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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 :) |