Highly

I have a BS from a nice school, worked for several years in industry, and then was nearly done 2 years ago with an MS in CS. I chose for several reasons to remain at the university and do a PhD in statistics - one of them was that I'm interested in the fundamental research of ML but had a very hard time getting any faculty's attention for more than a few minutes. I was hopeful that statistics would give me an unusual slant on the field and an excuse to make more inroads. It didn't, and I don't think I'm being unfair to say that someone decided they didn't like me and targeted me politically (bombarded the coordinator with complaints about me, other things) before I could advance to candidacy. Looking down the barrel of years of bitching, I rightly or wrongly decided to move on. I have a few months left in the MS, then I honestly don't know what to do. This *isn't* because I didn't plan or care: - I secured a nice job offer earlier but realized (reluctantly) that I didn't want to work in that sector right now. (Being vague here, sorry.) - I pitched several faculty on joining their labs but largely got brushed off. - I finally found a good advisor but the lab doesn't meet much in person and I'm rather isolated. What I am seriously struggling to figure out is, how the fuck do I network with people or develop technical skills working with people when the environment is constantly isolating? My strong instinct is to network like crazy, but I really don't know what to target first. I'd like to work some place like the Allen Institute or a National Lab - fundamental research, safety focused - but I really don't know who to network with. The anemic attitude at my institution isn't really helping. If there are aspects of this that don't make sense, happy to clarify in the comments.