And then what?
Graduating from the University of Cambridge in 2018, this was the biggest question that my close-knit group of friends faced. How would we cultivate community once dispersed in different cities, and how would we expand on the interdisciplinary education offered during our intense undergraduate days?
What we could not have anticipated:
The online-dating burnout that would make us anxious about looking French-girl-cool before we even knew whether the mystery person could make us laugh
That our bosses would not be amenable to us exploring passion-projects at work, and that our time would be devoted to very narrow practice areas
A global pandemic that would make it extra difficult to make new friends away from our hometowns or college towns
That the bars in 90s sitcoms, where everyone just made friends after one drink, didn’t really exist…
The idea for Apres came to me in 2018, and after making the transition away from a busy PR agency and into a PhD program, I realized just how many of my academic interests I had neglected in my office job. In a new country, I sought out ways to make friends outside of party culture. I really just needed someone to go to a museum with! Meeting graduate students who have incredible knowledge of so many subject areas and yet so few opportunities to share this expertise, an idea was born for a hybrid social network that would put the mind, and the slow burn, back into all kinds of interpersonal relationships.