Using Social Media To Make Friends And Alienate People Before Going To Uni
Before you start your first year, you’ll already have plenty of funny stories ready to share with your new university friends. The problem is, none of those stories look good. Seriously, they don’t. Tell your new housemates a few too many stories the first night you meet them and risk earning yourself an unenviable nickname for the rest of university.
The point is; one needs to find the right balance between “interesting” and “nutbag” when meeting new people. Sadly, many fresher’s tend towards the wrong end of the spectrum when they meet their housemates. Other people go too far the other way and end up as a white patch on a white wall. Both behaviours should be avoided as best as possible. Fortunately, the modern world has offered a great starting point to get across a few “best bits” before you meet anyone. The Internet is the world’s greatest cheat-sheet. Use it.
Facebook Groups
Many universities and such like have tried to jump onto the social media bandwagon with varied success over the last decade or so. Remember, Facebook started out as a website exclusively for students at Harvard, and grew from there. Celebrate that great tradition by getting involved and in touch with people you’ll be living with before you meet them, but try not to be too pushy. “hey, i’m living with you and i’m a little crazyyyy lol” is a bad way to start. As is a contract outlining what food you’re prepared to share and a bathroom schedule.
Treat meeting people over Facebook somewhere between a warm up for meeting them in person and a job interview. There’s a possibility you won’t like each other and that will be that. That doesn’t change the fact you’ll be living together, so try to keep it as relaxed and considerate as possible. First impressions, even digital ones, count for a lot.
Halls of residence should almost definitely have a Facebook group, as should most other big residences. If you’re choosing to go for a student house in your first year, try to get in contact with your future housemates through Facebook without being too creepy. Calling the university and finding the first and second names of your future housemates might seem charming and organised to you, but it screams stalker alert to anyone who hasn’t met you yet. A quick search across social media isn’t too bad, though. See what you can find.
Societies should also have their own Facebook groups that are well worth checking out. You may not like Pokemon enough to join a society about it, but it’s well worth checking out in case you change your mind. Besides, a mild mutual interest in something isn’t the worst way to start a good friendship. Probably. Join a few societies on Facebook and see if the people there look like they’d be a good fit. Size them up – it’s creepy, but nobody has to know you’re doing it.
Basically, this is more or less the same deal as Facebook – LinkedIn offers people the opportunity to get a good look at each other and see the best bits before they meet them. There’s a twist to the LinkedIn system that Facebook can’t quite offer, though.
LinkedIn is the Facebook of the professional – not exactly the most useful networking site for a first year undergraduate, one would think. However, more and more people are joining LinkedIn because of the offers it may well present in the future. Thing is, professionals like to be connected these days, and try to have as many digital fingers in as many digital pies as possible. The people you meet at university will one day eat all of their greens and grow up to be big, strong, important people that you may want to keep in contact with, for whatever reason.
So, get LinkedIn before you join university, and add as many people as possible when you’re there. That includes people you don’t like – they’ll invariably be the ones you need to get in contact with in 20 years – lecturers, and anyone else you can get your hands on. It’s useful to know people in every field; be forward thinking and start sticking your fingers where pies will eventually show up. You’ll thank yourself later.
“The people you meet at university will one day eat all of their greens and grow up to be big, strong, important people that you may want to keep in contact with, for whatever reason.”
Besides, meeting people over LinkedIn, where you can present your smiling, professional, fully clothed, sober self to your future housemates, as opposed to your Facebook equivalent, comes with its own advantages. Facebook has a way of always showing the worst in people – maybe it’s just because people use cameras more when they’re drunk. Either way, LinkedIn helps out a lot.
Twitter’s a bit more difficult to crack as far as meeting people goes – you can’t message everyone who’s tweeted about your university over the last few days; that’s creepy or at least over the top. Nor can you search for your address and hope something comes up – it probably won’t. Still, some things are worth a quick go so if you have Twitter try a few searches and see what you can see. @newbestfriend might be out there somewhere.
The Others
There’s a load more social networking sites out there that might be helpful to some students and not to others – there’s a few apps that offer fast-fire dates, and others that allow you to meet up with a fellow anime fan or foodie. Or, presumably, both. The Internet’s amazing. Have a look and see what you can find and which people you want to connect with.
What Not to Do
First off, don’t be naive. We know everyone’s read and heard about all of this before, but don’t give your details out to strangers. That’s stupid. Don’t be stupid. You’re better than that.
Now, being naive mostly involves emailing people pictures of your funny parts and bank details. Everything else is pretty much fair game, so have fun with it! Be specific and interesting and swap Snapchat names and that kind of stuff – there’s a lot you can do even when you take naughty pictures out of the equation. So we’re told.
Also, and we know we’ve mentioned it a couple of times already, but don’t be creepy! The Internet is a wonderful invention, but it also makes it really easy to be a scary person. Try not to be that person and stuff can only go well for you. And that means no Googling future housemates to see what they’re like. Or at least delete your history and never admit to anyone that you ever Googled them ever. Which also works out pretty well.
Facebook can also stab you horribly in the back with this kind of thing – remember, whenever you’re not Googling your future housemate, they could be not Googling you, too. Make sure you know what’s on your Facebook before you go sniffing around and making a mess; do you want future housemate’s first impression of you to be from that time someone took photos of your “who can snort the most salt” experiment, or the time you went for a wiz in the Thames? Be careful now, there’s probably more stuff on the Internet than you remember.
It gets worse – turns out, students aren’t the only ones with Facebook and Twitter and suchlike any more; real people can get it too! And that includes lecturers, supervisors, and every other member of staff you’ll be relying on to help you get decent grades through your degree process. In the larger classes, it doesn’t matter too much what you have on your Facebook – nobody cares enough to look through 300 students’ dirty secrets. A small class might be under a bit more scrutiny, though – play it safe and make sure you haven’t accidentally added your tutor to the “That awkward moment when you wake up and can’t remember their name” group (yes, it exists. We looked it up).
Conclusions
So, just be yourself. Kind of. Try to be a more interesting, fun, responsible, kind, experienced version of yourself that probably kind of exists, but just with some bits cut off and rearranged. No offence; we’re sure you’re awesome. But there’s always room for some not-quite-dishonest-but-pushing-it-a-little-bit stuff about yourself that could be shared with your future housemates with very few consequences.
It’s a big wide world out there, and there are 7 billion people in it. Most of them you’ll never meet. Some of them you’ll hate. And a precious few will be good friends. The Internet’s a good place to start. Good luck!