DD Miserable at Oxford Uni

[MyPearlPoster]

So DD is in her first year studying history at Oxford. She has come from a very prestigious secondary in London, where she thrived and had lots of amazing close friends, some of whom are at Oxford now too. From the start she has found it all really challenging socially, calling or messaging in tears that she hasn't found her people and feels alone in her college which seems to be rather unsociable, unfriendly and 'nerdy'. Spending time with friends from home there helps, but she says everyone seems to have a core friend group within their college, where they've all found likeminded people to eat/hang out/study with - I think she feels somewhat like the odd one out for being lonely in hers. It doesn't help that her friends at other unis, many in the US, are having the time of their lives, calling with exciting stories and posting pictures of new friends - she really feels as though she is majorly falling behind. I have told her multiple times that it takes time and that she would regret leaving Oxford but it also kills me to see her so unhappy. Academically she is doing pretty well, but not thriving perhaps as she used to, and finding it difficult to concentrate and focus because of constant anxiety etc. She is speaking to a therapist and taking a low dosage of anxiety meds which have been recommended. I think part of it is the lack of structure of it all - she was used to having a big but very tight group of supportive friends who she felt very at home with, and as a family we are all very close too. With her humanities course she hardly has any contact hours and all people in her college seem to do is study...she keeps saying it's not that Oxford is wrong for her but her college specifically but there seems no chance of moving...I know people will say to get involved with extracurriculars and she does journalism which she enjoys but finds everyone there is more of a loose acquaintance network. Apart from this, she was never particularly sporty or into music and other than those activities everyone's social lives do seem to revolve around their colleges...she makes an effort with friends of friends etc but feels afloat generally and is often lonely.

Has she asked if she can move to a different college and they've said no?

Yep - apparently it is literally never done and impossible...

I am out of date - but the one thing they were very hot on back in the day was pastoral support. Can she talk to a JCR officer/her tutor/the Chaplain (whoever she feels comfortable with) and explain how she feels? It might just be the case of someone putting in place a few introductions for her. A similar thing happened to a chap in the year below me back in the day and everyone stepped up to make him feel at home.

Alternatively (or as well), I’d encourage her to get involved with some university wide societies - she could make a few friends that way. And nothing wrong with talking to her old school friends about how she feels; it’s not “failure” in any way not to have met your sort of people.

Hope things improve for her.

Sorry to hear this. Yes, moving college isn't a thing at Oxford as your application is to your college not the university.

There is nothing to stop her socialising as much as she wants out of college- college is where she sleeps and has tutes but beyond that Oxford is her oyster. Has she told any of her existing friends in other colleges how she is feeling? They might be able to get her more involved in their friendship groups. Clubs of course are also a good way to meet people in other colleges and there are literally clubs for everything so she doesn't need to have to have any particular skills. How about getting involved in a play? No need for great acting skills- they will need small parts and backstage people and it's a great way of getting to know people + you really develop a strong bond together.

Also agree with the poster above that there will be people in college she can talk to about it who might be able to help her. Did she have college parents when she started- they could also be useful.

TBH it can't be true that literally everyone else in her college is unfriendly- there are hundreds of undergrads at every college. It's a question of finding some like-minded people.

Was there a freshers society fair of some kind? Most unis have a very wide range of clubs and absolutely something for everyone. I think this is where social media is very demoralizing as no one can compete with the perception of joy elsewhere.
But also in my experience you get out what you put in and if she has even tiny bit of energy - to join one gentle club and just give those people a chance. Also sometimes the young see other people as unfriendly while projecting exactly that.

If she could go and talk to the support contacts the college will have given her and say she feels out of place or that she can’t see the social networks coming - I’m sure they will help. They will have seen it before. Also the thing to emphasise is if she finds a way to overcome this challenge - then it will be a huge achievement for her whole life. She has everything to gain.

obviously she may be too vulnerable to find that energy but if she can - she could end up having a great time.

I think students have to join as much as they can and ask for help before they throw in the towel. If they can.

all the best, I empathize hugely.

The pressure to have a legendary time is very strong - and that might well come in the future but she may be hidebound now by her own unrealistic expectations and the awful fear of having failed in some way where others are succeeding.

these unis are high pressure places but she only needs a few friends to start. And Oxford is full of people who might be called nerds until you get to know them!

There’s no way to change college. You can leave and reapply, but that would be a very ballsy move, and you would need to be really quite gifted to be granted a second bite of the cherry at another college. Also don’t disregard the expense of an extra year.

She needs to take up an activity which requires regular weekly attendance, and commit. Drama, sports, or religious, political or cultural societies are better than journalism, which is quite solitary.

My other advice is to start dating without shame - get on the apps, and ask her school friends in other colleges to set up blind dates.

Oxbridge is nerdy - that’s kind of the point! If she loves her subject it should not be too difficult to find likeminded people in the faculty if not her college. You can also confide in your tutor and ask them to mix up their tutorial groups term to term.

