Big school and nobody to hang out with

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is a huge generalization, though.

I'm one of the many shy, introverted, quiet people in this thread who found a ton of things to get involved with right off the bat at my large state school. I loved it immediately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is my fear about DS - but he’s determined to ED to the state flagship. I think however it’s all about the luck of who is your roommate and who do you meet in your dorm, right ?

You have to step out and seek out community if you aren't lucky in clicking well right away with your roommate/hallmates. If possible, live in an living-learning community, although that's no guarantee. My son's at a 30K+ college and had always been pretty outgoing and made friends easily but even he found it difficult and he did think the covid senior year had hurt his social skills. He was in an LLC but didn't really engage with what they offered. But, for him, a big factor was a couple close friends went to the same school and he really leaned on those friends. I think if he hadn't had those, the need for friends would have given him more of a push to engage and he'd have gotten over the discomfort. He's in his 2nd year and still his core friend group is his high school friends.

We didn't really talk with him about this stuff before he went away because it had never been an issue. And he said when home at xmas and reflecting on the year so far that he expected academics to be hard and social stuff to be easy but it was completely the opposite. If I had an introverted/anxious kid, I would definitely talk with them before moving about strategies, that you should expect it to take time, review the website to ID some groups to join. Encourage daily/weekly goals around pushing yourself to engage. It takes work.

This^^^ For first time, I had to map out social goals/expectations with my introverted kid for start of freshman year. They are 3K miles from home and knew nobody. Got lucky that their roommate is nice. But roommate hangs out with the one friend they know from home, so my kid hangs with them and is slowly building more groups of friends. But I'm glad my kid doesn't have anyone from home to cling to. Because while they started out anxious, they have started making more friends, while the roommate is still hanging mostly with the friend from home.

My DS is a freshman at University of Florida and he has no issues with making friends and dating on the first day. He brought his guitar to the dorm and played Justin Beiber's off my face; immediately he started attracting females. It is not that difficult.

It's nice that it was not difficult for him. That does not negate the experience of many people who do find it difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP. support exists your niece is either ignoring it or you don’t know what you’re talking about. You sound like an extreme busybody, OP. Why are you so invested in the friendships of your niece? Who is telling you she only had two friends in HS? Is she sharing these things and asking for help? If so, I guarantee there is an RA or an RD who has been arranging activities people can go to together. She can talk to her RA to find a schedule, etc. At the very least, the RA could invite her along and introduce her to people… but your niece has to talk and participate to make friends. They don’t magically happen.

Yes, she is in a big school. Not everyone class is over 100 people. She has at least 1-2 small classes- an English class or science lab or something. She also can make acquaintances with people in class. Sit near people that look nice. Ask them questions, share notes. On Thursday or Friday ask what they are doing this weekend. Say “I hadn’t heard of that event… maybe I’ll check it out.” Then show up.

I am VERY introverted but I still met the people on my hall freshman year and we hung out some. There are hall/building meetings or some such type of things. People were knocking on doors, etc. She just has to respond to opportunities.

DP. Why can't you just be helpful? I do not understand why you feel the need to interrogate and criticize the OP. Just start at paragraph 2 or move on.

Why do people in this forum feel the need to pile on criticism and judgment when someone shares a concern or asks for help?

This is a huge complaint of mine, as well. It's pretty revolting and continues to happen over, and over, and over. Must be a huge concentration of awful people on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP. support exists your niece is either ignoring it or you don’t know what you’re talking about. You sound like an extreme busybody, OP. Why are you so invested in the friendships of your niece? Who is telling you she only had two friends in HS? Is she sharing these things and asking for help? If so, I guarantee there is an RA or an RD who has been arranging activities people can go to together. She can talk to her RA to find a schedule, etc. At the very least, the RA could invite her along and introduce her to people… but your niece has to talk and participate to make friends. They don’t magically happen.

Yes, she is in a big school. Not everyone class is over 100 people. She has at least 1-2 small classes- an English class or science lab or something. She also can make acquaintances with people in class. Sit near people that look nice. Ask them questions, share notes. On Thursday or Friday ask what they are doing this weekend. Say “I hadn’t heard of that event… maybe I’ll check it out.” Then show up.

I am VERY introverted but I still met the people on my hall freshman year and we hung out some. There are hall/building meetings or some such type of things. People were knocking on doors, etc. She just has to respond to opportunities.

