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How have you made friends at university?

Poll

What ways have you made friends at university?

Hello. As a bit of personal research, I'm interested in finding out how exactly students make their friends at uni. So if you currently are at uni or have already left, please vote in my poll, and leave a comment to expand if you like, particularly on which methods you found successful and why.

Also, for those of you that have already finished uni; did you feel you made actual friends for life, or did you lose touch after uni finished?

I really appreciate any good feedback and comments to my thread, thanks :smile:

And bit of background info about me and why I started this thread, if you want to read and give me any specific advice:

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(edited 8 years ago)

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Original post by CherryCherryBoomBoom
Hello. As a bit of personal research, I'm interested in finding out how exactly students make their friends at uni. So if you currently are at uni or have already left, please vote in my poll, and leave a comment to expand if you like, particularly on which methods you found successful and why.

Also, for those of you that have already finished uni; did you feel you made actual friends for life, or did you lose touch after uni finished?

I really appreciate any good feedback and comments to my thread, thanks :smile:

And bit of background info about me and why I started this thread, if you want to read and give me any specific advice:

I'm a mature student (age 24) currently doing an HND full time at college, and trying to decide what to do next when I finish it in June. I admit I'm not a big fan of studying, and I only really do it for the career prospects, but I'd quite like to top up my HND to a degree, to be able to apply for jobs that ask for a degree, and to be able to work abroad in countries that require a degree for their work visas.

My main options are to study at uni full time for 2 years (I'm currently holding a firm conditional for my local Scottish uni) or to go into full time work and to study part-time/long distance. The only real benefits I can see to doing uni full time are to get the degree done more quickly (which I'm not really in a big rush to do tbh, as I'm already behind and can get decent jobs with just my HND and some work experience) and for the social aspects.

However, I've always been quite hit-and-miss with making and keeping good friends. I've not really found any like-minded people to bond with in college or even in my private student halls that I stay in now. It's not quite as party-central as I'd imagined. However, I made friends quite easily when I went backpacking in Australia a few years ago, and would love to be able to do similar travelling again whenever I get the money again. I don't know if I should sacrifice the chance of a full time salary to try and make friends at full time uni, only to possibly fail at that and get disappointed and end up lonely and depressed :frown:. I know my college is missing the societies that uni has though, but even then I suppose they're not guaranteed. I'm also planning to live with my boyfriend because I'm fed up of overpriced halls, and we're at that point in our relationship anyway.

Any advice?


I d say apart from my boyfriend who I met at uni, I ve only kept in touch with one person. I moved in with my boyfriend towards the end of first year as for many others reasons and halls weren't for me.
Original post by claireestelle
I d say apart from my boyfriend who I met at uni, I ve only kept in touch with one person. I moved in with my boyfriend towards the end of first year as for many others reasons and halls weren't for me.


Thanks for your reply :smile:. I noticed that you're doing the OU, something that I've been considering. Did you drop out of your brick uni to do that instead, or are you just doing a postgraduate course with them right now?
:bump:
Original post by CherryCherryBoomBoom
Thanks for your reply :smile:. I noticed that you're doing the OU, something that I've been considering. Did you drop out of your brick uni to do that instead, or are you just doing a postgraduate course with them right now?


Oh I m really sorry I didn't get a notification for that quote :frown: I dropped out a nursing degree recently but I have a foundation degree which I finished last year so decided to finish that with the ou in September (so I can study modules I ll actually like and funding is a problem to finish it at a brick uni). If that makes sense?
Original post by claireestelle
Oh I m really sorry I didn't get a notification for that quote :frown: I dropped out a nursing degree recently but I have a foundation degree which I finished last year so decided to finish that with the ou in September (so I can study modules I ll actually like and funding is a problem to finish it at a brick uni). If that makes sense?


That's fine. Just wondering, thanks :yy:
Well, so far 5 out of 13 people have voted that they haven't made any friends :frown:. I know it's not the biggest sample, but it helps confirm my suspicion that maybe the uni social life is quite overrated after all, and that it's not the best reason to go unless you have nothing better to do.
I met the majority of my friends through my course as well as being a dedicated and active member of my uni's hip hop dance society. I got on well with my flatmates in first year, but we drifted apart due to years abroad and years in industry-I didn't see the majority of them for two whole years as a result, so obviously we haven't had the chance to say as close, but they were part of the reason my first year was so amazing
Thanks to everyone who has voted and commented so far. At least the societies, something I've not had direct access to so far, seem to be a good way for making friends :smile:. That said, I know you can join some uni societies without being a student there anyway.
Reply 9
Avatar for M14B
M14B
18
All my friends (around 6) are from the course (classes)
It was mainly through Jiu Jitsu that I made the main part of my friendship group :yep: Doing a PhD, there are a small number of us anyway so I found that training helped socially :smile:
I ticked three of the options:

UNIVERSITY HALLS - I was quite fortunate with this in a way because I was one of the few first years to be in an annex outside of the college walls. This naturally made the first years I was living with a bit more isolated from everyone else (even though we were only across the road), so 11 of the 13 of us in that building had great camaraderie within a few days. Our building had its own common room and we were amongst the few first years to have kitchen access, so that helped to get to see people.

