No friends/ dropping-out

Hi, I am a 19 year-old who is currently a first-year university student. Going to university was never part of my life plans until a relative heavily encouraged (basically forced) me to go, despite my initial reluctance. I feel I have made the biggest mistake of my life.

Although I have made plenty of acquiantances, I have found it somewhat difficult to make any meaningful friends. I live in halls, and am on pleasant terms with my neighbours. Don't get me wrong, they are nice people, but I only really feel comfortable and intimate with one or two of them on a one-to-one basis; the rest are polite but seem slightly stand-offish. None of them knock for me or otherwise appear interested in talking to me except for when they are asking me to borrow my bus-pass. Correspondingly, I feel slightly awkward knocking on their doors when I feel like socialising. Could missing the first two days of Freshers'-Week have contributed to my social alienation in this sense, I wonder?

No one really explained to me how university life works; how you are supposed to organise accommodation for next year with people you have met. Although there have been some good times, for the most part I have found university to be an isolating and overwhelming experience which has validated my initial consternation about going. I feel that spending so much time alone inside my room is driving me slightly insane.

Even the societies I have joined appear to be somewhat clique-y and dominated largely by second and third-years who all know each other well.

My mum wants me to continue my course and return to halls for second-year but I am really not enjoying it. I feel that staying on in second-year would only enhance my feelings of isolation and estrangement, with new first-year strangers moving in next to me. However, my mum has said to me that is my decision as to whether I want to drop out.

The question I ask is: is it possible to make friends in the second-year, or are you essentially ****ed if you haven't made friends in the first year?