October 9, 2020, by Agnes

Socially Distanced Socialising – Making new friends during a pandemic

One of the biggest parts of the ‘University Experience’ is entering an environment full of new people. In usual circumstances, your first few weeks would be filled with attending events and activities and lectures full of opportunities to make new friends. Although this might not be the case this year, it doesn’t mean that your social life is over before it even began – here are some ways you can make friends without leaving your room!

Society social media pages

It may be difficult for societies to organise in-person events for the first few months of the year. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t the best way to make friends with common interests! Some societies may be able to run their events as usual with social distancing measures in place, some may be organising virtual events instead – either way, check out their social media pages and see what’s on offer! You can find the list of all the societies and sports here.

 

Accommodation group chats

Finding out which accommodation you’ll be staying in is really exciting – I remember going on Facebook and looking for a group chat as soon as I found out. This is so great for finding your future flatmates, corridor-mates or even block-mates. Also, if it turns out you don’t get along with your flatmates as much as you expected – you’ve got other people nearby to hang out with!

 

Course group chats and forums

In addition to accommodation group chats, you can find course-specific (student-ran) ones! These can be a great place for you to meet your future study buddy or even best mate. Apart from these, a lot of courses have official forums, e.g. Maths has created a discord server for students to interact on!

 

Student-ran Facebook groups

These are great because they’re created for students by students so they’re a really fun way to meet people! Simply type ‘University of Nottingham’ into the Facebook search bar and explore the different groups you can join. I recommend ‘University of Nottingham Freshers 2020-2021’ and other similar Freshers-specific groups!

Remember, this is all temporary! Hopefully, soon we can go back to our usually scheduled socialising. For now though, please be safe and follow the government guidelines. 

 

Good luck! 

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn