University #7: Friends - Making Them

One of my biggest fears before I went to uni was ‘oh no, what if I don’t make any friends’. I was living at home and commuting onto the site every day (a two hour round trip by public transport, an hour if I could nab the car), and whilst I knew people who were going to the uni they weren’t the kind of people to go to Freshers events. So, night one of Freshers, I walked up to the three girls who had walked in just ahead of me and introduced myself.

‘Hi, I’m from Norfolk so don’t have anyone to go with, can I hang out with you?’

Luckily, they were in the exact same position as me, and were a miss-matched group from the other big sixth form in my area. We stuck together for the whole of Freshers, but sadly didn’t stay in contact after.

In my first seminar, I sat next to a beautiful girl with hair down to her waist, and we got chatting. We discovered that we both enjoyed song writing and got on really well. Two years on, and we’ve lived together for one year and are staying together this year. (She’s also a super talented musician and a much better song writer than I am, you can check out her YouTube channel here, and my favourite song of hers here).

At the first creative writing society meeting I attended, I ended up chatting to a girl and a guy who had grown up going to the single sex versions of the same school. The guy and I both ended up going to pretty much every CWS meeting, and when I came to Christmas we both knew we were going to be living together. Again, we’re staying together this year too.

I met my last housemate at the first open mic I attended. She walked up to me in a waistcoat with crimped hair and said she’d noticed me across the lecture theatre. From that moment on we were destined to be friends. Once again, we're staying together this year too.

I met loads of other people in seminars and at the society, and I’m really lucky to have a huge group of people who I can call my friend as I enter my third year. I really recommend joining a society or two to make friends, its amazing the variety of people you'll meet who all share your interests.

What I’m trying to say with all this that if I could make friends without living on campus or in halls, and without being able to go out very much (it cost almost £30 for me to get home by taxi, and there were only so many times I could kip on someone’s floor), then you’ll be able to. So long as you’re unafraid of introducing yourself to everyone and you’re yourself, you’re bound to meet someone you’ll get along with. I wish I’d had the guts to ask if my seminar groups wanted to get a coffee after the class, and it’s a big goal of mine to do that this year.

My next uni post (up in a couple of days time) will be about the friends you’re leaving behind. If you’ve got any questions or worries about anything I’ve either already addressed or will be addressing, please tweet me @VickiMaitland or leave a comment below, and I’ll do my best to answer them in my next post.