Photo by Claire McCulloch.
I’ll never forget the moment I met my now-best friends at Ryerson. It was nearing the end of the day of journalism frosh. Tired from the city-wide scavenger hunt we had done, I decided to head back to my room before dinner. On my way down the wall, I saw four girls walking. I’d met two of them earlier in the day; so when I walked close enough to hear that they were talking about going to McDonald’s to get ice cream, I felt comfortable enough to ask if I could join them.
Looking back, I’m shocked at my courage. Normally I would never invite myself to hang out with people who I barely knew. But I had come to a university where I could count the number of people I knew on the fingers on my right hand. In some way, I think this encouraged me to leave my comfort zone and take the initiative to be proactive in making friends. It paid off—because not only did the girls say yes, but we had an amazing time at McDonald’s. We talked all about our lives over ice cream, then went back to the journalism frosh dinner together.
Later that night, I checked my phone to see a stream of messages. I didn’t recognize the names; then I blinked, looked again and I realized what I was looking at. I’d been added to a group chat with the four girls I’d eaten ice cream with. Fast forward to the next week, when classes started; we were waiting for each other outside the lecture hall and sitting together in the SLC between classes. Fast forward to the end of first semester, and we were sitting in Panera Bread exchanging Secret Santa gifts. Fast forward to today, and I’m so happy to say that I made lifelong friends that day at frosh.
Making friends was probably the thing I was most nervous about when coming to university. It’s scary, obviously, to leave friends from high school and come to a place where you know significantly less people. It’s comforting to remember, though, that making new friends in university doesn’t mean losing your friends from high school. You just have to put in a little more effort to maintain those friendships. One of my best friends from high school and I used to study together at the library all the time; in university, when we were five hours away from each other, we maintained our tradition by studying on FaceTime, asking each other questions about citations as we wrote essays and read textbooks.
I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I made such great friends so early in my time at Ryerson; I’ve made lots of other great friends along the way too (I just love telling the McDonald’s ice cream story). If you’re new to Ryerson or university in general, try not to stress about making friends—because trust me, you will make friends if you put yourself out there even just a little bit. During the first few weeks of university, everyone is in the same boat that you are. If you’re sitting beside someone new, chances are they’d love for you to start up a conversation and get to know them. It can be scary to leave your comfort zone and talk to new people, but it is absolutely worth it. Who knows? You might meet your best friends. I know I did.
Header image by Becca Tapert on Unsplash.