<p>Is making friends in college easier than it was in high school? Im currently a freshman and dont really have trouble conversing with people. Its just difficult to get others to be interested in me or trying to share common interests with other people.</p>
<p>Very easy. Lots of people everywhere. Talk to people in classes, clubs, residence halls, events on campus, and so forth. You're bound to find some new friends.</p>
<p>i mean, i dont want to approach random people and give them the wrong impression of me. i sometimes feel as if i dont reallly know how to connect with other students. its so frustrating.</p>
<p>In your classes, most likely nobody knows eachother - especially as a freshman in large classes. Feel free to ask peoples' names that sit next to you, ask thier major, what year they are, if they heard anything about the professor, or something, and maybe you'll become friends with them. I've met most of my friends in classes this way. After a few days a "usual" seating arrangement sorta works out for the people that get to class on time.. so you can find yourself sitting by the same people all semester or quarter. </p>
<p>It also makes it easier to make friends in college since the whole popularity structure just doesn't exist ... so you don't have "the jocks" "the geeks" etc. You don't have to worry about your social status or which groups to socialize with. If you make a bad first impression, it doesn't matter... they might not even remember you the next lecture.</p>
<p>just talk to everyone...they'll thank you b/c they're probably nervous and SO DAMN RELIEVED that you talked to them.</p>
<p>An example.</p>
<p>If you an engineering student, kids in your class are bound to be interested in the same stuff as you are. Sit with the pople you see yourself with.</p>
<p>Leave your dorm room door open, and get to meet your floor. You will meet some pretty amazing people. Just go into someones room, introduce yourself, and start talking. Do this to both girls and guys. Every freshman is in the same boat as eachother. I've been in college for 4 days and i've met around 80 people.</p>
<p>er i hate this thing about me - i always seem to make bad impression. Somehow just looking at my face, people feel intimidated and distant. =.= i have to really try to be friendly or else no1 approaches me to talk to me >.< I observe and i see people are pretty friendly towards each other but when they see me, they avoid me for some reason. grrrrrrr i guess i have to try harder than most ppl to make friends.</p>
<p>^ Definitely smile more. When I started high school I was like a closed book. I didn't smile, I always crossed my arms, and I had no friends. The next year I came back smiling as wide as ever. It became my signature and now I'm one of the most popular people in my school. I'm not modest about it at all.</p>
<p>hacker/Casper, remember to smile and greet everyone you even slightly recognize and be genuinely interested in them--where are you from? what are you interested in studying? how are your courses going? Listen to their answers and focus on asking questions that will get them to talk about themselves--consider any interaction successful if you got them to talk and remember one or two details that you can refer back to next time you see them--make the other person feel noticed and appreciated--so has that Math class gotten any better? Is your roommate still staying up all night? .....Of course, you should check for bad breath (ask for remedies at a drugstore if that's a problem and shower /shampoo and change clothes regularly. )
Think of yourself as an anthropologist discovering the various cultural types on your campus and learning what makes them tick. Eventually you will find a few whose company you really enjoy , be helpful and accommodating and sincere. This type of thing gets easier with practice.</p>
<p>people are a lot more open to you in college than in high school cause the clicks aren't as visible/intense</p>
<p>are there more mean people / people with attitude at your high school than your college? i really cant stand those people.</p>
<p>Probably, there are mean people everywhere but they are less likely to be the "popular" ones at college--college should give you a wider range and bigger pool of potential friends--seek to understand rather than condemn those you meet but stay away from people who make you feel bad.</p>
<p>First meet everyone on your floor. Have a movie night or a board game night and invite everyone. I love my floor. Everyone is really great and we do a ton together. </p>
<p>Meeting people in class is ackward but once the conversation is started its a nice relief.</p>
<p>"er i hate this thing about me - i always seem to make bad impression. Somehow just looking at my face, people feel intimidated and distant. =.= i have to really try to be friendly or else no1 approaches me to talk to me >.< I observe and i see people are pretty friendly towards each other but when they see me, they avoid me for some reason. grrrrrrr i guess i have to try harder than most ppl to make friends."</p>
