Some helpful advice from a newly minted first year grad!

There’s one thing no-one can deny about the first year of university: you will be pushed, willingly or not, out of your comfort zone in some way.

Whether you’re moving across the globe to a new country or staying at home and commuting 20 minutes to campus, you’re still entering a whole new environment, filled to the brim with strangers who you hope will become friends, and unfamiliar places you hope to fill with memories.

This can be a daunting endeavour, but hopefully it will feel less so if you have the tools to make the first term count.

As a first-year student myself, and one who joined probably way too many societies in the hopes of finding my people – including Drama, Women’s Rugby, RAG, Anthropology and Tabletop – I feel pretty uniquely equipped to write this guide, and hope you find my advice helpful (or at the very least, not an active hinderance!).

So, here are my top tips for building and maintaining your social timetable at university, from freshers to beyond!

• FIRSTLY: Make sure to attend the Clubs and Societies Freshers fair in the first week!

With all the choice, it can be overwhelming and so some write it off before bothering, but without attending you may miss out on learning of some great societies you had no idea existed.

It’s also a fantastic chance to meet some of the lovely committee leadership, who run the stalls with smiles (and usually some free stuff) so you can get a feel for which community might be best suited for you.

Along that line: try to join at least 1-2 societies, or more if you're feeling ambitious! Most people at LSE participate in some form of society activity, and it's the best way to connect with people who have similar interests and hobbies to you.

• SECONDLY: Take every opportunity to get to know the people on your course, and in your accommodation.

Even if you are a more introverted individual, try to be brave, step out of your comfort zone and speak to every person you come across the first few weeks of Autumn term, as this is the time when people start to get to know each other the most.

Once it gets a bit deeper into the year, people settle down and start to focus on their schoolwork, and it gets a little harder to make new friends. The first few weeks are the most elastic and free in the whole year and my advice is to try to take every chance to meet new people.

This was my main strategy and some of the people I met in the first week of university are my closest friends to this day, who’ve introduced me to other people I’ve grown to love.

A good chance to do this is through social media – for example, I lived in Sidney Webb House this year, an accommodation mainly taken up by postgraduate students, and so I took the initiative to message on the Sidney Webb WhatsApp group chat to find other first year students in the accommodation and make a separate group chat for first years.

This proved to be an invaluable resource in finding friends in Freshers’ Week and helped us to feel more connected to one another.

Messaging people first is a sure-fire way to meet people in freshers, and if this makes you feel anxious, it helps to remember that everyone is in the same boat and just wants to make friends. Remember: to be cringe is to be free.

In addition to this, it’s important to not let it get you down if you don’t get on with the first person, or the second or third person that you meet. Some people aren’t meant to be your friends but that doesn't mean you’ll be alone for the next three years; even though it’s hard, it’s important to build resilience and keep putting yourself out there until you find the people you really connect with – and there will be people.

• FINALLY: I cannot emphasise enough the importance of keeping an actual calendar.

For me, this is as simple as writing a basic outline of the activities I have on for every day in the next month.

This is very important to ensure both that you don’t double book yourself (and burn yourself out!) and also to give you an idea of what days you have free to plan fun things to fit in around your readings and lectures.

Now, armed with a few of my favourite tips for making friends and building your social calendar at LSE, it’s time to put these into practice and enjoy the upcoming year.

Work hard, play harder, and make the most of your time here!