How to make friends in lecture

By Frankie Hart and Jenna Leong, September 6 2019 —

Introduce yourself on the first day:

If you’re friendly from the get-go, they’ll know you by name and face immediately.

Offer a pen:

Everyone needs some sort of writing utensil for writing notes! Showing your care for their academic well-being from the beginning will build a beautiful foundation for your budding friendship.

If someone looks confused, offer them help:

After all, isn’t the saying “I get by with a little help from my friends?” If you help them, they’re automatically your friend now! That’s how that works.

Just talk to people:

What, did you think just staring at people will work? 

Share your notes when they’re sick:

Dependability is a great trait to find in a friend. Plus, if you get sick, they can return the favour!

The classic “Oops I dropped my pen”:

In a moment of perfectly timed ‘clumsiness,’ you will drop your pen so that it lands right under your seat neighbour’s chair. Assuming that they are polite, they will reach down to pick up your pen right as you do. Hands touch. Perhaps sparks fly, but you keep that to yourself. Years later, you watch them hanging up laundry through the window of the lakeside cabin you bought together. There are so many things you want to say, but you don’t. More years follow, and the cabin grows silent, the air constantly filled with your disdain but also lust for each other. Day by day, you both fulfill your chores, falling into a regular routine that never needs communication. When you think they’re not looking, you still steal glances. You wonder what could be, but fear that it is too late. 

Then one day, you will tragically die in a fishing accident. Alone. But you made a friend in your lecture, and that’s all that matters, right?