<p>I'm hopefully going to be starting college in January instead of next fall for various reasons. Partially because I'm graduating early and partially because I want to. After speaking to a guidance counselor we figured this would be my best course of action. My question is....will it be easy to make friends and meet people who have already been there for a whole semester? I'm rather shy, but am definitely outgoing enough to approach people. How about this question...is there any advice you'd have for me in this kind of situation? I'd appreciate anything...I'm just worried that my experience will be a little skewed.</p>
<p>No it wont be hard, as long as you're living on campus.</p>
<p>You will have missed out on some things, but people are still willing to make new friends second semester (freshmen are at least). My roomate last semester was new then, and she didn't have too much trouble adjusting. It's just that her first few weeks of settling/finding her way around was 4 months later than everyone else, so she was out of the loop of how things work.</p>
<p>I didn't make any of my good friends until spring semester last year, and I was <em>there</em> in the fall. Don't worry about it, people are still plenty open to making friendships. Lots of my friends aren't the same year as me either. I was REALLY shy in high school and coming right out of high school first semester, so it took me a while to open up. I'm not really shy at all, now.</p>
<p>My number one advice for making friends is TAKE CHANCES. Do something you wouldn't normally do. I use myself as an example because it worked for me. I was literally known in high school as That Clumsy Chick That Falls Over Her Own (Giant) Feet. Everyone knew I was uncoordinated. However, I met a girl in a class I took fall semester who invited me to go swing dancing with her. At first I was really skeptical about it, because, hello this is me the clumsy chick. But I went and I enjoyed it so much and I've been doing it ever since (and I've gotten really good!). I've also met many many of my friends through it as well. Trying something new, even if you think you might hate it, is a good way to open up and meet people. And you might end up loving it too!</p>