How to Make Friends at University
There’s a good chance many of your close friends are people you’ve known since you were at infants school together. There’s also a good chance that, once you leave sixth form and prepare to move to a new town or city to go to university, you’ll all be going your separate ways, leaving you in the big wide world by yourself. Leaving home for the first time to start university to do a degree is daunting enough without not knowing anyone there, so here’s how to make friends at university.
Find friends before Freshers Week
It’s perfectly possible to make friends before you actually walk through the doors of your university on your first day.
Track down Facebook groups for not only your university but also your particular course, post on student website forums and stalk away on social media to your heart’s content to find friends at your university.
You won’t be the only one doing this, we promise, so there’s no need to feel weird about it.
If it all works out (which it will) you’ll have friendly faces to meet up with in Freshers Week so you’re not starting off alone.
Be brave and invite someone for a coffee after a seminar. You could even ask someone to join you for an alcoholic drink after your lessons! Of course, this depends on where you are studying, as if you are in America you might need to use a fake ID from a website like Fake Your Drank to make this happen.
Join clubs and societies
You’ll be bombarded with people trying to get you to sign up to events, clubs and societies during Freshers Week.
If the friends you made while stalking social media turn out to be crashing bores, you’ll probably find this a good thing.
To be fair, it’s a good thing anyway, as there’ll be loads of clubs, events and societies at your university simply bursting with people who share your interests so you’re bound to find like-minded people to hang out with.
Don’t hide away
If you’re naturally shy or introverted, it can be difficult to ‘get out there’. But you won’t make friends by scuttling straight home after your lectures or by hiding in your room in student accommodation.
After a while, you’ll start seeing the same faces and maybe even sitting next to the same people at your seminars.
Be brave and invite someone for a coffee after a seminar.
Keep the room of your bedroom door open so people can say hello when they’re passing. A closed door will look like you want to be left on your own and don’t want to talk to anybody.
Of course, there will be times when you want to have some time for yourself and will need your door closed, but at other times, make an effort to be sociable by hanging out in the communal areas and offering people a cup of tea/slice of cake, etc. You’ll always make friends with tea and cake!
You should find it easy to make friends at university. After all, everyone’s there to study, so you already have that in common.
Remember though, there will be hundreds of students just like you – new to the area, new to university and hoping to make friends just like you