Picture this. After hours of sweating through your shirt and lugging boxes of clothes and storage bins up the stairs, you’ve finally said your goodbyes to your family, who have now left you in your first-year dorm room. Wait, you don’t need to picture this, it’s actually happening. 

Well, in that case, welcome to Fordham University! We’re glad you’re here. Put aside the panicking about where your classes are and what’s good to eat around here (spoiler alert: nothing), because we’re going to discuss maybe the most important thing: how to make friends. 

Not to sound cliche and say, “it was so easy to make friends as a child,” but yeah, it really was. I made my first friend ever by going up to the first girl I saw in my kindergarten classroom and saying, “Hi! I’m Cristina. Do you want to be friends?” She hid behind her mom and looked at me like I was an alien. But hey, she’s stuck around for the past 15 years, and she’s also here at Fordham with me, so I think it worked. (Hey Lauren!) 

But, it’s truly as simple as that. You will meet the best people at Fordham just by saying hello. I met my friends Maddie, Juliana and Cate by knocking on their doors after my dad left me at school. I met my friend Sanya after playing Uno on our first night in the dorm lounge. I met my friend Sammi over the summer while talking on Instagram, sharing clubs we were excited to join. 

I truly think this is the best way to make friends at Fordham. Say hi to the person behind you in line at Urban Kitchen. Invite the person in the laundry room with you to dinner. Knock on your neighbor’s door and talk to them. There are so many ways to make friends at Fordham, and it’s important to remember that everyone is in the same boat: everyone is new, everyone is scared and everyone is looking for a friend. 

You’ll also get the opportunity to sign up for clubs on the first day of classes at the annual club fair. All 200+ clubs at Fordham will have tables around Eddie’s, begging for you to join. Sign up for anything and everything under the sun that sounds fun to you. I think I went home from the club fair last year with 40 welcome emails from different clubs. It’s a great way to meet people with similar interests, and you can pick which clubs you stick with for the year. 

You can also find friends in class. I’ve bonded with classmates over some of the best and worst professor experiences. My political science class spent the nights before our exams studying together in the dorm classroom, playing Kahoot until midnight. My roommate’s psychology class went out to coffee together with their professor. 

Another great way to meet people at Fordham is to find other students interested in going out to explore New York City! A spur-of-the-moment decision one night brought me to a Taylor Swift DJ night in Manhattan one of the first weeks of school with 15 other Fordham first-years who were complete strangers to me. Now, they are familiar faces I see around campus and can say hello to, all because we have a shared interest in music. Find someone who wants to go to a Rangers game, run a marathon or picnic in Central Park. There are so many people at Fordham, you just need to find your people. Once you find them, there are endless opportunities in NYC to have fun, explore and make memories.