One of my biggest concerns coming to the LSE as a commuter was how I was going to make friends.
It is true. Socialising as a commuter is much more difficult. The tubes shut at midnight, you don’t have the convenience of your accommodation being a short walk away and most importantly you aren’t shoved into halls with a bunch of strangers and forced to get to know one another.
However, you most definitely can have an active, thriving social life as a commuter and I’m going to give you five golden tips that have helped me so far in making friends this term.
1. Societies, Societies, Societies
I cannot stress how important this is. Societies are probably the best opportunity you have as a commuter to make friends. From tea to boxing, there’s a society no matter your interests. Societies allow you to meet people from first year to postgraduate without the cliquishness that can be associated with people who live in accommodation. They host regular socials that give you a group to be a part of outside the people you’d meet on your course. At the end of the day, everyone at tea society is there for one reason. Because they are passionate about tea! So find something you’re passionate about, join a society and make some friends.
2. Course Mates
This one is quite self-explanatory. Course mates are another key point where you’ll likely meet a lot of your future friends. Making friends on your course can be incredibly useful in cases where you haven’t gone to class and need to catch up on some work or in reading your essays and providing feedback before they’ve been submitted. With your course mates however, you must make an effort. Try coming early to class to have a chat and get their details so you can keep in touch. Your course mates will only be as social as you are.
3. Stay On Campus as Much as Possible
As tempting as it may be to go home after your 9am class and have a snooze in, stay on campus as much as you can. Being on campus gives you the opportunity to meet people and meet up with the friends you’ve already made through your course or societies. Many social events also take place in the evening so it’s worth staying in the library and getting some work done before heading off to these events as opposed to going home and missing them. Put simply, if you don’t stay on campus and stay at home most of the time, you simply cannot expect to build quality friendships and will miss out on many opportunities.
4. Make an Effort!
Being a commuter, you’re starting at a social disadvantage, especially at the very start of term where people are sticking together with their flatmates. You need to make twice the effort someone living in halls would have to put in to make friends and to have an active social life. This means reaching out to people (as mentioned) on your course, in societies but also more generally engaging and taking the opportunity to be as socially active as you can by setting up study sessions with friends and making plans to see them outside of campus.
5. In Time
Making friends takes time and at the start of Michaelmas term as a fresher where everyone’s shy and within their own groups don’t fret that as a commuter you won’t be able to find any friends. As the year progresses people will open up and you will begin to meet people from all avenues of life, making the ‘long-life’ friends the university experience promises.
