Helping Students Expand their Social Circle with the Click of a Mouse

Being a transfer student, attending community college, or studying abroad from another country can make it quite daunting to get acquainted with fellow classmates or students while attending a university or college. Many students meet their college friends their first year of college through the dorms, welcome weeks, fraternities or sororities, activities constructed for freshman, and so on. Being a transfer, international, or community college student does not always include these advantages that first year students have.

The Harvard Gazzete records that in  a study of over 1,000 freshman “48 percent assumed that other freshmen had more close friends than they did.” Clinical Psychologist, Alexander Jordan, who is an instructor at HMS reported that “When you’re new to a social network, you feel uncertain, you’re not sure about your role in that social network, you’re not sure about other people’s roles, so you might be more willing or more likely to anchor your judgments of yourself and others based on what you can observe.”

A study recently conducted by Evite, showed that 31% of adults friendships have come from college. The study also found that 42% claimed it was hard to make new friends due to shyness “with an additional 45% saying they would make the effort if opportunities presented themselves more frequently.” The survey remarks that the average adult has not made any new friends in the past 5 years and it is very difficult to expand friend groups after graduation.

Clearly, college is a crucial time for students to expand their social circle and make friends they will have for life.

According to College Raptor, Here are some tips for getting acquainted with other students, when making the initial transfer to a new college or university:

• Completing Transfer Student Orientation
• Living with roommates that are also studying at that university
• Attending organization fairs
• Joining campus clubs
• Conversing with classmates
• Working on campus
• Becoming well acquainted with various professors
• Volunteering to work on campus or within the community
• Attending sporting or performing arts events on campus

Though all these tips are helpful and can benefit many students, there is no way of ensuring that they will view these opportunities, download various social apps, join these clubs, or have a perfect living situation.

To alleviate the hardships and loneliness that can come with attending a new college or university, colleges can utilize tools to help students connect with one another.

Since orientation is mandatory for students prior to registering for classes, colleges implementing online orientations could include specific modules that are designed to link students to specific groups, clubs, or events organized to connect students. Using Comevo’s Launch, easy-to-use, online orientation software, users can easily add modules  that are solely dedicated to student interaction. This could be the perfect solution to enhance students’ ability to become more involved in the social aspects of their education, and make lifelong friends along the way.