A tip I read before starting uni was to have one's room door wedged open (unless dressing or not in the room, obviously!). That way people can see you're in and are more inclined to come introduce themselves, or borrow things. This worked quite well for me.

LECTURES AND TUTORIALS - Obviously Oxford is a bit of a rarer case due to its tutorial system, which facilitates fairly close interactions with other people in your college doing your subject. In my college in my particular year group, there were only two other music students. So once I located them, we pretty much started doing everything together and shared reading/notes, walked to lectures together, etc. We were quite different people (one comp-educated, one grammar, one private school, and the other two were guys, so I was the only girl) but having all our tutorials together fostered a good working environment and made us very close. That said, the tutorial/collegiate system definitely has the potential to go the other way too! :headfire:

As for lectures, sometimes we would have an hour's gap between two different lectures and it felt like there was little point walking back to our college and then coming back again. So myself and my tutorial partners started going for coffee in a fancy coffee shop opposite our faculty (there is no cafe in our faculty), and as people were coming out of the lecture hall, we'd ask people standing near us if they wanted to join. Soon we had a regular group, plus a few ever-changing faces coming a few times a week! It was a good way to get to know people.

SOCIETIES - I did lots of music throughout my undergrad degree and some amateur drama in my third year, and this helped me to meet people outside of my college and to form friendships with postgrads, etc. I also regularly attended the college chapel and would go for drinks/dinner with the choir sometimes (both my tutorial partners were in the choir), so I got to know people from other subjects/year groups/levels of study that way.


Post-undergrad degree, there are definitely people who I consider friends for life. Interesting I have also become very good friends with people who I knew but wasn't close to during uni, but when they moved to London for work/further study, they wanted to see/meet a friendly known face, so they messaged me on Facebook. So I've actually got some really good friends from uni, who I wasn't really friends with at uni :eek:
Reply 12
Avatar for Airmed
Airmed
21
My only friend at uni is my boyfriend tbh. I skipped first year, and while I live in halls, I rarely drink. Many of the societies in my uni use alcohol as a way to socialise unfortunately.
Original post by CherryCherryBoomBoom
Well, so far 5 out of 13 people have voted that they haven't made any friends :frown:. I know it's not the biggest sample, but it helps confirm my suspicion that maybe the uni social life is quite overrated after all, and that it's not the best reason to go unless you have nothing better to do.


Be careful with drawing this as your conclusion - TSR isn't representative and tends to be skewed towards this answer, because people are more likely to come into the Uni Life forum if they are having a difficult time at university and need advice and support.

:beard:
@CherryCherryBoomBoom Also, if you make a version of this poll with 6 choices or less I can put it on the front page if you like? :h:
Original post by Puddles the Monkey
Be careful with drawing this as your conclusion - TSR isn't representative and tends to be skewed towards this answer, because people are more likely to come into the Uni Life forum if they are having a difficult time at university and need advice and support.

:beard:


Original post by CherryCherryBoomBoom
Thanks to everyone who has voted and commented so far. At least the societies, something I've not had direct access to so far, seem to be a good way for making friends :smile:. That said, I know you can join some uni societies without being a student there anyway.


...Not to mention most extroverted people probably won't spend much time online on forums like TSR and are probably busy doing stuff with people :tongue:
Reply 16
Avatar for DenasM
DenasM
Mostly through having to work in groups, and a few people turned out to be decent and have become real life friends.
Original post by InadequateJusticex
...Not to mention most extroverted people probably won't spend much time online on forums like TSR and are probably busy doing stuff with people :tongue:


And this :beard:

I think if you posted this poll on www.ladbibleforums.lad then you'd get a very different set of results :teehee:
Original post by Puddles the Monkey
@CherryCherryBoomBoom Also, if you make a version of this poll with 6 choices or less I can put it on the front page if you like? :h:


Only 6 choices or less? Ah, could do. How do I go about that? Do I just make a new thread?

Original post by InadequateJusticex
...Not to mention most extroverted people probably won't spend much time online on forums like TSR and are probably busy doing stuff with people :tongue:


Yeah, good point I suppose. Oh well, I can only really use this thread as a rough guide anyway.

Original post by Puddles the Monkey
And this :beard:

I think if you posted this poll on www.ladbibleforums.lad then you'd get a very different set of results :teehee:


What sort of results? Mostly nights out and sports?
I'll be perfectly honest and say I haven't made any friends on my course. I was too shy to ask to sit next to people during lectures and I tended to keep to myself. I did join a society though and I see people there 2-3 times a week and we've had a few good evenings just chatting which has been nice. I don't know at what stage to call people 'friends' but I'd say this is the closest I've gotten so far.

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