How do you put yourself out there and overcome shyness

So I am a 19 year old teen in my first year of uni. So far, I haven’t very social. I do have friends but I don’t see them that often because I am hugely introverted. In fact, just know I saw some of them eating out in a large group and instead of joining them, I went upstairs to my room due to my shyness. How can I overcome this? I see some upper years who are usually alone and I don’t want to be like that.

You can set a goals for yourself: talk to one stranger about the weather, give two real compliments, walk around with a soft smile between classes #2 and #3, each lunch and dinner with others three days a week, join one social/hobby related club. My favorite thing to do freshman year was to ask people how they chose our school, as in “why are you here, as opposed to somewhere else?”. The answers were great and made conversation fun. You can be shy. Just walk around with your head up, not looking at the ground, and look approachable so that extrovert people will come to you.

Ok something just happened. A friend who I made here, was drunk and came over to my dorm room in order to chat with me to a bit. He was having a get together with people in his room and they were all drinking and stuff, so I bothered, hey, why not join them for a little socializing,( I don’t drink though), but he stopped me short and was like, there is no spot for me there unless I drink. I politely declined and he went back to his room. Now, when not drunk, he’s hung out with me before and all that, so what should I make of this situation?

Are they underage also? Maybe he didn’t want you to be only a witness to underage drinking and stuff. A participant couldn’t say anything about it.