Sending a handhold to you both - it can take time to settle as you say, and in the meantime you can end up feeling inadequate for not having a ‘world class’ experience. FWIW I know a few people who didn’t find their tribe within their college, but they did eventually find their feet.

Has she tried getting involved in something like drama (backstage if not onstage), which can create a really close knit community? What are her living arrangements for next year: are there opportunities for a houseshare? Hope things fall into place for her 💐

yes I think getting involved with drama is a good idea as this is something she did a bit of and enjoyed at school as well. Next year she is living in a college-owned house with some others, a few girls she gets on with now more or less, and some others...I have also told her a lot of people end up finding their closest friends in second year, or beyond...I think she just struggles watching others and their groups at the moment because everything feels so permanent and established and she says everyone else is so close which she really craves as a sociable, outgoing person who never had this kind of struggle at school.

I don't think this is Oxford specific as much as "haven't really found my friends group" which is common to lots of students in their first year. It sounds as though she's struggled to adapt moving away from the environment where she had a strong group of friends - again very common.

There is no reason why she can't have friends in other colleges, and this is very common, particularly amongst those doing the same course, as there tends only to be a few in each college.

Lots of people have social lives that revolve around university clubs, although if she feels daunted then starting with a college club might be easier. What is she interested in? She could always start her own interest group?

Did she join any societies? There are so many! Lots of people at my college had friends in other colleges through shared activities; sport, music, debating at the Union, drama, photography …

I’m not sure my ex husband had more than one friend at Christ Church. His closest friends were Pembroke, Magdalen and New College from memory. They met through the Oxford Union.

I do think this is a risk at some of the smaller colleges and I really sympathise. There is so much pressure for University to be the time of your life. There is still time for her to find her people but her closest friends may end up being those she made at school or will make at work or ante-natal classes. My daughter didn’t find her tribe in her first year in hall at a Russell Group university. A decade later she has an incredible and quite large group of friends.

Our very tight first year friendship group imploded after our shared house experience, and that wasn’t at all uncommon. We were probably trauma bonded!

My best friends now - thirty years later - are people I met through activities in my last two years (mine was a 4 year degree). Also my school friends who followed the same trajectory.

I remember being desperately lonely at Cambridge decades ago. And now I live in Oxford and cannot imagine how anyone could find the time to be lonely when there’s So Much To Do - as a student or not. But I do empathise - one can become so stymied by anxiety that it’s hard to take even a tiny step to get out of it.

As others have said, really your college is only where you sleep and keep your clothes and books. Everything else is outside, and you have to force yourself to go out and find whatever appeals to you. University wide things or town things.

For a start, rather than sitting in her room she could try sitting in the Schwarzman atrium with her laptop. There’s zero pressure there, you don’t have to be with a gang of friends.

Honestly this whole ‘finding your tribe thing’ is fine in the abstract - but it shouldn’t be a goal that makes a person feel like a failure. The thing to do is try your best to get involved with as much as possible, maybe just as a spectator, maybe as a participant. Bored early evening? Go to choral evensong at Christ Church. Or walk through the meadow to the river. There’s a film club at Magdalen open to everyone - again you don’t have to prove you have ninety friends to be let in. There are about a hundred million yoga classes across the city - she could join one, even if she’s ’not sporty’. It’s a harsh fact, and I wish I’d realised this myself as an undergraduate, but the less you do, the less you’ll have to talk about, and you get out of practice with chatting easily with your peers.

The college doesn’t matter. She needs to concentrate on enjoying the whole of Oxford.

@redskyAtNigh offers excellent advice: starting your own society is a power move to make friends at warp speed. You can even get some funding from the university and build your CV at the same time. If she’s doing history there’s scope to do all kinds of crazy. How about organising a faculty trip to a historic site?

Can your DD ski? The Varsity ski trip can be a very bonding experience for a certain type of kid and I know a few people who have met their spouse this way.

If she's got close friends at other Colleges, then I'd encourage her to spend time with them until other things fall into place. My daughter struggled to make friends in her College during her first year and so largely joined a school friend's friendship group in a different College during that year. Towards the end of the first year/start of second year she found a group within her own College, but having that other group was a life saver at first.

I went to Oxford and had some similar issues in my first year, I think partly because I had a family wedding in Freshers week which made my start a bit non ideal.

Changing college just Isn't a thing so she should stop even thinking about that

I never did get the same college core circle that most people had but I did get a good circle of friends in the end. What I would recommend is -

Pick off a few individual people in college - e.g. if she likes her tutorial partner, that's a good place to start because there is a certain intimacy about the tutorial experience. My first tutorial partner is still a friend now - we were never part of the same college social circle but we got on well.

