Making friends at Uni

[whatisthatnoise]

Daughter is off to Uni in September and has always struggled with making friends.
In fact, she doesn't really have any. She has what she says are 'just people she knows'
She's been at home since finishing her A levels, as she has nobody to go out with. Her only real friend moved away when they finished school and the college covid experience made it difficult to meet new people. She got friendly with one girl who kept ditching my daughter when someone better came along. This process went on for months until my daughter decided she'd had enough.
I've told her that things will be different when she goes to Uni as most people will be in the same situation as her and won't know anyone but she suffers from anxiety and is already stressing about not being able to make friends when she gets there.
Does anyone have any tips/advice please?

Staying in a halls of residence rather than a flat should help, hopefully there will be lots of people on her floor to make friends with. She needs to pick somewhere with a reputation for being friendly, not snooty etc. Also joining a club or society in the first few days.

Does she know how to make friends? Does she need some help from you on her social skills? Offering to share food and drink and other treats was a good way to meet friends at university I found. Give her a tin of celebrations and a few bottles of booze to share to start her off?

My advice would be to spend some time this summer working or volunteering so that she practises just being around people, with no pressure to make friends with them. The risk otherwise is that the effort of being the kind of person people make friends with will actually drive her back into her room alone. Obviously being yourself is the answer but she needs to practise doing that in public if you see what I mean.

Also it means that she can get a job when she goes and have an escape from the constant need to socialise at uni. It can be wearing.

Try out lots of different things helps find your people

Don't worry that it takes time

On campus there is a much greater diversity of people than in a school where class /outlook tends to be the norm for that area

I agree with pp that it will be different, lots more people there whose interested will be similar to your daughter.

my daughter was very similar to yours two years ago and the transformation is unbelievable, so please don’t worry.

Here’s the advise I gave her…i advised my dd to join societies which interested her and to remember that it take can take quite a few meetings and activities to get to know people and enjoy it.

In my experience joining societies is looked down upon by the cooler kids who prefer hitting the pub and clubs, but who cares what they think as everyone is different.

at the moment she can look at and follow the societies at the uni she might be interested in (do it with her if she’s receptive to this but on her own if not) so she gets a feel for it and if they do stuff that she likes, by already establishing a connection the society members should be looking out for her if they’ve already interacted online.

definitely attend the welcome week events, such as the society fayre, and if she has to book events (yoga and wine for example) she’ll be more likely to go.

Be brave and don’t be afraid to go to events on her own, also ask people if they’d like to go to a social meet ups or special interest lectures on or even to go to the supermarket: even if this is on the new student subject group chat…and if they say no or she doesn’t get a reply that’s ok, they are the ones missing out on her great company, but chances are someone will (my dd actually did this and met some lovely folk this way).

my dd has done things I’d never imagined her doing and built her cv along the way.

Thank you everyone for the advice 🤍
Her dad/my ex has alcohol related issues (I'm trying to be polite!) so she's worried that she won't fit in as she doesn't drink alcohol.
I keep telling her that she'll make new friends as everyone is older, people will have left behind their school friendship groups and they'll all be starting again when it comes to meeting new people but as the days go by, she's getting more stressed about it all and in turn, so am I.
The days when they were little and we could just hold their hands and help them with things were so much easier than this!

Lots of young people don't drink now. Obviously loads do as well but it's much more common not to than it was when we were that age. When I was that age anyway.

My DS doesn’t drink and it hasn’t held him back from socialising at Uni. There seems to be plenty of students there who don’t drink alcohol and societies etc where it isn’t part of the culture. In fact, DH didn’t drink at Uni either (and rarely at all years later) and that was a talking point back then!

The drinking culture at university has changed a lot.
I'd suggest your DD finds some clubs or activities she wants to do. Doing a shared interest alongside people is an easier way to get to know them. She'll also be alongside people on her course and accomodation. The opportunity is there. Role play making small talk and maybe look up some techniques to build rapport. Things like learning someone's name and using it, active listening and mirrored body language. You get friends by being a friend.

I didn't drink at uni much either! (Not at all for the first year!).

On your first day be friendly, everyone is in the same situation. Don't be scared to introduce yourself - barely anyone knows anyone, a friendly face saying "hello" will be memorable to people and you'll make friends. People will be so happy to be talked to, especially if you're being friendly

Does she have any hobbies or interests? There's normally a freshers fair she can wander around with her flat mates / course mates and join some societies, I was in several and made good friends that way too.

Agree with others that she needs to try and join everything going, I looked through the 'Welcome Week' info when my DS went to Uni 3 years ago and there are clubs for everything including just coffee and char meet ups for 'quieter' students. My DS is fortunate in that he is sporty and joined the gym and a couple of team sports and quickly made friends. He is also involved in CU which I appreciate isn't for everyone but he made lots of new friends, had weekends away etc.
Many Unis have volunteering opportunities in the local community which might help give her something to focus on as a way to meet people.

My daughter started uni last year. She had good friends at school and made a few new friends at college before covid restricted that. However, she still struggled for the first term at uni and one thing I regret is that I feel I might have built her expectations to be too high. Whilst she struggled with the covid lockdown and told her everything would be better when she got to uni. Of course she'd make friends easily, everyone else is in the same boat and it's not like school, everyone is looking to be friendly and make new friends.

