Intro Activities

A lot of universities start the year with mainly social activities that target getting to know each other as soon as possible. You’re now in a course with hundreds of other people, and making new friends doesn’t come all that naturally to some people. It is advisable to take part in these activities. In fact, most of my best friends are people I met on my first day, two years ago.

It’s usually not very hard to notice who has the potential to become your friend, and who has not. People with similar interests usually find each other really soon, making friend groups in a matter of days. However, this obviously requires that you are open an honest towards other people. If you decide to pretend being someone you are actually not, you are going to get trouble maintaining friendships sooner or later.

These activities can vary between meeting up one afternoon in a small pub and a whole camping trip in a deserted forest. Either way, it’s usually a lot of fun and really worth the small effort.

Whether you are a very shy person or the extremely social type of person, making new friends at the start of the new academic year is a great opportunity, since everybody is new here and eager to meet new people. You are only new once; don’t miss out on such an easy chance to make new friends!

But it’s not only the social aspect of these activities that is very important and helpful. Usually you can hang out with older students and such, who know everything about the university and the city, and they had the same experience of being new as you have now.

It’s usually a good idea to listen to their advice; you will most likely benefit from it sooner or later in your academic career.