<p>I have a friend who is really smart (1450 old SAT) and will be going to an elite college in the fall. Unforunately, she is very shy and quiet. She would only talk to people whom she knows well. Now, she is so worried if she could make friends and be accepted by her future classmates. Since I am one of her best friends, I really want to help her out.</p>
<p>So any comments?</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>I did.</p>
<p>I had a friend just like that, she was very pretty and got hit on a lot, but she was still very shy when it came to new people and situations.
She never gravitated outward to make any friendships outside our clique during h.s.
my friend and I convinced her that if she went away to college, she would be forced to make new friends, and it would just be really good for her.
Unfortunately, her story didn't end well, she ended up with an extremely bossy and demanding roommate, who ended up taking advantage of her anytime she could, she even tried to get her to sleep with her and her bf one time when they were drunk.
my friends and I had to go down there and threaten to kick her ass if she didnt stop the ****, but even though her roommate stopped she didn't really make any new friendships, and only was invited to frat parties to try to get her drunk.</p>
<p>My advice is tell your friend to try very hard to make some friends before she leaves for school, and try hard to have a good relationship with her roommate.</p>
<p>I think college almost forces you not to be shy anymore. In high school, I was shy, and I mostly only talked to people inside my own group of friends (well, I knew like everyone in our class almost, because it was a small class, but I wasn't friends with very many of them, only about 7 or 8 and I mainly only talked to them unless someone talked to me first.) </p>
<p>Because pretty much everything in college is a new experience and there are literally thousands of other people wandering around you every day, you pretty much are thrust into social situations. If there's a club you find interesting, joining that can open up a whole new social interaction for you. There'll probably be about 200 people in your lecture classes waiting to be talked to before class starts. If someone you've just recently met invites you to go somewhere, take a chance and go for it! I did that, and it has changed my life so much and definitely for the better.</p>
<p>Meh... Highschools are so clique-ish. I figure that is why some people have a hard time making close friends.</p>
<p>My CC was kinda like that too. Since most of the kids came from the local high schools, they already came to the campus with a set group of friends. Rarely would they want to branch out for a new member. </p>
<p>Although I have yet to start my first semester at the uni, I figure it will be different from the HS and CC. Just from my experiences at camps, etc., I've noticed that people are much, much more outgoing to "strangers" when they don't have familiar faces to fall back on. It's actually pretty cool to see everyone reach out for new friends like that. But that is just a guess at what will happen... we'll see.</p>
<p>yes, defenitly remember that high schools are going to be a lot smaller and a lot more cliqueish than colleges and i think it's this almost clautrophobic atmosphere that causes a lot of people to be shy in high school.</p>
<p>also remember that many other people will be going through the same thing and if everyone's looking for friends i doubt that going up to a bunch of people and introducing yourself won't work. a lot of people branch out in college naturally and sooner or later you'll find friends just don't go in in a pessimistic view.</p>
<p>Yes youll be fine</p>
<p>Seems I'm in the minority in believing that it's probably easier to remain shy in college than in highschool. Large classes and large groups of people make it easy to get lost in the crowd.
If you have roommates (especially in dorms) however you should get along with them and from there your circle of friends can grow, especially as a freshman where even if you and your roomate wouldn't normally "click" you'll become close just because you were one of the few people they knew from the start.</p>
<p>I thought high school was much easier socially. I'm not shy but I lost a lot of my outgoingness when I got to college for no real reason.</p>
<p>I have a friend much like you guys described. He's currently a junior in high school. Great guy to talk to--if you're one of the six or so people who knows him. I worry about this guy when he gets to college. Sure, he doesn't require a lot socially, but I'd hate to see him in isolation up there. His sister is also quiet and shy, but she made it through and got more outgoing once she hit college. Her number of very close friends just about doubled.</p>
<p>I think it all depends on the person, but in general it seems as if the people who were very popular in high school fall off a good bit in college socially (this happened to me as well as my best friend on campus, who has been my classmate and close friend since seventh grade--both of us were really well-liked and well-known at high school but now it's like nobody knows us). The people who are rather reserved seem to come out of their shells during college. People in the middle stay in the middle.</p>
<p>I just really did not like high school. For one, I'd known half the people in our class since elementary school, some since kindergarten, and everyone else since 7th grade because there's only 1 middle school and high school here. This made it really hard to change how people looked at you, because they'd been looking at you like that since you were 10 years old. </p>
<p>In college, there's so many new people, and even though I went to college half an hour from home, I only knew 3 or 4 people going to my school, and none of them were really close friends. Because of this, I HAD to be outgoing and meet people on my own. I couldn't fall back on old friends. Otherwise, I would've just become a hermit (which I was actually close to doing first semester, but I got over it). Plus, no one at college will know if you fell down the bleachers in 9th grade gym class, or who you went to prom with, or if you got picked on about something since 7th grade. It's incredibly refreshing.</p>
<p>I think it depends a great deal on your university. I went to a very large, urban, quite impersonal university and found that it was very isolating and difficult to meet people. Obviously, a smaller or more tightly-knit college would be a totally different situation.
I also would like to mention that , from my experience, it is important and incredibly valuable to talk to professors and shyness shouldn't prevent someone from taking advantage of their help and knowledge.</p>
<p>My college has over 23,000 people in it, so it doesn't always matter about the size.</p>
<p>I isolated myself in high school because immature cliques are worthless. College is fine.</p>
<p>You learn how to utilize better social skills in college, and usually most of the kids in college actually have the same agenda in this regard... they want to get out of their shell and learn social skills in a more effective way. At least that's what I notice.</p>
<p>
[quote]
she even tried to get her to sleep with her and her bf one time when they were drunk.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That sounds like me and my gf, what's wrong with that? :p</p>
<p>NO, they spontaneously combust every single time.... its really a quite sad affair</p>
<p>ucbhi- uh cuz she obviously didnt want to, and if that ***** wasnt a girl I would have knocked her ass out. that nigga & his ***** was wayy out of line.</p>
<p>back to the topic though,
I'm not shy at all, I was actually voted Friendliest in my senior class, but I am still really nervous to go somewhere I dont know anyone at all, I have never been in a situatuion where I couldn't call someone up whenever I needed to.
The other day one of my friends was telling me that at his college he noticed that although you know a lot of people you really aren't as close as you were with ur clique in h.s.
I'm really comfortable with the whole clique thing, to me it's way easier to make new friends. you can holla at people even if u don't know them cuz they "fit" in ur clique.
i've talked to a lot of people from there, and they all are really chilll, but i don't know, i guess i'll have to wait to get there to see....</p>
<p>I'm not comfortable with anyone thinking "holla" is English.</p>
<p>I'm a really friendly and outgoing person and I worry that I will shy up in college. Is anyone else having the same fear?</p>
<p>I don't remember asking you to pick apart my post to determie wether or not I was writing in English.
and I'm not comfortable with anyone trying to tell me how to speak or write, when it's none of their business.
Especially when they obviously need to get a life.</p>