Hello, I am international freshmen student at a public state University in Florida. I haven’t made friends in the college after a semester and I feel lonely. Although I am not an extrovert, I feel like I am becoming an introvert days by days. I speak English proficiently but sometime, I have trouble catching what the local students say to me. This makes me feel doubtful about my proficiency, confidence and discourage me from initiating a topic. Moreover, I am not Chinese or Indian, and I came from a not well known country so that there are no one from my country to share my experience to and to at least have social circle. For academic, I am just doing fine with 3.8 GPA after first semester. I have tried joining a few organizations, but barely made any real friends. Moreover, I feel like I have culture shock and I feel like there is not much in common to talk about to make friends. for example, I don’t know American football, baseball and very little about basketball so I feel like I am in disadvantage to make friends. Now, mostly, I go the class and return to my dorm room just to study or use internet. Moreover, I am quite short at 5’4’’ and when I was at the university gym, often big local guys make fun of me joining gym, so I feel unwelcome. lastly, I have never have a relationship in my life and it kills my small confidence. My life just sucks.
Now, I am just writing this to share my experience as a freshmen international miserable student and to know if there are any others. I guess there are others like me at my university and I just wanted know some advice.
First of all, if you are one semester into university, then you might have started over the summer or in the spring. It is likely to be easier to meet people in the fall when most of the new students arrive. Of course this is going to happen in just the next few weeks.
If you look around it might seem that the outgoing kids dominate social interactions. However, there are going to be quite a few other quiet students in any university. Look for them. Talk to them. Initiate conversations. Some of them are going to be having just as hard a time as you at meeting people. Many of the more quiet students will not be interested in American sports, even if they are Americans. We don’t all watch football and baseball.
Does your university have some sort of international student events? If so you might want to participate and see how it goes.
Also, you should continue to get involved in some form of clubs or activities. If you don’t like the first one, try a different one. If it doesn’t work, try a third. Some that seem interesting to me are clubs that focus on games (chess, bridge, or other games), and clubs that involve outdoor activities such as hiking or kayaking or sailing. You of course might like these or might like completely different clubs.
Also, you might want to talk to the counseling services at your university. There should be some counselors that you can talk to for free. They will be able to talk to you and see your personality, ask about activities that might interest you, and they will be aware of what clubs and activities are available at your school.
Thank you. I started my college during summer, maybe that is the main reason. In coming weeks, there will be welcoming events and I am planning to go there to see if I could find any opportunities to meet more people who are like me.
It is now the beginning of college for freshman, so there will be more orientation activities. Go to these if you can…
Use the fact that you don’t know baseball/football to your advantage. If you see someone watching a game/playing a game, then say “I have heard alot about American football but don’t understand how it works…could you explain?”
I would look for organizations you can join…religious, service, international, games, etc.
If you want to work out but feel intimidated, then get a personal trainer or take a class or say something like “You haven’t always been that big…how did you get started?”
First you had to expect transitioning to a new county would be challenging. Of course everything is different.
Don’t worry about your English not being as strong as you might like. Nobody really cares. Just keep talking and it will get better.
All of the above advice is good. I will add, do you smile and make eye contact with others? Do you ask them questions about themselves and show that you are sincerely interested in them and want to get to know them? Do you reach out and help others in any way? For example, helping another student carry items into a dorm, holding a door, helping another with work, hanging a mirror etc. Do you laugh? Do you have a sense of humor?
It is still very early. Try to keep reaching out and putting yourself out there.
You know that you brought some of this with you in your baggage, yes? That you feel unsure of yourself b/c you are not tall also came with you. If you are 18, there are many students who have not had ‘a real relationship’ (even if they have ‘dated’ a lot).
And, you knew that moving to a new country, living and working (school = work) in a new culture and a new language is going to be hard- if it was easy, everybody would do it. But: not everybody is. You are- more credit to you!- and that is a good place to start.
Treat the start of the academic year as your real start of school- the summer was where you learned how to find your way around, improved your English, got used to Florida (a bit- some of us never get used to Florida :-p).
Now, when all the other new students arrive, look at you! You know where stuff is and how to get around campus. You know which of the food options is best. To the newest students you look as if you know what to do (because you do). That looks like confidence, which is something that almost all of the other new students will be lacking (no matter how they look on the outside, same as you…)
So, you build on that: you go to 1-3 groups / clubs that you genuinely would like to be part of. You won’t be the expert, but you won’t be the newest person either, and you volunteer for the least exciting jobs- and you keep doing that. When classes start you talk to people coming in / out of class ('what did you think of that lecture? ‘how did you find that problem set?’) and when a test or a hard problem set comes up you ask people if they would like to make a study group for it (and when some of them say no, you don’t get upset!).
It takes time to build a new life, and you can not make real friends in a semester- nobody can. Real friendship develops over time, as you share work and play and good days and bad days. You will have acquaintances for a good while before you realize that somebody is an actual friend. Give yourself time.
Starting college in the summer can definitely be a big contributing factor. Campuses are often empty and not filled with people like during the school year. You might have an easier time making friends in the fall with the full swing of things. Consider joining clubs of your interests – often those people are looking for others with similar interests and are very social. Also don’t look at your differences as a disadvantage, many people love learning and having friends that are different than them. It’s a whole new experience. What country are you from if you don’t mind me asking?