<p>Has anyone had the experience of being very lonely/unable to connect with other students at BU?
My daughter is new this past January (freshman) and hasn’t had any luck connecting with clubs, meeting people on her hall, all doors shut all the time.
Has talked with a couple of kids in classes, but no relationships yet.<br>
Is it too early to expect friendships to happen?<br>
What about the clubs, she has contacted 3 or 4 in several emails, but no response.
Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>It stinks that your daughter is having trouble! It’s getting to be busy at school with final projects and everything coming up, although that’s no excuse for clubs not to get back to her in a reasonable amount of time. </p>
<p>Since it’s the end of the year, I’d see if anyone in her classes wants to get together for a study group or something like that for finals. It might amount to a friendship.</p>
<p>Right now, the clubs might be a longshot because there’s only a few weeks left. However, next year ALL the clubs will be looking for more members. </p>
<p>Where does she live? If it’s a primarily sophomore + dorm that’s probably why a lot of doors are shut. </p>
<p>Don’t let her give up! I get lonely sometimes and I have a decent amount of friends. It took me two semesters to really solidify who I wanted to hang out with.</p>
<p>i’m convinced that bu is the hardest place on earth to make friends at, so tell her not to feel bad. i regret not having joined a sorority, though, honestly…it’s lucky to make friends any other way. i have a few best friends but had the WORST freshmen warren floor other than them :P</p>
<p>Zigzag I’m sorry to hear your daughter is struggling with this. It is a common phenomenon for all college kids, but especially second semester starts because the “die is cast” on floor cliques and such. She’s doing the right thing by reaching out via clubs; rather than wait for email replies, perhaps she can find out when those clubs meet (and where) and just go to the meeting and meet people there. Sign up to help with events – nobody will ever turn away such help, trust me – and her personality will come out as she works and interacts and hangs with the other students. BU is a funny place in terms of logistics and layout. I have several friends there and a common thing they tell me that it really has no campus – it’s just buildings spread out around Comm Ave - and in the winter in particular people pretty much hibernate. When they do go out they head away from BU and into the city. All three of them have a couple of friends each but no big groups, but they admit there are plenty of diverse people there and they have found others to bond with. Whereas at many colleges the freshman floor dyanmics involve open doors and popcorn in the floor lounge watching TV, BU seems somehow “colder” … people’s social lives are elsewhere, and I think the school atracts a more urban student who is willing and able to go find the action. I visited one of my friends for a weekend overnight and we pretty much used her room as a hotel room – never hanging in it – and spent the whole time on the street in the city. Remind your daughter that at a school the size of BU there are tons of second semester starters, so her situation is not unique. She has missed the “forced interaction” of freshman orientation in the Fall, when many initial friendships are formed. But she should keep in mind that those friendships also typically are fleeting and most college kids make many of their true friends in the sophomore and junior years through involvement in campus activites. From my initial freshman cadre, I only hang with one of them – the rest of my friends I met last year and even this year. BU and all big schools can feel like “factories”. It is on her to be aggressive in getting out and finding the conections as much as it is incumbent on others to welcome her when she does. Bottom line: Her experience is not unique to BU or any other large urban school with an ersatz campus that is comprised of city streets (NYU, etc). And BU dorm life is, with very few exceptions, not designed to be a social experience in any way. She should set her sites on becoming an active memeber in one or two clubs/activites before she leaves to come back home this summer. She should make it clear that she has only been on campus for a couple of months, so folks know she hasn’t been lurking/avoiding for half a year only now to show up. The rest will fall into place for her, and she will hopefully look back on this as the “dark time”. We all have them. Your job is the delicate one of balancing supporting without enabling. It is the toughest period in both of your lives.</p>
<p>I have read in the online Quad this week that the Dean of Students office often helps students in similar situations. Their staff often finds ways to match lonely students up with students who have similar interests. I personally can attest to staff in the DOS office being really cool, so your daughter should give it a shot. They might be able to give some insight on a club that could click with her or other opportunities that would work well with her interests that she hasn’t discovered yet. It’s sometimes hard to sort out which clubs are active opposed to which aren’t as a freshman. </p>
<p>I just looked up their contact info. Their phone number is 617.353.4126. Their email is <a href=“mailto:dos@bu.edu”>dos@bu.edu</a>.</p>