Aspects of Friendship in College
Transition from High School to College
College offers a new setting in which young adults can try different activities and identities and form new interests and friendships (Oswald & Clark, 2003). Almost all college students in Oswald and Clark’s (2003) research reported finding a new ‘closest’ friend during the first month of college. Many high school students are leaving home for the first time and their friends are going in opposite directions from them. This causes a strain on these friendships they experience many changes during the first year of college. By the end of the first year, about half of high school friendships drop down to either close or casual friendships. However, maintaining a friendship might be helpful for buffering isolation and promoting adjustments to college. Strong social interaction and positive friendships aid in the adjustment to university life.
Gender
Gender is consistently important in the friendships of college students. Research has shown that the friendships of women are deeper, more supportive, closer and lower in conflict when compared to friendships of men (Demir & Orthel, 2011).
Diversity
Nine years after college, students exposed to diversity at their university reported more diversity in their neighborhood, work and friendship settings (Fischer, 2008). Research found that adults who interacted in diverse settings as children were more likely to have close diverse friendships as adults. Universities and colleges have a compelling concern for recruiting and retaining a diverse student population in order to prepare their attendees for citizenship in a diverse democracy (Park, 2012). Students do not arrive on campus with blank slates; many come with year...
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King, A. R., & Terrance, C. (2008). Best friendship qualities and mental health symptomatology among young adults. Journal Of Adult Development, 15(1), 25-34. doi:10.1007/s10804- 007-9031-6
Oswald, D. L., & Clark, E. M. (2003). Best friends forever?: High school best friendships and the transition to college. Personal Relationships, 10(2), 187-196. doi:10.1111/1475- 6811.00045
Park, J. J. (2012). When race and religion collide: The effect of religion on interracial friendship during college. Journal Of Diversity In Higher Education, 5(1), 8-21. doi:10.1037/a0026960
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In my life, I have been friends with many people since I was little. Although I have met all six kinds of friends of Viorst, convenience friends and close friends are two important kinds of friends in my life. First, we will talk about the kind of friend we meet every day, the convenience friends. Viorst described them in her book: “these are the neighbors, office mates, or members of our carpool whose lives routinely intersect with ours.” (1).
College helps students learn interpersonal skills. Being in college is way for students to socialize better. Living on campus students have many opportunities to interact with many different types of people. Students also can develop better social skills whether it is by partying or joining different clubs and organizations. “According to Arthur Chickering's "Seven Vectors" student development theory, ‘developing mature interpersonal relationships’...
The diversity comes along with the friends one keeps and how their friends influence their social behaviors. College offers a chance for learning different and most often new perspectives in life and also provides a platform for bridging the students’ divides or differences. It provides the students with a new opportunity to construct their lives a fresh irrespective of their initial lives in high school. However, most of the students do not take advantage of the diversity in college but instead try to make the college life as comfortable as possible. They try to stick to their high school way of life as much as possible instead of exploring a different lifestyle. They tend to replicate their friends from high school, and join groups that are similar to the ones they previously belonged to in high school. Instead of taking advantage of the diverse networking opportunity available in college, they keep friends who are not diverse in their perceptions and way of life. “They prefer to keep friends who share the same ideas and believe as theirs and thus their characters turn into lifelong habits that stick even after they leave school for the employment world”
Marion Winik’s “What Are Friends For?” expresses the characteristics of friendships and their importance in her existence. Winik begins by stating her theory of how some people can’t contribute as much to a friendship with their characteristic traits, while others can fulfill the friendship. She illustrates the eight friendships she has experienced, categorized as Buddies, Relative Friends, Work Friends, Faraway Friends, Former Friends, Friends You Love to Hate, Hero Friends, and New Friends. In like manner, the friendships that I have experienced agree and contradict with Winik’s categorizations.
