By: Shayna Dumont
The Isolation of the First Year
College: the first things that come to mind are partying, new friends, new found freedom and the memories you’ll hold onto for the rest of your life. However, as more people enter academic institutions, some of the opposite experiences seem to happen. Since finishing my first year at Western, I’ve looked back on the successes and challenges I faced in the Western social scene and wondered why it was the way it was–kind of lonely. While it may seem that this feeling is individual, the isolation and anxiety in college is felt by many. Because of this, I wanted to hear other people’s take on their own experiences during their first year.
What Is This Feeling and What Do I Do With It?
Most of us have gone through at least one period of feeling isolated. When it seems as though you have no one to talk to or share important parts of your life with, it can be discouraging in the face of finding connections. The first concept to grasp in these times is what a huge pivot going to college is. Moving away from home, living on your own, and being surrounded by strangers with their own busy lives can be overwhelming, but all of this is crucial to piecing together why it has become so hard to suddenly create new connections around you.
College is the time to find out who you’ve been growing up to be and who you become. Finding out who we are is a significant and encouraging part of this young adult stage we have entered, and in turn can make it difficult to find friends when you don’t know who you want to introduce yourself as. In highschool and every grade before then, we grow up around the same people, so friendships are not as hard to create and sustain. The people we spend the most time around tend to become our friends, but in college, where classes might only be a few times a week and three months long, you don’t have as much time to get to know those near you. This is where it becomes difficult because, in most cases, you really have to TRY to become friends with others, and it requires more effort than it used to. Sometimes we hang out with new students and find out, “Huh, I really don’t fit in with these people,” which is perfectly okay. Everything is trial and error. Even if at first, or second, or third try when you haven’t seemed to click with others, it just means the friends you are supposed to make haven’t come about yet. It can be discouraging, but it shouldn’t make you hopeless. You can find friends or a friend, but you just have to keep trying until you find the people who make you feel like yourself.
My First Year and Its Lessons
During my Freshman year at Western I experienced pretty large waves [no pun intended] of loneliness. It was a mix of homesickness, being new to the state of Washington, and the fact that I knew two people; my roommate and a close friend I had a rocky relationship with at the time. I lived in Mathes Hall which compared to most dorms, was a majority quieter than any other place I’d visited on campus. My hall was usually silent, aside from every other month when someone a few doors away would invite their friends. The night life could be heard from my window as packs of students walked up and down North Garden Street in search of a party, and at the time I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. This affected my roommate and I pretty harshly, especially since we both considered ourselves somewhat extroverts. We’d try making conversation with people we bumped into in the elevator or around the community kitchen, but to us it seemed that no one really bothered to talk or continue a conversation that wasn’t surface level.
I had a big identity change when I came to Western. I was learning how to be more myself than ever before. How would I act around those I was just meeting? They didn’t know my past and it was my decision to share any of it. A big part of making friends is sharing yourself and sharing who you think you are. Being away from family and friends who knew the person you grew up as, to becoming the person you were meant to be can be scary, but necessary. We need to think for ourselves in order to become ourselves, and if we act like what others wished us to be, then we aren’t really in control of our lives. What you do and who you are should be your decision, and I struggled with this concept for a bit. Being a people pleaser has definitely pushed me into social situations I’ve not wanted to be in, which is why it’s important to be aware of what you want and who you want to become. Step by step it gets easier. The more I’ve found people I can trust and get along with, the more myself I feel. Everytime I pass Mathes Hall, I think of who I was when I started at Western and I feel proud of myself because I’ve evolved in the best ways and met so many people I’ve ended up having amazing friendships with.
Student Tales
In order to see if my freshman experience was universal, I asked a few of my friends about their stories in terms of making connections on campus, and how they felt during their first quarter or year. I started with a friend of mine from math class, a freshman at Western, Victoria Vickers.
How easy or hard do you find it’s been to make friends on campus?
“I think finding friends on campus is almost impossible. I was lucky enough to move here with a bunch of people I grew up with, but I think if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have many friends. Although I would have my roommates, a lot of on campus events are split up by where you live, making the amount of people going to those events significantly smaller.” – Victoria Vickers, Freshman
Did you have more friends back home or at school?
“Like I said, a lot of my friends moved with me, but I feel like college makes all conversations surface level. You ask how their day is and what they plan on majoring in and then move onto the next person and do the same thing. So I feel like I have more friends here but they aren’t the same type of friends.” – Victoria Vickers, Freshman
How lonely would you say you felt this quarter?
“I don’t think I felt lonely this quarter until a week or so before we went home for Thanksgiving and then I started missing home and all the people there. On a scale from 1-10 I was probably a 4.” – Victoria Vickers, Freshman
If you have any other friends in other dorm areas, have they had a different experience from you in terms of making friends?
“I haven’t really made any friends through classes or on campus. All of my friends are my roommates or friends of my roommates.” – Victoria’s Roommate Audri, Freshman
Do you feel other students are more closed off or open to meet people here at Western?
“I think everyone wants to meet new people so bad they forget to slow down and actually get to know people. And getting to know people is what makes friends, not just meeting them.”
– Victoria Vickers, Freshman
If you are a freshman reading this, chances are what Victoria is talking about might resonate with you. I know personally I felt the same way as her last year. The right friendships come along, but we can’t pinpoint when. Being new to a place, surrounded by people who are eager to meet others who don’t yet know how to present themselves in their “college form” can be difficult. University is a time of identity formation. We are so eager to make friends, but at the same time we could still be figuring out who we are, which then makes it harder to share and connect.
Student Tales
With almost the same questions, I asked a fellow second-year and then a third-year how they felt in their experience.