DP. Why can't you just be helpful? I do not understand why you feel the need to interrogate and criticize the OP. Just start at paragraph 2 or move on.

Why do people in this forum feel the need to pile on criticism and judgment when someone shares a concern or asks for help?

This is a huge complaint of mine, as well. It's pretty revolting and continues to happen over, and over, and over. Must be a huge concentration of awful people on here.

Or posters who post fake situations in order to market their product. This is a very obvious troll thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is a huge generalization, though.

I'm one of the many shy, introverted, quiet people in this thread who found a ton of things to get involved with right off the bat at my large state school. I loved it immediately.

+1
In some ways, it can be easier. There are SO MANY groups, so finding something that meshes with your interests (which makes socializing easier for a lot of reasons) can be easier because you have so many choices. And if you don't click with one set of people, there are others. There are lots of smaller groups in a big place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is my fear about DS - but he’s determined to ED to the state flagship. I think however it’s all about the luck of who is your roommate and who do you meet in your dorm, right ?

You have to step out and seek out community if you aren't lucky in clicking well right away with your roommate/hallmates. If possible, live in an living-learning community, although that's no guarantee. My son's at a 30K+ college and had always been pretty outgoing and made friends easily but even he found it difficult and he did think the covid senior year had hurt his social skills. He was in an LLC but didn't really engage with what they offered. But, for him, a big factor was a couple close friends went to the same school and he really leaned on those friends. I think if he hadn't had those, the need for friends would have given him more of a push to engage and he'd have gotten over the discomfort. He's in his 2nd year and still his core friend group is his high school friends.

We didn't really talk with him about this stuff before he went away because it had never been an issue. And he said when home at xmas and reflecting on the year so far that he expected academics to be hard and social stuff to be easy but it was completely the opposite. If I had an introverted/anxious kid, I would definitely talk with them before moving about strategies, that you should expect it to take time, review the website to ID some groups to join. Encourage daily/weekly goals around pushing yourself to engage. It takes work.

This^^^ For first time, I had to map out social goals/expectations with my introverted kid for start of freshman year. They are 3K miles from home and knew nobody. Got lucky that their roommate is nice. But roommate hangs out with the one friend they know from home, so my kid hangs with them and is slowly building more groups of friends. But I'm glad my kid doesn't have anyone from home to cling to. Because while they started out anxious, they have started making more friends, while the roommate is still hanging mostly with the friend from home.

My DS is a freshman at University of Florida and he has no issues with making friends and dating on the first day. He brought his guitar to the dorm and played Justin Beiber's off my face; immediately he started attracting females. It is not that difficult.

It's nice that it was not difficult for him. That does not negate the experience of many people who do find it difficult.

Understood. One of the things that parents can help your child if he/she will be going away for college is to get them involved in music, sports, or both. That will help a young adult make friends much easier in college. However, that needs to be done when the child is young.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP. support exists your niece is either ignoring it or you don’t know what you’re talking about. You sound like an extreme busybody, OP. Why are you so invested in the friendships of your niece? Who is telling you she only had two friends in HS? Is she sharing these things and asking for help? If so, I guarantee there is an RA or an RD who has been arranging activities people can go to together. She can talk to her RA to find a schedule, etc. At the very least, the RA could invite her along and introduce her to people… but your niece has to talk and participate to make friends. They don’t magically happen.

Yes, she is in a big school. Not everyone class is over 100 people. She has at least 1-2 small classes- an English class or science lab or something. She also can make acquaintances with people in class. Sit near people that look nice. Ask them questions, share notes. On Thursday or Friday ask what they are doing this weekend. Say “I hadn’t heard of that event… maybe I’ll check it out.” Then show up.

I am VERY introverted but I still met the people on my hall freshman year and we hung out some. There are hall/building meetings or some such type of things. People were knocking on doors, etc. She just has to respond to opportunities.

DP. Why can't you just be helpful? I do not understand why you feel the need to interrogate and criticize the OP. Just start at paragraph 2 or move on.

Why do people in this forum feel the need to pile on criticism and judgment when someone shares a concern or asks for help?

This is a huge complaint of mine, as well. It's pretty revolting and continues to happen over, and over, and over. Must be a huge concentration of awful people on here.

