A few weeks ago I drove several hundred miles to drop off my oldest kid at college in California.

I went to college in the early 80s. I remember spending a lot of time with people in the dorms. People kept their doors open to say hi and chat. We weren't best friends but there was usually some one around to order pizza or go to the cafeteria with. There was a lounge where people got together to watch TV. Sometimes it was hard to find a quiet place to study.

My son seems to be having a different experience. His roommate has his own friends and is rarely around. People in his dorm keep their doors shut. The lounge is empty. It is always quiet. Two of his high school friends attending other large state universities are having the same issues.

So my question is, how do people get to know each other freshman year? What was your experience? Has technology - Facebook, cell phones, etc, changed the way people interact?

Joan

It seems so. In the 70's college was just as you described in the 80's, it was truly an 'interactive' experience. Such is not the case now. Pity.

My freshman year was 2000. The school did a commendable job in trying to host social events the first week - ice cream socials, musicians and the like, which continued sporadically through the rest of the year. (Like every Thursday night they'd have entertainment come in or the like).

My dorm was single occupancy rooms, so we were allowed to keep our doors open. The suite style rooms had to keep the outer doors shut because they were "a fire hazard." We had lounges in every dorm building to hang out in too - usually had a tv, a kitchen, pool tables.

I met most of my friends in my classes, to be honest. Two of them I met in my honors humanities class, and they introduced me to all the people they'd met in their dorm. (I was in the suites and wound up transferring to the single rooms to be closer to them.) One of them wound up introducing me one night to a girl he knew who became my best friend.

We didn't have Facebook and most of us didn't have cell phones back then. But we did have AOL instant messenger, which made it easy to coordinate with each other - "heading to dinner, wanna come?", etc.

I would suggest that he go to as many social events as possible, even if he might not be so interested in the "psychic" or whatever it is. I met my best guy friend when I was running an ice cream social (he was a freshman, I was a junior). You never know who you might meet at one!

Good luck to him!

Thanks for the feedback Morgana and Deadly Chakram.

I don't know if my son's experience is typical or not. Most of the kids in our town go to the state university which is right here so it's not the same experience as going far away to a place where you know no one.

My son is pretty outgoing and he's already attending social events, like you've suggested. He's joined the pep band too. It'll take time but he'll figure things out.

Joan

I was a freshman in '97. My best friend lived across campus (her 2nd year). I was never close with my roommate that year. A girl from my hometown lived on the same floor in the dorm. We weren't super close, but it did help to have someone I already knew to make friends that first year. My dorm had one side that was girls and the other primarily guys. Two people to a room. The side of the floor shared bathrooms and showers. The one study lounge was for the most part empty. We hung out in each other's rooms and at dinner. This was a time when pagers were more prevalent than cell phones. And before Facebook. Sounds like times have changed.
Sarah
*edit: Watching reruns of Lois and Clark was just about the only thing in common I had with my freshman roommate.