<p>EDIT: I changed my mind. Don’t want to derail the thread.</p>
<p>A round of applause to cavilier for his/her outstanding posts on this thread and the one about homeless people! Seriously, in real life, I only know maybe one or two people at Berkeley who can’t do anything but whine about the state of their life. Granted, one of those people is a regular complainer on this forum as well, but other than that, I have no idea how the seeming vast majority of this forum is made up of whiners…</p>
<p>To everyone who complains about not having friends here, the question to ask is not “What is wrong with everyone else?” but instead “What am I doing wrong to drive everyone away?”</p>
<p>To the OP: I feel similarly as you, having moved out and so not being able to meet new floormates - where are you going to meet new people? Classes are just going to get smaller as we move into upper-divs, and by then we’ll have all our classes with all the same people that we already know, or maybe meet a few new acquaintances once in a while in office hours. JK. It doesn’t sound too exciting. What about taking a decal? It seems like a good way to get to know people who have similar interests as you without the “club” setting…</p>
<p>Thanks for actually contributing cavilier and AppleJuice. I find that there is a strong sense of self-righteous indignation that reeks of arrogance and bitterness here on CC which is why I tend to not come here very often. Not that I entirely blame the people - college admissions and college life are a huge shock and often full of disappointment, but there are TONS of cool people here at Berkeley, and anyone who says otherwise needs to take a good long look in the mirror instead of judging everyone else around them. The problem is just getting to know them in such a large school where the reshalls and student organizations rely on individual effort on participation (vs. living at a school with residential houses/colleges or something like that).</p>
<p>Yeah the Decal thing seems o.k., but tbh I’m not too interested in any of them. I guess they just seem like extra work on my courseload that I don’t want to deal with. About the classes though - it actually isn’t toooo bad of a thing. In my upperdivs I’ve started to get to know a few people. Not good friends with any new people from class by any means, but not complete strangers any more either haha.</p>
<p>I think the main thing is taking the initiative to introduce myself/set something up is the limiting factor in getting new friends. Everyone wants to be invited to something and to have people call them up, but it’s more daunting to be the one putting in the effort. I think I’ll try to be more outgoing/take more initiative and maybe try to find another club that is laid back and fun.</p>
<p>Um, you say your friends go to parties with other friends from frats/sororities. Why don’t you see if you can go with them? I’m pretty positive 9 out of 10 times, the response will be positive and you may even become friends with their friends.</p>
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with that kind of viewpoint, you might as well move as far away from civilization as possible, because if you think like that, then everyone in the world is a fake</p>
<p>it’s one thing to have that view. it’s another to just deal with it.</p>
<p>Honestly, meeting people in classes/discussions and escalating that to beyond ‘acquaintance’ is really, really hard because many people that already know someone in there. But you can be that person that they already knew.</p>
<p>I definitely understand this isn’t for everyone, but I’ve found that joining any type of fraternity - community service (aphio?), professional (I believe theta tau is a co-ed engineering one), or social - sets the foundation to meet people in your classes. There’s also so much diversity (amount of partying, people, workload) that it’s not too difficult to find one you may like. If you’re not into fraternities, definitely join something like AAA BUT with any of these clubs and organizations, YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE. Take an officer position right away in those large clubs, because being a general member is pretty useless. </p>
<p>A lot of the time, you’ll see someone you recognize in your classes from your club/fraternity (especially true if you rush a professional one because they’re in the same area of concentration) and it works as a fantastic stepping stone to take that ‘acquaintance’ and turn it into a friendship if you weren’t close friends already.</p>
<p>Does that mean you’re going to find people to party with all the time? Nope, if that’s what you want, you’re going to have to confidently exude that feeling when meeting other like-minded party individuals. Sure, there’s a lot of times when people will invite all their friends to a party or something, but until you network enough outside of your circle, you’re entirely dependent on someone else to go partying and I’m assuming that’s where a lot of your frustration comes from.</p>
<p>Hang out with your friends’ friends.</p>
<p>Meet more people, connect with more people.</p>
<p>You have to work at getting friends. Otherwise, you may have only one or two friends, and those worked hard at being your friend.</p>
<p>Let’s say you have 15 units of small classes. Chances are, you’ll be in contact with approximately 100 people that semester, just in class! That’s a lot of people to meet, greet, and possibly be friends with.</p>
<p>You should also join clubs, try to form study groups, and participate in various activities (there’s way too many at Berkeley) to meet even more people. Parties are also an excellent resource to gain new friends.</p>
<p>If you see someone cool, be friendly with them, extend an offer of friendship, and hope it works out. They probably haven’t extended their offer of friendship because they either don’t know you well enough, or have the same reservations just like you. Someone has to make it happen, and if you want lots of friends, you have to make it happen!</p>
<p>In any case, have you ever thought about joining a fraternity? There’s really more to one than parties; parties are just a side-effect of the level of friendship found in a fraternity. They’re basically structured social catalysts.</p>
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<p>I hate to put it this way, but:
Fail suggestion is fail.</p>