<p>I will be commuting to save money next year. Despite planning to participate in several clubs, does commuting mean I will have no social life whatsoever and will make no friends?</p>
<p>That’s a bit of a big assumption. Yes it will be harder to make friends, no you will not have no friends.</p>
<p>Great…here’s to an almost friendless freshman year.</p>
<p>If you’re joining clubs, chances are that you’ll make friends. At least give it a chance before giving up.</p>
<p>Try not to commute freshman year at the least.</p>
<p>Then go ahead and commute soph/junior/senior years, and make sure to make time to hang out with friends.</p>
<p>^ Unfortunately that won’t happen. It’s too late to change anything and I really want to save money.</p>
<p>"That’s a bit of a big assumption. Yes it will be harder to make friends, no you will not have no friends. "</p>
<p>^Agreed. I lived in a location VERY far away from campus freshman year, and I made friends through clubs, classes, etc. Don’t give up quite yet.</p>
<p>^ That’s good to know.</p>
<p>But my school is NOT a commuter school, so I feel very much out of place.</p>
<p>My sister commutes, yet since she started college she found a boyfriend, has a lot of friends and is the president of the “organization of the year”. Its all about what you make of it</p>
<p>@dolphinfreak She must be very extroverted then. Whatever. I think I can deal with being miserable for a year; I’m transferring anyway. It’ll be OK if I make no friends.</p>
<p>I commute. I’ve lived in a dorm for a semester but I love commuting. I’ve met great friends through on campus activities.
You don’t need to be “very extroverted” to make friends as a commuter. </p>
<p>Don’t be so eager and ready to believe the negative and quick to question the positive. Go in with a good attitude and you’ll make friends. Don’t stress about it. Save money. Just try to join activities and to be on campus for longer than just your class times.</p>
<p>^ That’s good news, I suppose. The problem is that no one else at the school I’m going to attend commutes and people make friends through dorms. I can picture my college life right now - after class commences, I’ll probably have a couple hours before the next class. Everybody else will go have fun together while I sit glumly on a bench by myself, contemplating my state of utter misery, thinking, “Why me?”. LOL. That’s what’s going to happen. At lunchtime, I’ll be “that kid” who has no one else to sit with. In class, people only talk to those they know through dorms. If I try to be friendly, they will look at me like I am a socially inept weirdo. That will be my freshman year - miserable, woebegone, even tragic. No friends. No one to talk to in class, no one to sit with at lunch, no friends in the clubs I will participate in, and no one to hang out with.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice though.</p>
<p>One of my closest friend freshman year was a commuter. Basically as long as you make some friends through clubs or classes, make plans after. It was convenient because she had a car since she commuted and all the fun places were off campus. Even so we had buses to save gas too. Just make plans on weekends/nights to further your friendships. Trust me, by the end of the year our group of friends let her dorm with us on campus to keep the party going non stop! Haha</p>
<p>I made friends through my friend who had friends in her dorm, so it’s somewhat true that you can make friends that way. However, I myself made no friends in my dorm, mostly because they all seemed to be too into partying for my taste. As a result, the rest of my friends are ones I made in classes by just chatting before and after class (get there early, don’t leave right away!), where we’d commiserate on things we disliked about our classes, or brainstormed on topics we had difficulty with – and I and all of my friends commute. Oh, and I made one friend through a club I was in for a few months, and we still chat all the time, 3 years later!</p>
<p>I think you expect college to be more like high school than it actually is. Rarely do I see my friends between classes to hang out, as we’re all too busy with schoolwork or our own things, and if we do, it’s usually us hanging out silently while we work on projects. I don’t know about the college you’ll be attending, but here we have no set lunchtime, so at least there’s no risk of you being “that kid!” 
I’m pretty sure it’s rare that people only talk to those people they know through dorms – unless someone only takes core courses for one of the more popular majors, and lives in a large dorm, they’ll probably end up talking to lots of people outside of their dorm.</p>
<p>Like you, I thought that if I talked to people, they’d think I was weird (like now). And hey, some probably did, because I was (and still am!) weird! But if you play to your audience, asking people for help occasionally (people often like to help, because it makes them feel better about themselves), griping (though not excessively!) about the same things others do (misery likes company!), and maybe politely helping someone out if they need help, you should be okay. Remember that people like to be liked, and have their feelings validated. :)</p>
<p>Above all, like ladeeda6 said, be positive! You don’t have to be happy and bubbly, but if you try to be the kind of person you want to be around, you’ll have more success than if you spend all your time brooding about how no one wants to be around you. Once I got my head out of the sand and appreciated the people around me, they appreciated me, too. :)</p>
<p>Okay, thanks for the reassurance. We’ll see what happens - 99.99999% probability I will make ZERO friends and will be ostracized!!!</p>
<p>Dude, calm down. And anyway, you’re ultimately at school to learn, not to make friends.</p>
<p>Sent from my PC36100 using CC</p>
<p>Ostracizing people takes effort. 
Don’t worry, people don’t usually bother to put in the effort to avoid people in college, so much as they focus on their schoolwork and learning about themselves and others. And I’m really gonna second what thedreadedone said, as the more you work yourself up, the more of a funk you’ll get yourself into and the harder people will have to work to get to know you – and based on a quick look at some of your other posts, you seem to be an interesting, helpful, and knowledgeable person when you aren’t stressing out about making friends. Those are all great qualities that will help you succeed in your studies, and in turn, with making friends – it’s great chatting with people who are passionate about the subjects they’re studying! Be yourself and the rest will follow. :)</p>
<p>I agree with thedreadedone. Please do not start your college education worrying about making friends as a top priority. Make education your top priority, it will be better in the long run. Naturally, you will make friends along the way, naturally. Invite your lap partners over for a study group, join a club, it will happen. Its an awfully silly thing to worry about.</p>
<p>When I commuted to a community college I didn’t have problems making friends, but it was alot harder to stay on campus for the events, since most of them happened in the evening and most students would want to go home and eat dinner instead of stay for the events. You’ll make friends if your friendly and outgoing, don’t worry about it. I’m glad I’m at a uni now though because I can be more involved on campus, where it was harder to be involved when I was commuting.</p>