Eve's Advice on Meeting People

One of the best parts of being at university is the opportunity to meet all kinds of new people, from your fellow cohort to the academics you work under in your classes. Unfortunately, for some people, this is also one of the hardest parts of being a student.

For me personally, having social anxiety has been a huge obstacle in my social life at university. Despite that, and all of the times I’ve struggled with social interaction, I have generally found it to be more than worth it to push through these struggles and make an effort to meet and talk to people. Of course, I wouldn’t ever advise you to push yourself so far that you’re disregarding your own general wellbeing – the most important thing to learn is where your boundaries are, and how to look after yourself while also learning how to handle any issues you have in social settings.

You may not be someone who struggles with social anxiety. Instead, you might be an introvert, or someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience meeting new people, or someone who struggles with language or other communication barriers in university settings. You might just be unsure of how to handle a social environment that is, by all rights, a huge step up from high school. These are all valid reasons to want some help getting through these issues, and unfortunately, I don’t have all of the answers for these struggles. What I can tell you is what helped me, and on top of that, I really invite you to talk in the comments of this post or on the community discussion about struggles you’ve had and solutions you’ve found.

One of the biggest things that’s helped me is having a formulaic conversation starter, for when you sit down next to someone in a lecture and realllllllly don’t want to have to sit there in awkward silence until it’s too late to say anything. I’ve made some awesome friends in lectures just by being able to break that silence at the beginning, and I normally do that by going into it with a “Hi, I’m Eve, what’s your name?” followed by easy and generic questions like “What do you study?” or “Where did you go to high school?”. I know that a lot of people think this conversation is boring, and feel they’d much rather know more personal information, and I don’t disagree with this – I love to bring up some deeper or more fun topics than these basics once we’ve been chatting for a minute or two. But I also find personally that opening with a fun but abstract question like “What’s your opinion on cheese?” can feel awkward and uncomfortable for me, whether I’m the one asking or being asked. If you’re willing to be unique and noticeable with a funky ice breaker, full respect to you. I just know that for me, having an easy and rehearsable formula is one of the easiest ways to feel more calm about a social interaction.

When it comes to meeting people in classes, it can also go a long way to actually participate in the kind of annoying ‘ice breaker’ activities your lecturer or tutor might be running. They might feel stupid and useless, but the more you feel comfortable talking to the people around you, the easier it is to connect with them, and eventually have someone to touch base with when you want to talk about what’s going on in a course or want to know what you missed in a class. Amy, Sam and I all met this way – by just having basic, on topic conversations in classes we shared. The first class I ever went to in my very first semester of uni, I sat next to Amy at a seminar table, and we ended up talking enough to realise how much we had in common and become great friends. Even though we know each other on a much more personal level now, that conversation started with both of us contributing to a table discussion of a topic that our lecturer posed (thanks Elliott!).

Beyond meeting other students, it can also be hard to figure out the unspoken rules about how to interact with teaching staff in your courses. It’s not quite the same environment as high school, and tutors and lecturers aren’t quite like the teachers you’re used to having. One of the easiest ways to navigate this change is to know that most teaching staff at university will understand that you’re new to this, especially when you’re in your first year. Look out for, and pay attention to, information that lecturers and tutors give you about how and when to contact them, especially because many of them prefer in person or email communication to occur only during their office hours (which they will give you). If you don’t know how to navigate your course, trust that the teaching staff will likely have a solution for you, even if it’s to redirect you to others, so don’t be afraid to get in touch with them in the ways that they suggest. Remember to always be polite, respectful, and at least somewhat professional when contacting course staff.

These are just a few of the important things I’ve taken from my time at university, and I know I still have a lot to learn over the next few years. If you’ve learnt something that you want to share, or you have specific questions you think me or the rest of the Safest Space team could answer, don’t forget to leave them in the comments below! Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to look after yourself!

Eve xx