She wasn't prepared for some of the toxic people she encountered in her 1st year flat. It mugt have been that covid lockdowns meant some people just hadn't grown up during 6th form, but I think there was a big gap between her expectation and the reality.

She did eventually find her feet and made good friends in her flat and on her course and by Christmas settled in. So, it might be better to take a pragmatic approach and work out solutions to it not going smoothly. Brainstorm ideas of things she could do to find her people if her uni flat doesn't provide good friendships. What is she studying?

my dd is off this autumn too

When my dd applied for accomodation, she had the choice to go for quiet buildings which presumably would more likely to have people who don't drink.

She's actually on her gap year right now and has been working in hospitality which has been great practice for chatting to strangers. Before her job, the thought of phoning a stranger would have worried her but last week she called her car insurance company about a renewal very confidently.

Any news on Freshers Events? My dd is on Facebook groups/WhatsApp groups for people starting this autumn.

@fortyfifty I did the opposite with my daughter and tried to gently hint that Fresher's week can be hard work and slightly brutal. My daughter made some good friends in her accommodation but also was exposed to some students who were really heavy drinkers and drug takers and did feel out of her depth at times.

vjg13
Very wise. I think in a normal year I'd have done that. During those brutal lockdowns in years 12 and 13, I needed to dangle something optimistic in front of her and played everything up instead of being neutral. I do feel bad for her that I might not have helped!

@fortyfifty I totally understand it was a fine line to tread. I think part of the issue is that Fresher's events get hugely over hyped generally leaving some young people feeling absolutely lost if they haven't made amazing friends by the end of it and had the best time ever!

There's nothing wrong with not drinking, but people are going to ask why. I recommend she practices an answer she's comfortable with that sounds breezy rather than awkward and weird. I totally understand why the question may throw her given her dad - sounding awkward when answering may make people not want to talk to her, but if she can say something confidently and breezily, people will accept it and the conversation will move on.

I also think the advice of using the summer holiday to volunteer and phoning companies to sort out stuff is a really great way to practise interacting with people in a very low risk environment. Like everything, communication is an art. Help find her opportunities where it's OK to fail - even if that involves driving her to a parkrun event nowhere near home, so if she feels it's a disaster, she never sees any of those people again.

Freshers' Week is a great opportunity to meet people - she should sign up for everything, no matter how random - but few people I know are still close to people they meet during that week. The friends of mine I stay in touch with from uni are actually people I only started chatting to in my final year. So, if Freshers' Week doesn't go well, it's definitely not the end of the world - she just needs to keep being brave and talking to people.

@peekatyou random question but how did your daughter find the whatsapp groups etc?

Daughter had a summer job in a little cafe on a holiday park and after a week of being there, she tested positive for covid. They basically told her she couldn't work for ten days and that they'd find someone else for the rest of the season. Thought it was a bit harsh really as she probably picked it up there in the first place

Loads of students don't drink, and most student unions organise a range of Freshers activities, not just events based around alcohol and clubbing.

There are several possible spheres of opportunity for making friends, so even if one doesn't work out then not all of her eggs will be in one basket:

• halls of residence / flatmates
• other students on same course
• clubs and societies
• part-time job / volunteering

Advice to 'get out there and join everything ' is well-meaning, but for introverts or those with anxiety, it's important to factor in some quiet time for decompressing, especially during Fresher's week, which can be socially intense and is not typical of the rest of the year. Signing up for 2 or 3 clubs or societies is plenty; even one will help. Most will welcome new joiners later in the year too.

DS was invited to the WhatsApp group chats in the summer before first year, after finding other students from the same course on Discord and Instagram.

Join societies of whatever she likes to do plus some that she might like to do.
My dd2 joined some and has course friends, societies friends and also goes out socially sometimes with work.
She didn't have a best friend and she actually didn't have anyone to houseshare with in 2nd year but they had a "dating site" to meet others in the same position and it worked out OK. She got really friendly with one of them and was living in the general vicinity of lots of her other friends so always had someone to do stuff with.

My son started last year.
The majority of students in his halls were all girls.
They were a rowdy bunch,getting pissed every night.
I would encourage your daughter to join the clubs she has an interest in to try and make friends.

Freshers’ Week is terribly overhyped, and can leave many new students feeling down that they aren’t having a whale of a time and have failed. Everything is new and most end up nursing the cold from hell (or covid!) after mixing with all those new germs.

ds didn’t make any friends until his second term (he was/is disastrously awkward). Dd made lots of friends at first, and then realised that she had nothing in common with them so started all over again.

agree that it is imperative to join things - anything! - no matter how random. Also dd said it’s a good idea to join smaller societies where you actually can talk to people.

get a doorstop
join some clubs

As a natural introvert who hates socialising, getting out there and joining everything helped me.

I didn't stick with everything, but it gave me more opportunities to find my people. If I'd only had two or three possible social groups to choose from, I'd have felt more pressured.

But, horses for courses. There's no one right approach!

Quite often new students get together on fb or whatever as soon as they know their halls. This is really handy for chatting before they arrive. Some of the smaller courses also have groups for chat - my son was on a course with only 30 or so freshers. They all arranged to meet and walk down to uni together on the first day. My son is very socially awkward and I was really worried, in fact he made some really good friends