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The people who make a grad summer

A graduate student community grows through the ordinary routes between research, conversation and a place to belong.

How Building Community Gives Grad Students an “EDGE”
MathHow Building Community Gives Grad Students an “EDGE”Photo: University of Waterloo / original source page

Waterloo mathematics graduate students describe how community changes the texture of graduate life, especially in the long stretch between terms.

The story is a reminder that a summer on campus is not only a pause before the next deadline. It can be a season for finding collaborators, mentors and a daily rhythm that makes difficult work possible.

Sources 1
  1. Original reporting · uwaterloo.ca
Next · p.10Mentorship is an engineering inputA mentorship award recognises the work that helps graduate researchers persist.

Chapter 01 · Alumni & PeopleRead it in the issue →

More from Alumni & People

A 50-story summer issue about the routes Waterloo takes when the timetable loosens: fieldwork, co-op, community, research, weather and the rooms that make room for a return.

This story is from the August 2026 issue of Alumni Digest · Waterloo. It's free, monthly and independent.

Alumni Digest is independent and is not an official University of Waterloo publication. Stories summarize the public reporting linked under each piece; photographs belong to the credited sources and remain under rights review.