+2 It's revolting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP. support exists your niece is either ignoring it or you don’t know what you’re talking about. You sound like an extreme busybody, OP. Why are you so invested in the friendships of your niece? Who is telling you she only had two friends in HS? Is she sharing these things and asking for help? If so, I guarantee there is an RA or an RD who has been arranging activities people can go to together. She can talk to her RA to find a schedule, etc. At the very least, the RA could invite her along and introduce her to people… but your niece has to talk and participate to make friends. They don’t magically happen.

Yes, she is in a big school. Not everyone class is over 100 people. She has at least 1-2 small classes- an English class or science lab or something. She also can make acquaintances with people in class. Sit near people that look nice. Ask them questions, share notes. On Thursday or Friday ask what they are doing this weekend. Say “I hadn’t heard of that event… maybe I’ll check it out.” Then show up.

I am VERY introverted but I still met the people on my hall freshman year and we hung out some. There are hall/building meetings or some such type of things. People were knocking on doors, etc. She just has to respond to opportunities.

DP. Why can't you just be helpful? I do not understand why you feel the need to interrogate and criticize the OP. Just start at paragraph 2 or move on.

Why do people in this forum feel the need to pile on criticism and judgment when someone shares a concern or asks for help?

This is a huge complaint of mine, as well. It's pretty revolting and continues to happen over, and over, and over. Must be a huge concentration of awful people on here.

Or posters who post fake situations in order to market their product. This is a very obvious troll thread.

Warning sign that you spend way too much time online: You begin to think everyone is a troll and there's a conspiracy to market liberal arts colleges. Not even a specific liberal arts college, just the hundreds of them in general. Q-anon --> LAC-anon. (lol) Step away from the computer, go for a walk, go touch grass. Leave DCUM, College Confidential and reddit and whatever else you refresh too many times a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it really that embarrassing to eat alone? I did it ms y times in college when my friends weren’t around and never thought anything of it.

Yes. It's very much a social status and friend group indicator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is my fear about DS - but he’s determined to ED to the state flagship. I think however it’s all about the luck of who is your roommate and who do you meet in your dorm, right ?

My DS grew up dreaming of going to the state flagship, we didn't even consider fit, it was just where he always dreamed of going Then he got in, so it was a no-brainer, right. But fit is very much a thing. And huge in-state universities have cliques and social hierarchy carrying over from high school, so if you were low in the totem pole in high school, that carries onto campus. It's not the 80s, where nobody knew anything about you and everyone was starting from scratch and clamoring to make all new friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the suggestions! Unfortunately, her school has all the dining in what seem to be two central locations. So it's not like in the "old days" when you had a cafeteria in your dorm and would see hallmates there over breakfast every morning. The school basically has a bunch of fast food options in two food courtyards. So to eat together, you have to walk across campus and then happen to choose the same food. One person might want Chic-Fil-A and the other is getting something from Bojangles in the other building's food courtyard. I'd definitely warn kids away from schools that have this set up, along with schools that have suites instead of doors on a hallway. This really doesn't support the building of a sense of community for people who aren't social butterflies.

My kid went to a very large school out west with doors on a hallway and never got to know anyone their first semester there. It was very lonely. Then covid. My kid missed out on what we all call the typical college experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is my fear about DS - but he’s determined to ED to the state flagship. I think however it’s all about the luck of who is your roommate and who do you meet in your dorm, right ?

My DS grew up dreaming of going to the state flagship, we didn't even consider fit, it was just where he always dreamed of going Then he got in, so it was a no-brainer, right. But fit is very much a thing. And huge in-state universities have cliques and social hierarchy carrying over from high school, so if you were low in the totem pole in high school, that carries onto campus. It's not the 80s, where nobody knew anything about you and everyone was starting from scratch and clamoring to make all new friends.

My dc was oos at a large university where everyone seemed to be from that state and had at least 20 kids they knew from their high school with them. It seemed rare to find roommates who didn't already know one another. My dc was also somewhat anti social media and that made it even worse. Kids on floors were connecting via snap etc. My dc's ra was also awful. They had one meeting that the ra made clear they wanted no part of and that was it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it really that embarrassing to eat alone? I did it ms y times in college when my friends weren’t around and never thought anything of it.

Yes. It's very much a social status and friend group indicator.

At SLACs. At other places, not so much.

[Anonymous]

"At SLACs. At other places, not so much."

At UCLA students socialized over meals, especially in the on-campus food places that took cash.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions. I'll pass them along. And thanks to everyone who pushed back on the mean people who take pleasure in lobbing insults at anonymous strangers.