Ask Dr. Ross
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Ask Dr. Ross
10 Things You Should Do To Make Friends in College
There’s plenty of challenges to freshman year you might be prepared for – tackling the change in lifestyle or new levels of academic achievement, for instance.
But what about loneliness?
This week, Dr. Ross and student producer Ashley Worley combine both a professor and a student’s experiences to create a list of ten things you can do to start making friends in college. Each of their five tips breaks down the larger task – connecting with a community – into actionable steps that may surprise you with their simplicity. The general good news: everyone in college is in the same boat, and in some ways, making friends could never be easier.
Have more questions about getting connected in freshman year? Email us at ADRquestions@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Stay tuned to the Ask Dr Ross podcast. It's created to give you info to succeed at college. Our hosts are highly qualified. Dr Catherine Ross is a member of the University of Texas System's Academy of Distinguished Teachers. She's also a popular professor of 19th century English literature. Ask Dr Ross is a community service of the University of Texas at Tyler.
Speaker 2:So we've talked to you all about some things to do in order to get ready for the first day of class. The other thing we want to talk about to students at the beginning of the year is how important it is to use this time to make connections, make relationships and get to know people so that you feel as though you belong here and you're growing emotionally as well as intellectually. So Ashley and I have got 10 more things. My first one you will, I'm sure, not be surprised at all this, since I'm a professor is to get to know your professors. They want to get to know you. If they know you, they can help you learn better. They can help to guide you toward not only more efficient ways of studying but down the road when you need a recommendation or when you need some advising or some mentoring in your field. You've already made some folks that are really already willing and eager to help you with that.
Speaker 3:Some of the best advice I've ever gotten has been from my professors. It seems scary, you know, I think because we're just used to in high school that they're there to keep order. But really, when I got to college, I think the big shift that I noticed was that it was more about the relationship building and they were like you're an adult here, so if you're going to waste your time or if you're going to use your time, that professor is there as a resource, but it's your job to go up and initiate.
Speaker 2:You know, think about how available is your family doctor or your dentist. You know you have to make special appointments and sometimes you have to wait weeks to get into some of them, and whereas professors are usually there every day, every week, and can usually see you within 24 hours. That's kind of amazing. So you have these people with incredible training and experience, ready and eager to talk to you. So I think that's a really important thing.
Speaker 3:And the other thing, too, that I think students forget about is that professors, they're people who love their subject matter, that they're teaching. They spent a lot of time to get here and to be talking about the thing that they love to you, so make use of that. They're here because they think that their material is really important and that you should know about it, so if you can tap that as a resource, then you're way ahead of the game.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely A second one has to do with getting to know some of the older students, especially if you're a first-year student.
Speaker 2:Folks have been around for even a semester or two, have got some smarts, some street smarts, some campus smarts. I'm sure they'll have a lot of good advice. Ashley's talked to you before about how they might have had experience with some of your professors and be able to help you find a professor that is particularly interesting in your field, but also they may help you think about the things that you are wondering about studying down the line. You may not yet know what your major is, but if you talk to upper division students, they've been studying more different subjects and getting closer and closer to either choosing a major or even pursuing their major and perhaps a minor, and so those are folks you can learn from as well and they can become friends. There's very few times in your life when you're going to be in a place where there's an organized group of folks about your age who are about interested in sort of the same general stuff you are, who might become your friends or your partners or, in any case, somehow an important part of your life.
Speaker 3:I was very fortunate to have an older sister who was here, and so I know personally what a huge leg up it is to have a friendship or a connection with an older student who can help you navigate even just some of the basic stuff like hey, where is this coffee shop, where is the parking? Good at this time of day? These very basic level things. But also just to help you feel a little less lonely, because, especially if you're coming here and it's maybe your first time living alone out of the house, you could be in a new town, in a new city. A lot of people come to a new state or even a new country. It's kind of a big deal and you can feel somewhat isolated in those first weeks.
