8 tips to make more friends freshman year
Halle Parker | Sports Editor | @_HalParker
“There are two types of freshman: the ones who enter college alongside a few people they know from high school and the ones who start fresh in a completely new place.”
No matter what kind of freshman you are, whether you have your best friend since birth rooming with you — not a good idea, by the way — or you left all your friends and family behind in a different state, you will want to branch out.
Sure, it’s comfortable to keep a few familiar faces around, but college is all about taking on new challenges and rising to new heights, as you’ll hear about in orientation over and over.
It’s never easy to have the confidence to begin a conversation and say the first ‘hey, how’s it going,’ but each time you initiate the interaction you’ll become more comfortable. Much smoother and less awkward greetings lie ahead.
Coming from someone who was just in your shoes last year, here are a few tips to get the ball rolling and help you find the friends who will help you through the next four years.
1. Join Clubs
Seriously.
This is easily one of the best ways to meet new people and put yourself out there. Who cares if you weren’t much of a ‘joiner’ in high school, college is completely new territory. The whole point of clubs is to create a place where people with similar interests can gather and hang out.
Weird how people with the same interests as you could turn into your friends, what a coincidence.
If you like volunteering, check out Alpha Phi Omega (APO) the service fraternity on campus. Looking for some active people to run around with? Sign up for intramural or try out for a club team. Want to diversify your clique? Attend a Black Student Association or Pride meeting.
Or maybe none of the clubs on campus represent your needs. Make your own, you’ll feel great and it will look good on your resume.
2. Use LSEM
As much as everyone complains about the mandatory freshman seminar, it actually is useful in the long run. Even though the one credit course takes up more time than you ever want it to, you’re paying for it either way so you might as well take advantage of it.
The people you meet will also be in your major so maybe it will make finding a partner for some future group activities easier once school actually begins.
3. Connect with your roommates
Living with a roommate in college can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on how well you hit it off. Assuming it goes pretty well and you don’t hate each other — usually you don’t — you kill two birds with one stone.
You gain a friend in your roomie and access your roomie’s pool of friends.
No matter what type of freshman she is with a friend group already or beginning anew, it still gives you both the opportunity to expand through one another.
4. Meet your hall mates
And why stop expanding with just your room or suite? You have an entire hall of fellow freshman ready to say hi while waiting for the elevator.
You’ll be surprised when you gather for mandatory hall meetings just how many people live on the same floor as you. Begin a conversation with a common complaint like the trash buildup in the dorms on the weekends or wondering what D-Hall will serve that day, etc.
Just go for it.
5. Socialize on Facebook
Is Facebook getting older? Yes.
Is it becoming less useful? No. Chances are you are part of your college class’s Facebook group and this group is providing access to all these different people in the same boat as yourself.
Maybe don’t go stalk every single person’s Facebook profile, Twitter page, and Instagram, but in moderation finding a few people to message over Facebook to say hi isn’t an awful idea.
6. Bond over group work
Group projects will happen, just like in high school. But, unlike in high school, you can make the experience actually productive.
Have fun with it versus coasting, actually work together with your fellow group members and maybe the lunch meetings you guys started to work on the project might become a regular thing past the class due date.
7. Talk in class
This can be a little risky at times, but if it’s the right moment then why not.
Everyone in college takes classes so it’s really the big thing that ties all of us together.
The only caution is to be respectful and mature about it. Otherwise you’ll just end up with an angry teacher and an embarrassing moment once you’re called out.
8. Sit with people in the Dining Hall
Unless you genuinely want to be alone while eating — no judgment, I find it kind of relaxing sometimes — if you don’t have a pre-planned eating group and you walk past a table of one or two then have a seat.
Try to engage with them and see where it leads. Besides, you might make someone’s day just by pulling up a chair.
When it comes to growing a social group in college, the key is to seize the moment. Everyone wants friends and everyone already knows how to talk to people. Being on your own doesn’t change anything.