Oxford is full of socially awkward people which in some ways is helpful - my best friend and I met when she came up to me and said "you look as awkward as I feel - want to be awkward together?" There are fewer "cool" people and more people who find social interactions hard and so it's more acceptable to be open and honest about that

There are a lot of formal dinners and events with more structured socialising - do those. You sort of have to talk to the people either side of you at those events

Sign up for a lot more activities - there's a lot more than music and sport. The more obscure the more likely these are to be other students who make it their main thing

Think about student politics or the Oxford Union.

Work the connections from school

What I ended up with was - a social circle from an obscure society which I persuaded a school friend also at Oxford to join with me, I added a lot of friends through my school friend and made a scattering of individual friends in college

I would also recommend inviting people round - e.g. say to her school friends that she is struggling to make friends in college, invite them over for drinks before formal hall in her college or guest night dinner, ask them each to bring someone new

And yes as a PP said, dating is a good idea

Yes she often works outside of college in the Schwarzmann and the like - and she does have friends in other colleges but again I think her main thing (which I agree shouldn't be a big deal but try telling that to an 18 year old who is quick to rebut with 'but everyone else...') is that she hasn't got a solid set of friends to fall back on for meals/typical night out etc and thus feels rather afloat and feels she has to worry about things that are sort of guaranteed for others by virtue of them having found 'normal' people living right with them - again I know - bad mindset...She has joined some societies but is not really sporty enough to do a uni-wide sport which seems to be the big thing for friend-making outside of college

What helped my DS when he was at uni was reminding him of what a great friend he was - kind, loyal and fun.
And encouraging him to go a little out of his comfort zone - ask ppl for a coffee/lunch or just chat.
Some people won’t reciprocate and that’s their loss. But others will.
Volunteering can be a good way to meet like minded people and also the clubs. But you need to keep going - 4-5 times at least.
It’s really hard. Especially when they were happy and had a friendship group at school.
In the end he got pulled into a nice friendship group with someone he got chatting to:
I always reassured him that he could leave and start somewhere else if he was really unhappy.
It’s a good sign she has found a year 2 housing group. Is she friendly with them?

Oh and the other thing I would say is that it felt to me at this point in my first year like everyone else had a college set of friends for ever like that Emma Thompson Kenneth Branagh film Peter's Friends, but actually in hindsight that really started changing in second year. It was a bit like people initially really craved a little family circle and then got a bit, "wait a min, there's a lot more to do here than have dinner night after night with the same crew"

She also often says she would have thrived at another college just because for most it happened that all the 'similar' people in colleges who would go out/socialise etc banded together pretty quickly within the first few weeks and have been close since. At hers, which isn't really a small college just a bit of an unlucky cohort it seems, there are a lot of very closed off, quiet people who just study and then others who sort of always do their own thing/aren't ever around...no one seems to have banded together quite in the same way and most don't/hardly ever go out or are rather unfriendly/not her cup of tea. To be honest I do believe she has tried as she is usually such a sparky, fun girl and went in so excited

She has joined some societies but is not really sporty enough to do a uni-wide sport which seems to be the big thing for friend-making outside of college

This bit really isn't true and she should get that out of her head. There are lots of very tight social societies not sport related

The meal times can be very hard. If every meal is eaten alone in a cafeteria (halls is just a posh cafeteria) that can feel miserable.

looking out for who else is alone can be a good strategy. Who else in the college is not in a group? And chat to them.

a bold option would be to stick up a poster in the JCR saying “Tuesday supper club - meet here 6pm to eat together” and see if people will show up.

finally, it takes time to make friends. 10-30 hours with the same person. So stick with it.

@parietal I agree re meals, I found those very hard. I used to get mine to takeaway back to my room to avoid having to look around for someone to sit with

Do you think there’s a chance she’s just not mature enough to be self-reliant yet? It sounds as if she can’t quite find herself as an individual human being at the moment.

If she’s 18 I’m guessing she didn’t have a gap year at all? Maybe she needs that experience, the break from school-type socialising, to be able to make the most of university.

For very different reasons I took a year out of university - perhaps that might be an option to consider if she’s really unhappy?

I think @MissPrismsMistake has it right. I was thinking that having friends and 'hanging out' has become a hobby these day. Time to change. Time to put away schoolish things. Do adult things. Join the Army, the volunteer reserves. There is a Unit at Abingdon. Google it. Something active, archery, sail, ride a horse, row. Is it the first time? Good they will teach you the proper ways. No one you know does it - So what!. Sing, there are many choirs of all kinds some Uni some town, many of the town ones are run by exUni people.
Happiness is a by product from personal achievement.

It's not that she eats meals alone - she usually has 1 or 2 people to go with - but the way she describes it sounds a lot to me like that kind of deep loneliness you feel even when surrounded by people because fundamentally she just doesn't click with them really, despite truly having tried. As for the taking a year out, Oxford does offer rustication from what I understand but this would just be a year's suspension only for her to rejoin a new cohort this time next year, which I feel could end up being even more rocky...