Speaker 2:Oh sure, yeah. The other thing to be aware of is, besides the fact that all these people here are assembled, there's usually all sorts of stuff going on on campus and we have something on this campus called Patriots Engage, which is a website that tells you all the different games, performances, special speakers and all sorts of things like that. Be sure you use some of those. You might be surprised what you learn. It's real easy, I think, to get kind of stuck in your room or in your car if you're a commuter and not break out of your own little safe space, but I think that's a really important thing. There are bulletin boards around. Sometimes you'll find job offerings. That way, Sometimes you'll find interesting speakers who might help you down the road towards your professional interests.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love Patriots, Engage. Your university, wherever you end up being, will have the different specific resource of where the postings are for all the clubs and student orgs. But for us, every student organization is required to post their event and it gets cleared and it's available through there so you can know about them way ahead of time and you can plan to meet a friend there or, if you're going by yourself, you can be like, well, it's hosted by this organization. I might be interested in meeting these types of people, these majors, people who like the same hobby as I do, and you can use that to help you plan ahead of time so that you don't end up just sitting in your dorm room or that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you can actually load those events up onto your calendar, and that's not a bad idea. So that leads me to the next thing, which is their games and musical performances, sometimes their theater performances, art exhibits all sorts of really interesting, fun things to do too. So get to the games. Grab someone that you know from a class or from your dorm or from your neighborhood, or however you meet people here. Again, every time you go and do something that you haven't tried before, you're probably going to meet somebody new, and meeting new people, making new relationships, is a big part of what college is about.
Speaker 3:And going to those events too will help you a ton for building and maintaining friendships with people who are maybe on a different side of campus as you, who have a way different major from you.
Speaker 2:Or different beliefs or different experiences in life. There's a lot of different kinds of folks here and you need to learn how to talk to all of them. My last one is get to know your classmates. I've had times where students didn't even know the name of the person sitting next to them, and I try to always ask my students to introduce themselves to each other and I try to do various things in the classroom so that they're in small groups and they have to know each other's names. But, especially because the class is organized around a particular topic or subject, you'll get to know more people that know speech, communication or biology or, in my case, english literature, and that again is a rich opportunity to expand the folks that are a part of your life. So, to sort of sum up, I want to remind you that when you get out of college, you don't have this wonderful place to very nicely organize and present you with a whole bunch of folks to get to know.
Speaker 2:I remember when I first moved here as a professor, I didn't have children and so I didn't have have like the PTA or the other parents of the school and my husband and I. Just we didn't know anybody in town and we had to figure out ways to get to meet people. I joined a Mahjong group. I joined the American Association of University Women. Some folks will go to a church or I think pickleball is a big way to meet friends now for adults.
Speaker 2:Oh, and that's another thing too is we have intramural sports. If you're not a college athlete, you can still play sports, and boy, do we need that, and I understand. The yoga classes here are very popular, and we have pickleball here too. There you go.
Speaker 3:To get connected in college, to start making friends, my number one tip is just to put your phone down. Honestly, I'm guilty of it, we all are guilty of it. The second there's like an ounce of social discomfort or a little bit of unoccupied time. We just want to fill it with something and the phone is easy, it's right there. We can just get on Instagram and away we go. But what I've learned and realized is that that's just closing off a lot of these opportunities. You would have had to make friends Because you know I'm standing there, not on my phone, looking around at everybody else who is, and I'm like we're all standing here, we're all going to the same class. This is one of the few instances, like you were talking about, where we will all have something sort of basic and common. We may even all be in the same major and have a similar interest.
Speaker 2:Or you've just read the same assignment and you have questions about it. Why not ask your classmates before you get in the classroom?
Speaker 3:And a lot of people in college. They do want to make friends. It's just scary to be the one who initiates the conversation. A lot, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, and one thing to remember too, is that you know, if you've been in high school for a long time, you may have been around the same people for 10 years. Everybody here is pretty much getting to know people for the first time, so everybody's in the same boat. And I think most times people are really kind of relieved if you make the gesture of reaching out to people. And I will tell you, ashley, when I see students sitting in the hall and all of them looking at their phone, when they're all these lovely human beings sitting on the benches nearby instead of talking to each other, it just breaks my heart.
Speaker 3:Well, all this stuff that you could do to make friends, to get connected, all the different tips like being in a communal space or going to the club meeting or going to the class early so you have extra time, none of that will do you any good if you're on your phone. So it's the very basic, essential roadblock that I see to people actually making some friends and getting connected. If you're not using your phone to work or to message somebody that it's important while you're at school, I mean, you probably don't need it out. That's just what I've found anyway. And on the flip side, you can actually use your phone to facilitate social activity.