Friendship expectations play a huge role in “establishing, maintaining, and terminating friendships” thus playing a factor of ones’ interpretations and through their affiliations (West & Turner, 2016). A companionship is dependent on
When diversity is being discussed, there are a plethora of ideas that are associated with it. Whether people are talking being put on a waitlist for college, about people of color, or about representation in the media, the subject of diversity is not rare. Recently, the conversation of diversity has become more common because colleges want to demonstrate that they have diversified campus. How would diversity on campus be defined? Most importantly, diversity is more than having an extraordinary personality. Race, gender, sexuality, and social status are a few of the superfluous traits that make an individual unique in a college’s eyes. In Sophia Kerby’s article, “10 Reasons Why We Need Diversity on College Campuses”, she notes that, while there has already been an effort to diversify high schools and middle schools, accepting students of different backgrounds is not as apparent in higher education (1) . A university desires to diversify its campus in order to benefit the students that are attending the college. Students are not only likely to improve
The issue that many adolescents face is the amount of time to spend with each person and when to spend that time with them. Many times, seeing friends outside of school can also be an issue for adolescents due to strict and overprotective parents, so for many, lunch time at school was the only opportunity that they could get. However, free time is limited in an institutional setting, forcing students to go through the pressure of having to choose between managing old friendships or spending time with new ones. As seen in the students at Raven Haven, this choice was one that required much thought as it could disrupt existing friendships. For example, Marina rarely socialized with her friends outside of school, knowingly angering Isabelle, while the other three would make an effort to do so (Amit-Talai, 244). As found throughout, Amit-Talai’s study, the organizational structure has the most impact on a friendship during the adolescent
This activity is to understand how our conflict style can impact our relationships and to reflect on how we can improve our relationships by managing these conflicts. “Friend ship is a voluntary relationship that provides social support” (Adler, Rosenfeld & Proctor II, 2012, p. 384). Friendships we create, are managed and maintained through communication. Our level of communication depends on the level and depth of the friendship. There are different types of friendships, some last for short period, some last for years or life time. All friendships are not created equal. Gender of the friend plays a significant role in communication.
(Pittman and Richmond 2008). Pittman and Richmond (2008) recruited a sample of 79 first-year college students from an introduction to psychology course at a regional state university to assess their sense of belonging in college and quality of friendship in relation to their adjustment. They first collected information from participants during the fall semester and another during the spring semester to obtain a more accurate result. The sample consisted of 58 women and 21 men in between the age of 18 to 19 years old. Researchers collected information from participants using a questionnaire to assess their demographic, sense of belonging at the college, quality of friendship, self-competence, which can be defined as a student’s performance level toward academic work and social acceptance, and problem behaviors such as aggressiveness, anxiety, and
Friend has always been regarded as a precious gift presented to human beings. Without friendship, life is completely meaningless. However, building up and keeping a long-last relationship with friend is not simple as there exists many elements contributing to the lifespan of friendship in which communication is included. Samter (2003) points out five mainly necessary competencies for establishing and preserving friendship, which are initiation, responsiveness, self-disclosure, emotional support and conflict management. However, due to length limitation, the essay will focus solely on three main domains: initiation, self-disclosure, and conflict management as well as role of communication and signals of an ending friendship.
The long-running stereotype that men and women cannot be “just friends” is demonstrated from casual friends all the way to friendships at work. And with 61 percentage of women in the workplace in 1990 (The First Measured Century), it’s a stereotype that is getting harder to break. For years, development of men and women’s friendships has been a trope in TV and movies. Boy and girl become friends, guy develops feelings, girl gets boyfriend, guy becomes jealous and confesses feelings, and girl realizes she’s been in love with guy all along (Borreli, L. 2016). These expectations of men and women in friendships are bad for business though. Cross-sex friendships are crucial in the workplace. Friends in the workplace provide information, networking, and support that are invaluable for both job performance and satisfaction (Kimmel & Aronson 2014, 542). Bonds between cross-sex friendships are charging according to a study. Men and women often see each other as friends or confidants rather than romantic interests. There are other types of bonds than romantic connections that can occur and does occur between males and
Many individuals claim that college represents the best years of their lives. Socializing plays a large role in this famous saying. What exactly is socialization? It is the manner in which individuals interact with each other. Socialization offers a student the opportunity to meet new people. Each student has his or her own approach to meeting fellow students. While some find it easy to make new friends, others are not as comfortable with the process. Factors such as attending a public or catholic school, coed or single sex school, play a role in the development of one’s interactive skills. From my experience, I have noticed that I do not have an easy time conversing with women, probably because of my having attended an all boys’ high school. Many times the students with whom I quickly connect come from a similar background. Each person’s experience determines how...
The journey of life follows a predetermined pattern; we evolve from needing influence and guidance to finally reaching that point where our lives are up to us. I consider myself very lucky up to this point in my journey. Some people become sidetracked and wind up on a far different course than initially planned, but the detours I made have only assisted in embellishing the individual instead of devouring it.
Friendships are based on a completely different set of structural relationships to those with parents. They are more symmetrical and involve sharing and exchange. Friendships are important to young children but there is a change at the beginning of adolescence -- a move to intimacy that includes the development of a more exclusive focus, a willingness to talk about oneself and to share problems and advice. Friends tell one another just about everything that is going on in each other's lives... Friends literally reason together in order to organise experience and to define themselves as persons.
Friendship is the most wonderful relationship that anyone can have. Ideally a friend is a person who offers love and respect and will never leave or betray us. Friends can tell harsh truths when they must be told. There are four different types of friends: True friends, Convenient friends, Special interest friends, and historical friends. To have friendship is to have comfort. In times of crisis and depression, a friend is there to calm us and to help lift up our spirits.