Hey everyone! I’ve been seeing a lot of incoming college freshmen on this forum lately looking for advice, so I figured I would make this post to help give some! As always, other advice, input, and anecdotes are always welcome!
One of the biggest fears plaguing incoming freshmen is how to make friends. Will you find your niche? Will people like you? Will you fit in? And the scary truth is that, for a while at least, the answer to these questions might be “no.”
I made a whopping zero friends my first semester. My roommate was my best friend from high school, so she and I were very close, but then she began making friends a lot quicker than I did. Her major is very small, so all the students are very close with one another. I didn’t want to seem clingy, so I didn’t really hang out with them a lot. I think my biggest mistake was not being social enough at the very beginning. The first few days, everyone asks you your name, your major, and where you’re from. The questions get very tiring very quickly, and a lot of the “friendships” you make during the first week don’t stick. I have numbers in my phone from people I haven’t once talked to since orientation week. But even beyond the stupid questions, I stayed pretty much holed up in my room at the beginning. I figured I’d make friends later. When “later” rolled around, everyone else already had a friend group. Another mistake I made was being way too intimidated to talk to people. I’m at Cornell, and I came in with a presupposition that everyone was smarter, prettier, more talented, and more interesting than I am. I was terrified to open my mouth for fear of saying something stupid.
I also did some stuff right first semester, though. The number one thing people on CC tell you to do to help make friends is join clubs. I definitely support joining clubs that interest you, but these clubs will not guarantee you friends! I joined two activities first semester. The first was writing for the newspaper, which didn’t give me any friends since all interactions I had with everyone were done online. The second involved playing music, and the people I met were very friendly and great people, but something just didn’t click. They were all very welcoming and kind to me, and I did have some good times with them, but their personalities all meshed with each other and mine just didn’t quite fit. I tried to act more like them, but that just didn’t feel right to me. There is nothing wrong with them and nothing wrong with me; they just weren’t my niche. Don’t try to force yourself into a group if it doesn’t quite feel right. I promise you that there will be a group somewhere on campus where interactions just come naturally!
So essentially, first semester was terrible for me socially. I stayed in my room every weekend. I walked to and from class by myself. I ate every meal alone. Every time I spoke to my parents, they asked me if I had made any friends. They sent out emails to family and friends expressing concern for my social capabilities. They told me I needed to make some friends before second semester when I had to choose housing for sophomore year. I told them I was trying to make friends, which I honestly was! But it is NOT easy, especially if you aren’t incredibly outgoing or haven’t had to make friends in a long time (I found this to be true because, going to a small school, the people I graduated with were my best friends on the first day of kindergarten – I hadn’t had to make a new friend in years!)
So second semester rolled around and I went in determined to make some friends. The first couple weeks went by and nothing miraculously changed. Then, in February, I made the best decision I’ve made since coming to Cornell: I went through recruitment for an Honor’s Fraternity. Now, I am not into Greek life, and a lot of people assume an honor’s fraternity is like a regular fraternity, which it isn’t. Honor’s fraternities aren’t recognized by the Interfraternity Council. They usually operate on the basis of community service and academics and they don’t throw huge open parties. This one is based on GPA, so I got an email telling me I was qualified to go through the recruitment process for them, so I did. I didn’t expect to get in because at this point I was convinced something was wrong with me. A fraternity of any sort was so completely out of my comfort zone. But, somehow, I made it in.
I was not immediately graced with dozens of new friends. However, I was able to get close enough to some of them to find roommates for next year. I still eat most of my meals alone, but I’ve grown to appreciate quiet lunches on my computer. I still spend a lot of weekends in bed watching Netflix, but I get out every once in a while now. I became an official member of the fraternity yesterday, and we had a big formal afterwards, and the whole time I kept thinking how I knew I had found my niche. Interacting with these people was so natural. Our personalities finally clicked. I realized nothing was wrong with me. I’m actually excited for the years to come.
So, the moral of this incredibly long post is that NOTHING IS WRONG WITH YOU IF YOU DON’T MAKE FRIENDS RIGHT AWAY. You will make friends eventually. Maybe some of you will make lasting friends your first month of college. Maybe some of you won’t find the perfect niche until senior year. Go out of your comfort zone, try new things, and don’t be afraid to acknowledge if a group isn’t right for you. I wish more than anything that I could go back to first-semester-me and tell myself that everything would work out and like-minded people actually did exist. But, since I can’t do that, I am passing on this well-earned knowledge to you all!