Speaker 3:It's not like this little demon brick that we all carry in our pockets. We're just using the tool very wrong. I feel like very wrong. I feel like If you're waiting in line with people, especially people you sort of know, you can use your phone to play a game of heads up or something like that. And you could go old fashion and bring a card game or a pack of cards to have with you while you're waiting in line and you can create those opportunities with your phone. You can take pictures and share them with people and, you know, exchange contacts and all that kind of thing. So there are ways you can use your phone very positively to initiate the social interaction.
Speaker 2:But just don't live on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, don't live on your phone. My second tip is just to smile. You would really be surprised at how much that can do, and, again, something that you're never going to think about or have access to if you're on your phone. Smiling, body language, eye contact it's stuff that we don't think about, but that is like one of the first indicators, if not the first that you want to talk to somebody, if not the first that you want to talk to somebody. So if you're not smiling, you're not inviting a conversation. Even if you're not the extrovert in the situation, you're waiting for someone else to talk to you.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm glad you brought that up, because I cannot tell you how many times a person with a scowl made me want to go in the other direction and a person with a smile. I just instantly thought I'm going to like that person. And they say that the more you smile, the happier you get too. So there might be some sort of physiological thing going on. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure, I've read that too. I think that's really interesting. It'll make you seem less intimidating, and it'll make it less intimidating if you're trying to start the conversation too. Like you're talking about. There's that physiological thing where you're smiling, even if maybe you weren't already happy, but the smile is telling your brain and your body that you feel okay.
Speaker 3:And so it starts to work the other way. So it sounds really corny. You know it sounds corny when you talk about it, but I promise, if you try it- Well, and who do you want to spend time with?
Speaker 2:People are always frowning and grumpy, or somebody who's happy. You know it makes a big difference.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. My third tip is to join at least two student organizations. This is something that I pilfered straight from the admissions office and the welcome center where I used to work. That's something they recommend to every new student. Join at least two student organizations starting off. You don't necessarily have to stay with them if you find that's not where you make friends, but start. What they recommend, too, is to start with one academic organization and one that's just for fun or that's a hobby. What are the ones you joined.
Speaker 3:I joined Creative Writing Club, which was sort of a hobby, but also there's a lot of writing in my major. I could do some fun stuff and some business stuff with them. And I joined the Patriot Talent which is our media organization. That's way more of the business side for me because it's sort of a very low-key way of practicing being a working journalist or taking video for someone managing social media. All these different opportunities and they have equipment available to practice with that. For a Mass Comm major, that's the business club.
Speaker 2:Well, then there's the eSports team oh my gosh, yes, there's a chess team. Of course, we also have groups that participate in intercollegiate competitions, like our debate team is very important. And then, of course, we have the choirs and the band. The musical program at this university is really good and it's a lot of fun, and I've seen the sort of fun side of that group of students between performances as they're practicing and getting ready and there's a lot of fellowship involved in that and it's really nice. And there's also the Baptist Student Union and other kinds of groups. There was a group that practiced yoga together outside. I think there was a group for meditation as well, and if you haven't found the group that you want to be a part of, you can always invent it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's super easy to start a club or a student org. The perk is that you get a little bit of funding. You know, if you're willing to go ahead and outline like your policies and your mission statement. Basically, for starting this club, I think you need one faculty or staff who supports you and says that I'm going to be the advisor.
Speaker 3:But it's kind of a low bar to create a club if you think about it and do you get money for it? You do, if it's approved and everything. You get like $500 of funding, if you will outline what the expenses are for. Actually, several years back, ut Tyler had a hot tub club. Oh no, really they did. They used the $500 to give pizza to the members who came. Do we have?
Speaker 2:hot tubs. On campus, we have a hot tub, yeah oh. On the pool, yeah, oh. And so everybody gathered at the hot tub and had pizza. Oh, how funny.
Speaker 3:So you could use it for anything is the upshot of that story. But the perks of creating your own student org is that you can reserve space. You have the right to reserve space for a block of time, as long as the university knows about it ahead of time, and you can use that money to have a good time and you have an item on your resume that says I began the pickleball club or I began the hot tub and pizza club.
Speaker 3:And it matters on your resume, too, more than you might think, because it shows that you're a leader and that you care about other people too. My fourth tip is to spend some time in communal areas and bonus points if it's a space that's specifically for your club or that's in your building specifically for your academic field.
Speaker 2:Like what do you mean?
