We have all heard the classic advice that the key to making and maintaining friendships at university is to “put yourself out there.” For those of us who found making friends in school particularly difficult, university is perceived as the prime time to find “your people.” And yet, student loneliness, flat, and friendship fallouts continue to run rampant among the lives of university students. This begs the question: have we really moved on from high school?
It is unsurprising that what students most associate with cliquey behaviour at Edinburgh University can be summed up in one word: Pollock. A second year HCA student spoke of how “people will show up in big friendship groups from their schools” and “not be interested in talking to anyone else.” They mentioned that this would be a larger case especially if these “prospective friends are working class/Scottish,” and hence there being a “class element to it that they wouldn’t admit to.” Another student similarly commented on cliquey behaviour: “Lol everything that goes on in Pollock. The Londoners live in their own bubble and I found that quite jarring upon arrival.” Speaking to Edinburgh Napier student Jack Gold, he reasoned cliquey behaviour to be more common at University of Edinburgh because “’Uni of’ students can be more pretentious and care far more about upholding their reputation.”
Unfortunately, Pollock is not the only accommodation where students have found trouble. Though the proximity principle would suggest that people in closer physical environments are more naturally likely to become groups, the living space was also heavily reported as where many students had fallen out. A third year Medicine student recalled how they had witnessed a subgroup forming in their first year flat which lead to “a slight exclusion of other flatmates,” where the group had also “eventually ostracized one of its own due to bitchy behaviour.” Neve, a second year English student, added: “Most friendship group arguments I know at uni are because of flat related issues; I also think just the proximity of living with people and sharing spaces can lead to tension.”
Speaking of the ‘Second-year curse’, Katie Bean, a final year Neuroscience student, explained how friendship tensions were not just exclusive to Edinburgh, but also experienced by students at other universities. Her friends had experienced the same, that “once living with each other, they realised it wasn’t cut out to be.” She said, “you think you know them, that they’re your best friends for life, then second year hits and it all comes crumbling down.”
On the other hand, low contact hours is another factor that has made friendship making at university more difficult for students. A third year English Literature student voiced that “it can feel very isolating if you have very few contact hours, especially in terms of humanity subjects.” Similarly, a second year HCA student explained, “I think the tendency is for people to show up to lectures and then go home. People don’t see and talk to one another everyday like in high school.”
The most commonly experienced friendship ‘hurdle’ however, was a lack of effort. One student admitted that it was “exhausting meeting new people if you already love the friends you have.” Others explained friendship making at university as a “huge learning curve compared to school” and “much more of an effort to have to go out of your way.” In the same vein, for students, societies can feel like an exclusive group where members make less of an effort to include newcomers. One third year student confessed that they had previously refrained from joining a society as “you can tell with some societies that there’s a main friend group and it feels a little awkward to interact with them.” Skill-based societies, such as sports teams and debate societies, were most commonly reported as exhibiting cliquey behaviour, with one student claiming that it was much easier to talk to members once you had actually “settled into the group” and you could “see its not cliquey.” Another student identified however, that “those who had done the thing before are usually much faster accepted into the fold.”
Overall, students claimed that friendships can take time and patience, that people become “less cliquey the longer uni goes on.” Similarly, clique behaviour seems to happen unconsciously for most; as Katie explained, “people who are in cliques don’t know they are doing it consciously. They just don’t go out and make any extra effort.”
As it is undeniable that many factors are at play which can make it increasingly difficult for students to find their place at an institution, perhaps it is time to rethink the friendship group model. That is, time to start making a conscious effort, become self aware against any cliquey behaviour, and to begin consciously acting inclusive towards others. Time to finally go against the herd.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash