<p>Well I'm going to my city college. And I'll be living with my parents because we can't afford room/board. Because the state college doesn't offer much scholarships/aid to international students.</p>
<p>My parents are a psychological drag on my social life. I'm probably more ready to leave them and be independent than anyone I've ever met. I'm not anti-social, nor am I socially impaired. So I can't really blame my somewhat listless social life on me, but my environment.</p>
<p>I'll play a club sport. I'll find work. And I'll maybe join some academic club. Other than that, I don't really see any other way I can connect with people or a best friend for that matter. I'm not very confident on the subject of a best friend either because my best friends moved before high school, and my new best friend in HS turned out to be a ditcher. But I'm not going to dwell on my fear either, so I think I'll interact well with people.</p>
<p>The odds are against me that I'll have a good social life. I mean for one, I'm taking sophomore, junior level classes. I don't have a roommate. I don't want to party hard because that leads to drinking. The list goes on.</p>
<p>If you REALLY REALLY want to live on campus and can’t afford it, pull out some student loans to pay for it. After your first semester or first year, see/decide if it is worth it to you.</p>
<p>I go to a city college, I commute, I don’t drink and party. Sounds like you, doesn’t it? </p>
<p>Only I’ve made tons of friends this year and although I admit not all of them are good ones but I’ve made some good friends. </p>
<p>Don’t worry about it. You’ll find friends. Just talk to your classmates on the first day of classes before the professor comes, talk to people in your major, join a club. A lot of the friends I made I met randomly. I even got the courage to talk to a classmate on the subway!! I was like “You’re in my blank class, right?”</p>
<p>^ Meh, everybody’s different. I go to a city school and I commuted the first year, and I was miserable and didn’t make any friends. I moved on to campus the following year and I made a lot of friends and was much happier with my social life. This year I’ve been forced to move back home for the time being, but I’m not as worried about it because I’ve already got a hang of making friends and talking to people on campus. </p>
<p>Xmas, my advice is to do all of the things you mentioned (club sport, work, academic club). You can also go to the gym to make new friends, and if you can drive it will allow you to stay on campus longer so you don’t always feel pulled back home after your done class every day.</p>
<p>Commuting does impair your social life at college, big time. But you can still have a good one if you have good social skills. Most people in canada commute from home and many of them (including myself) have a good time). But the people who have the best times usually live on or near campus.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with your parents? I’m living with my mom right now. Although my mom’s awesome so it isn’t an issue.</p>
<p>Yes, everyone is different when it comes to social skills. I’d say I’m hovering around average. The thing is, I don’t think you guys are considering the colleges. Some have big campuses, and some have small ones. It’s much easier to get to know people on small campuses, which is the opposite of what I’m facing. So far, all the cool people I’ve met are party dogs. The people who are sober and nice are - I’m sorry to say - pretty lame.</p>
<p>But I’ll just say that I’ll never know until the fall semester starts. This thread was pointless.</p>
<p>No, it’s not pointless – plenty of commuters or ex-commuters may have some ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of to find new people.</p>
<p>I agree with the above posters about changing your way of thinking and so on. However, I totally understand the parent issue as well as commuting. I’ve only commuted for a summer program (not a whole semester – gah!), and it was absolutely miserable. I lived 40+ minutes from campus and had to be home at a certain time and everything, so I was rarely there outside of class. I spent a few weeks hating it, but then things picked up. I already had one friend who was there, who introduced me to some other people in class, and we bonded more working on group projects. We never partied or actually went anywhere, but we’re close enough to keep in touch and get together in the fall.</p>
<p>My advice: spend as much time as possible on campus, if parents aren’t an issue in that way. Find a friend or two in a club, then bond with them. They’ll introduce you to other people you’ll probably like, provided you find the right people. Since you’re a commuter, at least you probably know the area better and can have fun going around town or something; they’ll love it since they’re probably always on campus.</p>
<p>A lot of stuff IS specific on how you do during fall/how things are going/etc., so if you need more help once you know more specifics, I’d advise posting another thread then or updating this one later, or feel free to send me a message if there’s any advice I can give!</p>
<p>I understood by what you write that you’ll be commuting within the same area (not like 50 miles we read sometimes here) and that you don’t like to drink. If you can try a compromise with your parents and get a car, your social life is not wasted unless you enroll and start attending classes with this mentality.</p>
<p>Organize your life to spend as much time as possible in college premises, study at the library and so on. Don’t come back to study and do homework at your house. If you parents are the type who cannot sleep until you came back, you can still make some friends in whose chouches you could sleep a night or other when staying too late on a weekend party.</p>
<p>There always going to be classmates in your clubs and classes out of town, who will appreciate if you offer to show the city and hang out with them outside campus neighborhood.</p>
<p>I once had great issues and concerns with the “social life” thing before starting college - and I’m international -. Social life just happen - be yourself, try to overcome shyness and things will sort out. Event comunity college is a rather different environmentl than high schools.</p>
<p>On the other hand, try to take (financial) advantage of the situation: you can still go after scholarships, work etc. and save the board & room (and indirect expenses like laundry, cleaning, etc. etc. etc.) money you’d spend from your own salary to spend a summer abroad, for instance.</p>
<p>plan to stay on campus most of the time. get to campus in the morning and stay until evening. just hang out in the student center or other social places. you’ll have to be really involved in student groups and organizations. you’'ll have to make a bit of extra effort since you don’t have advantage of friends from the dorm, but there should still be plenty of chances to find people. Also when you find friends plan to go to campus to visit on the weekends as well. you can live at home without spending a huge amount of time there.</p>