Speaker 3:I spent a lot of time in my first year in the College of Arts and Sciences when I had downtime, and you probably will have downtime, you know, in your first semester. You can use it to do your work, of course, but to do it in an area where you're around the other people who already have something in common with you, and usually those have like vending machines, their bathrooms, water fountains, comfortable chairs, good lighting.
Speaker 3:And if you can explore too a little bit ahead of time and find where the comfiest chairs are, you can have a lot easier of a time navigating stuff. And some clubs like the Talon, they have their own room that's been set aside. That's the space that they reserve and they've decorated it Like there's a podcast studio in there a very casual style setup. They have equipment in there. It's a space you can go work, there's computers and so just depending on what your club or the university's resources are, there will be a space that's there for you and you can be there to just be available and to meet other people. They may even happen to be working on the same assignment as you.
Speaker 2:And there are parts of the library that are set up for group study and things like that, which is really great. They have these big white boards and spaces for you to copy things and also copy machines, printers and things like that.
Speaker 3:I love being in the library as well. It's a great common area and a catch-all for all types of majors too. I found that because the library is so big, if you're just going by yourself, you know to maybe meet other people. That's when it's a little tougher, just because it's so big, and it's better for if you already have a group that you want a meeting point for. So some of the other smaller spaces are good for if you haven't met anybody and you're trying to. You're trying to be available to meet somebody else, and the more time you spend in a community area too, the more familiar faces you'll see. So even if you're just there a lot and you haven't necessarily talked to people, it does count that people see you around and you see other people around. So that makes it easier to break ice and you kind of feel like you belong.
Speaker 2:These are my people. I know their first names.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really useful. My fifth and final tip is if you're maybe more of an introvert or if you're struggling to start a conversation this is something that I've used a compliment plus a question will usually equal a conversation.
Speaker 2:So give me an example.
Speaker 3:I love your shirt.
Speaker 2:Where did you get it? Oh, this shirt with the little apples all over it. I don't remember, but I really thought it was a neat thing to do for a school teacher to have an apple shirt.
Speaker 3:It's very unusual. I think I've seen something like it, similar at Talbot's maybe yeah, maybe so.
Speaker 2:When, at Talbot's maybe, yeah, maybe so, when I was noticing your shirt, you've got Lady and the Tramp. Oh, 101 Dalmatians. Oh, that's what. It is Okay, there you go.
Speaker 3:I love Disney movies. We had a ton of them on VHS when I was a kid. Did you really?
Speaker 2:Oh Disney movies, there you go. Cruella de Vil oh my gosh, she was evil.
Speaker 3:She was worse. Anyway, conversations they can happen and start off like that if you have somebody else who's wanting to engage.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they're just not in the mood Well, and then you just have to shake that off and realize it's not about you, it's about them.
Speaker 2:They could be having a bad day or To wrap all this up, what we really want you to remember is that when you get to college, you're going there to learn, but you're also going there to grow and to learn about yourself as a human and to make relationships and to have a chance to kind of become a more communicative, more fully-fledged, culturally experienced human. The more you sort of push yourself up to the edge and make yourself try something you hadn't tried before, the more often you're going to be really pleased with yourself.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Oh, also, I had a bonus tip.
Speaker 2:Okay, a bonus tip Bring food, bring food, bring food Enough for everybody.
Speaker 3:Nothing works like a little bribery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know it's funny. You said that because sometimes in the faculty lounge in the English department there's this one professor. She's always baking on the weekends and she brings in her extra muffins or her extra chocolate chip cookies and, yeah, we end up congregating around them and around the coffee pot. So that's not a bad thing, and in a case like this, like you're in the community areas, we allow you to have food everywhere. You can even have it in your classroom. So I think that's a great idea too.
Speaker 3:And if you bring food, too, it shows that you're willing to go a step above, like you're giving something to these other people, and it also shows that you care a lot about them too.
Speaker 2:Bring napkins too, though.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, okay, don't neglect the napkins.
Speaker 2:All righty. Well, there you go. We hope you will enjoy hearing these things, these tips for getting started on your relationship journey in college.
Speaker 3:And if you have any questions or anything else you'd like to ask us about, anything you'd like us to talk about in a future episode to help you get prepared for your first week of college, you can always drop a comment or leave us an email at adrquestions at gmailcom. We're happy to answer any of your questions and we'd love to hear from you.