<p>I understand this problem. I grew up in a European society where people do not engage in such a level of 'social smiling' as they do here. I'm also an introvert. Consequently, I probably seem angry and distant to most people. It impedes one's ability to meet many people quickly, but it is probable that the people one will eventually meet will be more genuine and sincere because they don't care whether you act happy all the time or not.</p>
<p>lol yea...it's really hard for me to meet people at first because everyone thinks i don't like them or something >.< but once i talk to them they're really close to me.</p>
<p>it's strange that people who liked me in the beginning ended up being distant to me haha.</p>
<p>The key is to do the small things. One of my best friends I met through Spanish class. We´d said hi once or twice but nothing more. Then one day, she left a few minutes before I did (I was finishing up a test or something). When I got to the steps, she was there waiting. Surprised, I told her she didn't have to have waited. She said, "I know, but I wanted to." We went to lunch that day and after pretty much every meeting of that class, and we're still best friends.</p>
<p>CasperLoveUCs, I think you just feel that people are distant, but it may not be true. If you feel too overwhelmed with all that, you should seek professional help, which should be easily and confidentially, and for free on your college campus. My college has too many workshops I can't name them all, so seek it and you'll feel better. Most of the time such services are invisibly included in your tuition fees, so I'd recommend making use of it.</p>
<p>I was like that every other day during high school. I rarely walked in groups, ate with other people, and went out for party. Later on, I figured out that other people who know me still accept me as their friends, that I can always talk with when I want, that my odd personality does not mean that I'll never have a friend at all. I used to ask if and why I felt like I was too bad a friend, and they all said I was thinking too much because they still see me as a friend, or even as a buddy. </p>
<p>First impressions are not very important, but reputations are. People easily forget first impressions, but not reputations. So, even if you feel the way you act get people far away from you, try not to make bad reputations in anyway. Don't leave your hair in the shower, mess things up in the public space, make noise during the night, and do nothing when someone really need helps that you can easily give. People will remember you for that bad reputation.</p>
<p>wow valecollegorian, you had a lot of good points.</p>
<p>i went to a therapist this summer but it didn't work out really well.</p>
<p>it's true what you said about reputation and first impression. when people know me, a lot of them actually like me. but it's really hard for anyone to get to know me at first. they all said i look cold and intimidating >.<</p>
<p>the thing is, i don't think a lot of people are distant, i think they think i'm distant.</p>
<p>all of my current close friends thought i was mean when they first saw me. i just dont' know how to give off that "friendly look". i guess i'm just too shy to smile at them.</p>
<p>My problem is that I lived in the same town my entire life before college. For the most part, the good friends I had in high school were the same friends I had in elementary school. Granted, I did meet new people, but they weren't the same degree of friends as those I knew from elementary school and middle school. I'm the kind of person that finds a select few good friends, and I never really lose their friendship. My best friend I met when I was two. Unfortunately, he is now 2000 miles away.</p>
<p>Now I go to college, and I know no one. I don't really enjoy approaching people in a non-professional manner (like I don't mind being with people at all in the workplace, but I suck at being around people in other settings). I also hate small chat, so the prospect of just going up to people and asking their name, etc. annoys me. </p>
<p>So I've been spending a lot of time in my dorm playing video games. Occasionally I'll go out with some people, but even now a lot of people have some friendships going, and I sort of just hang out in the background. </p>
<p>Somewhere along the line I'm sure I'll make a good friend or two, but I'm not going to walk around trying to seek out friends; I just let it happen, even if it takes a year. I know I'm just not the kind of person to have a million friends. I've been though year-long periods in middle school and high school in which I didn't know anyone in any of my classes, so I simply went without friends for that year. It's doable.</p>
<p>Also, I suck at remembering names, and it usually takes me at least a couple one-on-one interactions with someone before I remember anything about him/her at all. I didn't even know the names of all the people in my high school classes (around 25 people per class) by the end of my four years there.</p>