That's part of it, I'm a sophomore and didn't meet anybody last year on zoom. Seems like everybody already got their social group though. I'm at Texas A&M, so if there are any former students around who got ideas lmk.
Gig ‘Em! I found my social circle reset pretty hard after freshman year and I was kind of starting over as a sophomore, so not the same situation but some similarity. I’m not going to lie, Sophomore year was hard, but it got better and I loved the rest of college.
One thing that made a huge difference for me was getting a job on-campus. In my case I worked at the Battalion, it was awesome. Although it was also a lot bigger back then.
Student jobs are great because regardless of the job itself, everyone else is, well, a student! Unlike class, you almost certainly have a lot of time to chitchat and kill time on any job, so it’s easier to make friends. Another bonus: chances are the people you work with are in all different majors, and as you make some friends who aren’t in your classes then it helps branch out and give you more sources of potential friends. The people who cross over between disciplines tend to be interesting.
Other things I did include intramurals, volunteering at summer camps, and getting an all-sports pass and constantly asking people if they wanted to go to a (soccer/volleyball/tennis/basketball) whatever sport was happening and not football. Everyone already has plans for the football game, but the minor sports are way easier to go watch, less time commitment, and tons of people have all sports passes but nobody to go to tennis matches with, so they are wasted. I made several casual friends by just asking people “you ever been to an Aggie Soccer match? It’s fun!”
If you’re picking up on a theme here, it’s that you should try to spend as much time in meat space as possible. I was really never comfortable doing stuff like just going to the bar by myself, and having structured activities/excuses why I was going to be somewhere helped me a lot. Most of the friendships I made were casual, but I think that’s normal, and a few became close friends who still keep in touch 15 years later.
Hang in there! Lots of people have lonely seasons in life, it’s normal, and it’ll get better :)
I'd imagine you aren't the only person who may be having a hard time adjusting from a remote freshman year to an in person sophomore year! Outlook is a big part of these things, and sometimes optimism is a great tool even when it seems unwarranted.
I'm a cali guy, so I can't comment on Texas A&M from experience, but... is there a computer lab available for working on your CS assignment? At my school our lab was lovingly referred to as "the dungeon". It was a place where you would spend long hours working with others on hard problems. As others have mentioned, shared hardship goes a long way towards friendship, and I am still close with some of those I met and worked with there!
Fellow Aggie here! I graduated with a CS degree nearly 10 years ago, but I feel like earIy on I had similar experiences to what you’ve described.
For me the landscape and huge size of different orgs at TAMU was also somewhat intimidating. I did push myself to join a couple of service oriented groups and had a great time but didn’t make close friends (which is fine). I ended up getting involved in research and became close friends with many of my lab mates. There are many great CS research labs that are welcoming to undergrads just starting if you have interests in that.
For me I also found (perhaps too late in my studies) that taking classes in other areas that interested me (social sciences, psych for me) was a great way to meet entirely different groups of people without a lot of the effort of joining an org.
I hope something in here is helpful! Although I was definitely a 2%er with respect to school spirit, I greatly enjoyed my time at A&M and hope you will too.
One thing that made a huge difference for me was getting a job on-campus. In my case I worked at the Battalion, it was awesome. Although it was also a lot bigger back then.
Student jobs are great because regardless of the job itself, everyone else is, well, a student! Unlike class, you almost certainly have a lot of time to chitchat and kill time on any job, so it’s easier to make friends. Another bonus: chances are the people you work with are in all different majors, and as you make some friends who aren’t in your classes then it helps branch out and give you more sources of potential friends. The people who cross over between disciplines tend to be interesting.
Other things I did include intramurals, volunteering at summer camps, and getting an all-sports pass and constantly asking people if they wanted to go to a (soccer/volleyball/tennis/basketball) whatever sport was happening and not football. Everyone already has plans for the football game, but the minor sports are way easier to go watch, less time commitment, and tons of people have all sports passes but nobody to go to tennis matches with, so they are wasted. I made several casual friends by just asking people “you ever been to an Aggie Soccer match? It’s fun!”
If you’re picking up on a theme here, it’s that you should try to spend as much time in meat space as possible. I was really never comfortable doing stuff like just going to the bar by myself, and having structured activities/excuses why I was going to be somewhere helped me a lot. Most of the friendships I made were casual, but I think that’s normal, and a few became close friends who still keep in touch 15 years later.
Hang in there! Lots of people have lonely seasons in life, it’s normal, and it’ll get better :)