Special tips for freshman commuters?

IThinkICan100
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 22:27:35 +0000

Living on campus looses it’s luster after freshman year. After that everyone wants to live off campus! lol

I had a couple of friends that were commuters my freshman year. You can instantly tell if a commuter is social or not by how much they interact with the campus. We had a lot of commuters that went to classes and went home; they didn’t have a social life because they chose to do so. There were others who stuck around campus and interacted with students; they were great people to hang out with.

One of my friends who was a commuter would hang out at the campus coffee house until closing time and do homework/hang out with friends. She made close friends with a couple of girls on campus, so she would even occasionally have sleepovers with her friends in the dorms. Her on campus friends would even go to her house to spend the night - and do laundry! (Here is a tip: Tell on campus students that you have a nice washer and dryer. They will be at your house all the time!)

My three biggest tips:

1) Commit to being a part of campus life. Even though you don’t live on campus doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of the campus. Join clubs and campus activities! There are so many freebies and amenities on campus to use. When you feel antisocial, revert to this mantra: “I will be social! I will be a part of campus life! I will have fun!”

2) Hang around campus all the time! Usually when the on campus students were in their dorms, they were either sleeping or watching TV. At my uni everyone hangs around the campus coffee house or the library until closing time (midnight) and does homework or just goofs off. You need to designate a few days a week to spend the whole day at the campus and use the campus amenities or do homework/hang out around the campus. Also, you can still buy a small meal plan and eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner with friends.

3) Push yourself to be social and make friends. This is pretty self-explanatory, but it needs repeating. Go to campus events, make acquaintances with classmates, ask to swap numbers with people that you share the same major. Be proactive and social with people. Once you make a close-ish friend, ask if you could spend the night at their dorm (a lot of people did this at my uni)!



Note: The two biggest tips I learned in making friends/acquaintances my freshman year were to 1) sit at lunch with random people and strike up a conversation and 2) Swap numbers with classmates (a big plus in multiple ways!).