What is college life without a bunch of friends who are your partners in crime and wisdom? But the question that carries more importance is how to make such core of friends at a new place, new environment, and a new college?
Starting your college days at a new place can be tough, especially when you are pursuing higher education at a reputed, distant university from your home crowd. And if you are reading this, means you are already freaking out about your new environment, experiences, and how to make friends. But there is nothing to worry as you are not the only one. Trust us when we say that everyone is nervous for their initial days of college, or any part of life.
The best part that will work with you is that everyone in the college will be new and freshers, which will mean you will have more comfort in interacting and mingling with them because even they will be trying the same.
So here are 7 tips to take the initiative for making friends at college –
Start Your Social Media Search Even Before the Classes Start
This is an online digital era, so take complete advantage of this social media facility. Most of the colleges have their Facebook or similar social media handle pages dedicated to the freshman classes or the courses they are starting in new months.
Use this space to find a possible roommate, people from your neighborhood to travel along, or friends from your previous colleges. This is the best way for you to have an idea about all your future classmates.
You can simply start with commenting on someone’s posts or replying to people who have commented on yours. You can even initiate the conversation by dropping a message on your own. All these pages are full of people making plans to hang around during the initial few weeks, try to get into one such group; it will give a jump start to your friends finding process.
Make Friends at Your Dorm
This is one of the easiest ways to befriend someone. At the dormitory, you might have come across a few constant faces on the same floor or while having your meals. Just approach these people and initiate a ‘hi’.
Interacting with these people will make the corridor experience less awkward, and more importantly, you will have someone to talk to while staying back at your place. While living in a dorm it is very important to befriend people as this will be where you stay most of your time in the entire day.
If you are not comfortable with taking initiatives, then simply keep the door open and see if someone approaches and starts a conversation.
Attend University Events
Most of the universities have activities planned for the first-year students, so try and take advantage of this opportunity. These events help in finding a person with similar extracurricular interests.
Attending events help in interacting with the same mind people, which makes communication easier and you can even make plans for your next activity together. It is an established fact that you make friends while attending an event, whether it is a college event or not, as you are with people with similar interests and hobbies.
Join Clubs or Intramurals
You are not going to yield anything by staying in your room. If you stay back, the chances of you interacting with anybody will decline with a speed of sinking ship. So, going with the previous point of attending events, you can join some of the inter-college clubs or intramurals activities.
There are colleges where the university does not hold events, joining clubs can come handy to you if your college is one of them. You can choose the club of your own interest. This will make you interested in attending the activities as well as help you stay socially active with a group of people around you most of the time.
Make Use of The Initial Awkwardness
The start of the semester, quarter, or campus year can be an awkward moment for all the students joining in. Most of the people are new to classes each year, and so take advantage of this phase and try to make most of it.
You can introduce yourself with the person you share your desk with or all the people around you. This is a perfect place to make new friends as you will be staying in the same company for the rest of the classes.
Make Friends on Campus Facilities
Another great way to make friends of similar interests is by using campus facilities. Many of the colleges have volleyballs courts, gyms, pools, etc. for students. These places are great to meet new friends, especially the volleyball court where you need a group of people to play the game.
After all, it is true that sports and teams bind people more quickly than anything else. So, use these facilities for your extracurricular activities as well as making friends.
Understand That You Might Hit Dead Ends
Movies and television shows have created some unrealistic levels of expectations for us. You need to understand that unlike reel life, real life is not all sparkly. You might hit dead ends, where people won’t be similar to you and may not talk again. Or even it might be that you do not feel like talking to that person again. But that is okay, start over again with some other person.
You also need to believe and have patience with the concept of lifelong friendship or partner. You might come across people with good bonding, but that doesn’t mean that you people will stay around for life. Finding the perfect partner in crime takes time.
College days are the most exciting ones in life. So, try to make the most out of it. You do not need to worry about making new contacts and connections. And if talking about friends, just talk to people, and it is sure that you will hit off with someone or the other.
