Hey friend, this might be the biggest and most common worry. I didn’t really think about it at the time, because I had too many other things to worry about (see entire rest of guide), but the issue of finding friends is quite a stress in the first week. You’ll have left behind most of your network of friends from home and now be faced with 100 strangers, some of whom seem too cool for school.
Lots people will snap together into groups in the first week, because no-one wants to be on their own, but I would advise you against it. Sure, some of these groups will last the whole four years, but what if you realise that this hurriedly-assembled group is wrong for you and you have to get out of it? That would be pretty embarrassing.
What usually happens with groups is that they ease up over the years as people discover other great people in their college, but why wait ‘til then? Take this picture, copied from a photo from my first Hallowe’en party at uni. I didn’t know anyone at this party, but I was invited by a boy in the quad and I had met a few other people who were also going. Of the people in the photo, some would become my best friends, some would leave uni a few weeks before their final exams, some would be rumoured to have a secret family and be constantly hepped up on speed, and some are not my friends. It will be the same for you when you look back at your Freshers’ photos – it would be sad if you didn’t have any WTF photos to gawp at.
This first term is for meeting all sorts of people; the second term is for shaking them off.
