College is meant for advancing your education, but making new friends is an important aspect of having a healthy and well-balanced lifestyle. Between the lectures, assignments, and tests, it can be difficult to forge friendships in the classroom. However, while at home in off campus housing, PSU students have plenty of time and opportunities to get to know each other. The odds of making friends increase even more if you follow these four tips from The Station State College, a student housing community.
1. Hang Out With Your Roommates
Sociological research says two people have to spend around 50 hours together to go from being acquaintances to casual friends. If you think for a moment about which people you spend the most time with each day, chances are the first to come to mind will be your roommates. In the cottage-style townhomes at The Station State College, you can live with up to four roommates. Some of them may be current acquaintances, while a few you might have met through our roommate-matching services. Either way, by spending even modest amounts of time interacting with your roommates every day, you’ll quickly develop strong bonds of friendship.
2. Invite Over Your Neighbors
Whereas college dorms are positioned closely together, our cottages are spaced apart, so residents have more peace and quiet from fewer adjoining walls. But just because you can’t hear your neighbors doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invite them over. In traditional apartment communities, residents are often private. But students are outgoing and tend to identify with each other as part of the same peer group. In other words, walking up to your neighbors when you see them, introducing yourself, and even inviting them over isn’t considered too forward as it would be in other, more conservative settings. In fact, when it comes to making friends in college, boldness is rewarded.
3. Be Yourself
A media pioneer once wrote a book titled “You Are The Message,” where the premise was that your real personality is, in fact, the most marketable and appealing version of yourself to an audience. Although you may not be interested in a career on cable news, the same principle applies to meeting new people in college. Everyone knows someone with a magnetic personality, a person who can waltz into any room and immediately get attention and friendly responses. But if that’s not how you roll, don’t worry about it! When you meet people, whether you know them well or not, let your true personality come through, because your authenticity is what will ultimately impress them most of all.
4. Live Around Student Activities
There are lots of choices for off campus housing near PSU. But a community that’s conducive to student activities provides residents with more opportunities to make friends. The Station State College offers spacious cottage-style townhomes with private bedrooms and shared living spaces for roommates. We’re also an amenities-driven community, featuring a pool area, fitness center, clubhouse, and other amenities for residents to share and in the process socialize with each other. An amazing off campus lifestyle awaits you near Penn State. Contact us to learn more.