How easy or hard did you find it was to make friends on campus your freshman year?
“Actually quite difficult as I’m not someone who feels fully comfortable in crowds, and the classes were majorly content based.” – DJ Holmer, Sophomore
“It was honestly a really hard struggle. I was a part of the incoming freshman class during 2020, so on top of covid restrictions, all classes were online. From what I remember, even the gym and VU were closed until spring quarter, and it felt like the entire university was on halt until the following year. I also lived off campus which made it exponentially harder to make friends because not only did I have to go out of my way, I had no idea where to begin. I only knew my roommate and two other people for the majority of my freshman year.” – Abbey Raynes, Junior
Did you have more friends back home or at school?
“I have more friends here.” – DJ Holmer, Sophomore
“I definitely had way more friends back at home, which made it even harder to be down here. For all of my life, I lived in the same area until I graduated high school and I had such an immense support system back at my hometown. Being thousands of miles away, I missed my family and childhood friends because that was home for me and I couldn’t fly back and forth as easily as an in-state student.” – Abbey Raynes, Junior
If there was difficulty making friends at school, why do you think that was?
“It was hard because I never really found a place to click my freshman year, I was scared of school, so opportunities were scarce.” – DJ Holmer, Sophomore
“I feel that a large part of why it’s so difficult to find friends is, in my opinion, due to the fastness of the quarter system. We are so used to being stuck with the same classes for a majority of the year, but in college we only have a few months to get to know someone everyday. It’s so fast paced and that doesn’t give people enough time to develop meaningful relationships with others. I’ve even heard from other people that there’s a layer of superficialness when you get to know people because it’s always the same redundant things being said like, “What’s your major?”, “Oh, have you heard of this professor?”, “Oh, I’m so ready for the quarter to be over”, etc. It’s the small talk that becomes, quite frankly, annoying and boring, that we become accustomed to rather than getting to actually know one another. On top of that, we are college students, and we’re busy! Whether that be assignments or part time jobs, life can be difficult to navigate and in my experience, it’s hard to meet with friends regularly because of how much stuff we’ve got going on, separate from our academic lives—which also takes a huge chunk of our time.” – Abbey Raynes, Junior
How lonely would you say you felt your first year at Western?
“It wasn’t lonely per say because I did have some good friends but, I am no social butterfly.” – DJ Holmer, Sophomore
“To be honest, it was probably the loneliest I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I didn’t have any friends, or ones that I would see on a regular basis, and it was so isolating in comparison to my life back at home. Because I didn’t have the dorm experience, that also made it ten times worse because I didn’t have people to surround myself with 24/7. It was probably one of the toughest years I’ve ever had, and it kind of forced me to become more independent–which I was eventually thankful for, but overall it was a sucky year for me.” – Abbey Raynes, Junior
If you had friends in other dorm areas/living areas, did they have a different experience from you in terms of making friends?
“My friends in other areas did have different experiences, it was very interesting to see the dynamics of the campus locations differ.” – DJ Holmer, Sophomore
“Maybe it’s just specific to the friends I’ve made the past couple years because most of us have lived off campus, but they all also shared similar sentiments. In a way, it was comforting knowing that we were all sad and lonely, but at the same time I wish we had gotten to know each other before we had to experience the feeling of isolation and loneliness that college brings because that was one of the worst years for all of us. Even one of my friends who lived in the dorm my freshman year felt inhibited by not only covid, but the stress of putting yourself out there in an environment where it feels like everyone has already found their “friends”, when most of the time they are in the same boat as us— some just disguise it better than others.” – Abbey Raynes, Junior
Did you feel students were more closed off or open to meeting people at the time?
“I think being freshmen, everyone kinda had a whole “everyones gonna judge me” so people were very big on keeping to themselves.” – DJ Holmer, Sophomore
“I felt that people were way more open minded because we all wanted that connection, especially after being in quarantine for a good part of the year. Yet, I think people were afraid to reach out because of rejection or, in my case, didn’t know where to start. I didn’t have any resources to make friends except for the WWUVikings2024 page that was created, where I actually ended up becoming great friends with someone I’m still friends with today. I think we were all sad and lonely, but with that isolation comes self doubt and anxiety about putting yourself out there, which is so real, especially when you’re entering a world with 16,000 absolute strangers and no one you know.” – Abbey Raynes, Junior
Quarantine had an undeniable effect on students and people everywhere. The time for socialization for a majority if not all of us was lost, obviously for a good reason, but nonetheless it doesn’t take away from the fact that crucial steps to our independence were taken away. Most people spent their isolation on social media which often led those to compare themselves to others they saw. How come we didn’t have this much fun? How come I can’t make these connections? Quarantine forced us to become friends with ourselves, and you could no longer distract yourself with as many people as you wanted. For some this was fairly positive, but for others it took a negative turn. When we finally have the opportunity to get out and meet others, a new set of anxiousness comes after being stuck inside for so long. However with time and learning the ways around campus, it will become easier.
What To Do
Let yourself feel nervous and out of place. The “lonely first-year funk” is such a universally known experience and the best thing to focus on as you start college is getting your footing in the life you want to start living. Putting your efforts into school is a great way to begin and slowly, as you go from class to class, you will find yourself feeling more and more comfortable with the world around you. Once you become connected to your campus or wherever you live, it becomes even easier to start feeling comfortable with yourself and soon with others. Let time be your guide and know that what you feel is completely valid, but remember that college is about discovering who you’re meant to become. Don’t be afraid of change and what’s meant to happen will happen. Learn who you are, be yourself, and be genuine. I wish you luck. Have a good year at Western.