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Social Anxiety at Uni?

Hi, so I was basically wondering if anyone has any experience of social anxiety at university?
I have looked through unis and pretty much narrowed it down to about 4 based on course content, student life and location. But one thing I can't really know is the type of people at the university. With having anxiety I'm not sure if I could cope with lots of very extrovert people on a day to day basis. I am aware that it's completely impossible to generalize across a whole university, so just your personal experience would be so so useful :smile:

The 4 I've chosen to consider are Cambridge, Durham, York and Manchester. I haven't ruled any others out but those ones seem to have the courses I want and they're all Russell Group. So basically, from your experience, what are the people like at these universities/what's the atmosphere like/what is the student support sytem like?
Thanks so much! :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 1

Riku

Moat of my problems can be attributed at baseline down to social anxiety and co dependency issues.

Just...don't do a Riku, OK?

'Doing a Riku': Indulging in one's anxieties online and avoiding feared social or practical situations for around 60-70% of one's uni life and 80-90% of one's free time, at the cost of looking back.at one's University experience and realising one has a solid degree and academic grounding but has made very little progress on their social and general anxiety i.e. confidence as an individual, as evidenced by one's post history online and various life **** ups/lack of fully substantial life and sense of self offline.

I chose TSR to indulge in but it could be anything which is not facing your fears. Promise me you will fight the urge to run more than I did.

Good luck.

Reply 2

+ polarity -

Original post by Riku

Good luck.

I await your autobiography. Presumably a compilation of your posts here.

Reply 3

Clip

Original post by Riku

Are you saying that the root of your problems is that you indulged yourself?

Reply 4

Riku

Original post by Clip

Are you saying that the root of your problems is that you indulged yourself?

No, I'm saying the primary form of avoidance was Riku. It has had its benefits though.

Reply 5

Clip

Original post by Riku

No, I'm saying the primary form of avoidance was Riku. It has had its benefits though.

But you do actively now encourage other people who identify with the same labels as you did - to not follow suit?

Reply 6

michaelhaych

Your selected universities have around 20,000 students each, except for Manchester which has almost 40,000; they will all have roughly the same mix of people and it would be impossible to find an institute of higher learning that does not contain extroverts, an anonymous poster on a student forum's anecdotal evidence should not influence your decision in the slightest. At the same time no-one is forcing you to spend time with people you don't like, establish a friendship group with like-minded people and avoid those who make you uneasy.

Reply 7

Riku

Original post by Clip

But you do actively now encourage other people who identify with the same labels as you did - to not follow suit?

I think it is inevitable that a socially anxious person will frequent the Internet a bit and find safety in online fora, however there is nothing healthy about Riku anymore, nor has there been since about February. (You might argue earlier).

You should see half of my current confidence issues are tied to the gender wars and some are genuine mental health problems requiring professional help too so I am a less common case.

Reply 8

moutonfou

Original post by MozForever

It's interesting that three of your choices are collegiate universities when these are relatively rare now! Perhaps this indicates something about what kind of atmosphere you might like. Collegiates can be both a good thing (smaller cosier atmosphere, more traditional so maybe slightly more traditional in terms of style of socialising) and a bad thing (could be claustrophobic, lack of new people to meet if you don't click with the ones you do meet). Some questions you might want to ask at open day might be:

- How do you assign people to halls? Do you take into account people's preferences for a quieter or louder style of socialising, preferred waking hours etc? (I once heard that Durham did do this but I didn't go there so can't verify that!)
- What sort of societies are there? Some unis (York I might have heard?) actually have a society for quieter people to meet and mix.
- What is the college system like (in the case of Durham, York and Cambridge). In some collegiate systems the colleges are just glorified halls and you will have lectures with students from across the university. In others however each college is like its own university and you will live, eat, learn, etc together. It will depend on your nature as to which of these appeals to you more - do you prefer knowing everybody around you or do you like some anonymity?
- What sort of support is there if I struggle at first?
- What options are there for remaining in halls past first year? In some unis you may have to move into a communal house after first year. If you like your own space you might want to find out which of your preferred options allow you to stay in halls all through, or have private halls options.

Some questions you might want to ask yourself are:

- Distance from your home, transport links and ability to get home if you want to - Cambridge actually stipulates you have to spend a certain number of nights a term there for example! If home is one of your comforts you will really appreciate being close enough. Even if the hope is that you go to university and make good friends and have a great time, sometimes you still need your old friends and family now and then and you need to consider how it might feel not to be able to afford to see them or even be allowed to see them when you need them.

Don't just limit yourself to the Russell Group also. All it indicates is that they have a shared interest in research - many universities from other groups such as the 1994 Group have been equal or higher to Russell Group unis in the league tables for some time now, for example Lancaster (another collegiate, quite similar to York) is 10th in the Guardian table with York 16th and Manchester 33rd but often gets overlooked due to the idea that Russell Group universities are 'the best' rather than simply being generally the oldest universities and so the first to establish a dedicated group. There's a few unis now which have a really good combination of strong league table position and student experience and still aren't as well known as they should be, so do have a look at the Top 20 of a few league tables and take a look at a few that you aren't as familiar with :smile:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 9

cole-slaw

Original post by MozForever

Posted from TSR Mobile

Surely if you're an introvert, you would actively seek out extroverts to do all the social legwork and organise all the social events and make all the effort in forming friendships?

A university of introverts sounds like hell. 20,000 people all sitting in their rooms composing bitter TSR posts about how miserable they are and how its everyone else's fault but their own.

Reply 10

shawn_o1

^ wow, more sweeping generalisations from introvert-hater. Did they kill your dog or anything?

Reply 11

username1114381

I suffer this, yet people tell me I come across as cool and confident. I feel the exact opposite.

Thing is I'm outgoing, I love going to pubs and clubs but at the same time I'm also very introverted and private. Privacy is almost oxygen to me. It's hard finding people who both really introverted and really outgoing. I'm stuffed basically.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 12

cole-slaw

Original post by shawn_o1

^ wow, more sweeping generalisations from introvert-hater. Did they kill your dog or anything?

Did a theoretical archetype kill my dog?

Reply 13

C-Dawg

Why don't you try take advantage of your time at uni to whittle down your social anxiety? Great time to get on it before you enter the world of work and there are plenty of social opportunities to work on this :smile: