Nicole
The main thing people don’t prepare you for college is how hard it is to make friends. People also don’t explain how easy it is to make friends. Allow me to elaborate: if the problem of difficulty making friends is widespread, then there are others just like you who want friends. An example of this is Amelia.
I walked to my to my History of Media Arts class 30 minutes early before the first exam of the year because the only way I can study is if I’m not in my room where I can get distracted. Two other girls were there, and every once in awhile, someone would ask a question to the other and we’d talk. Now, I was too socially awkward to even ask for a name, so when Professor Selig came to start the exam, I stopped talking to them. I finished early, so I walked to Einstein's. On my way there, one of the girls popped up behind me. “So what did you think of the test?” she asked as she came to my side. I know for a fact I did not leave a real impression when I was asking if we needed to know sound recording for the test; yet we became friends after that.
A couple months later on a film set, a girl I thought was really cool messaged me out of the blue seeing if I wanted to hang out. “See I realized on the set that, although it's great having a boyfriend, he really can't be my closest friend too. I really need to branch out,” she explained over text. Having a boyfriend in the first year of college really messes with your ability to make friends, and this is why people constantly say it is a bad idea to date in the first semester of college.
Finally, while making this project, I finally got to hang out with someone I always wanted to hang out with. On the first day of our writing class, she was funny and sassy. I tried to get closer to her by inviting her on as a sound designer on this project I was working on, but the project is still in production (not allowing for anyone to work post). After awhile, I gave up on that effort when I started making more friends. However, for this project we went all around the dorms and interviewed people. After that, we hung out and talked. With three weeks left in the semester, it is still possible to make good friends.
It is difficult to make friends in college, especially past the first week. The first week is much easier to invite someone you just met in the laundry room to hang out in the common because no one has a set friend group yet. After the first week or two, people have found a person to latch onto or even found their friend groups. Similarly, some fear that no one is as open to making new friends like people were in the first week. However, since this anxiety is widespread, a lot of students do not have as many friends as they would have wanted. The moral is, do not be shy when meeting new people past the first week. It is not too late to make friends, and all one has to do to make friends is branch out.