are qualitatively different from one another: as a postgraduate, the onus is on me to get a job after the course. I took the course as a means to an end, to acquire skills for my professional development, and I paid for the course myself, which focuses the mind somewhat on the task in hand. While I may still be young, that sense of overriding responsibility for my own future means I couldn't really be called a "carefree" postgraduate.

That doesn't mean it's impossible to fit in with the prevailing undergraduate culture of course. If you prefer, you could join the GSA (Graduate Student Association) to meet postgrads, but I didn't do that - I'm already busy enough with other activities. I found the quickest and easiest way to meet people was to socialise across a broad range of societies and groups: I've participated mainly in the various cinema societies, done some student journalism, and also joined Love Soc, which is a comparatively easy way to meet people without necessarily having any interests in common. There's over 50 student societies in York after all, and societies are good ways to meet people. The ostensible reason for the society meeting does provide an easy icebreaker and source of conversation, plus if you click with someone over common interests, you're already halfway to establishing a firm friendship.

To sum up, I'd say to any budding postgraduate: the most important thing is to attempt to enjoy the course and enjoy the university life, with its relative freedom from the mundane working world it brings: after all, it beats paying the bills and working for a living. One neglected element in people's minds is the intellectual freedom of working on a subject which fascinates you. This is one of the main reasons I'd recommend further study, the sheer pleasure of learning for the sake of it, which seldom is the sole concern of any job in the outside world. Moreover, there are abundant opportunities to explore and try new things in a university, to an extent which is unparalleled in any other modern context. You might as well take advantage of this unique academic and social environment offered by a university while you can for the duration, which has the bonus of enhancing your employability.  Go for it!