College Friendships

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Going off to college is scary. When my oldest granddaughter went from two decades of daily contact with parents, family and friends, 1500 miles away to a new state where she’d be totally on her own, I worried.
Making College Friendships
I wanted to encourage her to not feel lonely, and to make new friends at school. I’m sure that everyone else would be feeling pretty much the same, away at school and needing to create a new support group. The good thing is that it is often easy to make friends on a campus that is its own little environment, because there are lots of opportunities – at the cafeteria, in classes, at the library, during activities – to be right next to lots of new faces. And out of all those new acquaintances, there will most likely be one or two that develop into strong friendships, the person that has your back, who gladly will bring back lunch if you are studying or have a cold, who will help quiz you for a test, and who you can confide in about everything in your life. 

So, I wrote her an email, based on my memories of this transition in my life – trying not to be preachy.  When the email went viral after I posted it to my blog, I’ve now created some videos explaining the main points of the letter. Here is the one about Seeking and Finding your people. As I remember feeling humbled, humiliated, intimidated and horribly out of place, I gave her a few concrete and easy steps a student can take to reduce that anxiety when it sticks up its ugly head. Let me know what you think.