We have different dreams about college. For some, it’s fantastic grades. For others, it’s the adventure living away from home for the first time. We have visions of the groups we’ll join, the holidays we’ll take and the opportunity to discover ourselves. No matter what the dream is, we all need friends. And making friends in college isn’t as daunting as it seems, even if you’re shy or think you don’t know how to talk to people. In my work as a psychotherapist and coach, I’ve helped my clients make new friends in college and work situations, despite their initial fears. Here are some tips for you.
ATTEND THE FIRST FEW EVENTS YOU 'RE INVITED TO
Your first invite to join a group for an activity is actually code for “We’d like to hang out with
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You know when you watch some people speak about themselves so naturally and genuinely, and wonder “Were they born like that?”. I did. So I asked these people, what was their secret. Half of them told me that they grew up surrounded by people who talked like that, so it was “only natural” that they started speaking like that. The other half told me they were “painfully shy” or “couldn’t make small talk to save my life” but were determined to learn. So they adopted a mindset of learning from books, videos and role models. But what I got from both groups is that a confident introduction can be …show more content…
What’s good to do/see/eat around here?”
Whilst at a party/event: “Hi I’m (name), how do you know (the host?)/ are you having a good time so far?”
MASTER THE ART OF CONVERSATIONS
When I was younger, I liked to quip that I suffered from “Small Talk Disorder (STD)”. I found comfort in meeting people with the same STD, and we’d talk loads about it before proceeding to all sorts of topics. And I observed that actually, lots of small talk was interspersed between these topics. Which led me to realize that small talk isn 't that hard, and is actually a part of conversations.
My mentor Ramit Sethi says that just getting straight to the point isn’t conversation. It’s like going to a fancy restaurant, sitting down, slurping your meal and leaving. In reality, we are comforted by sets of rituals. Of course, a conversation shouldn’t just be about meaningless Small Talk. I think we need to shift our mindset away from an autopilot disgust towards Small Talk, which takes part of the pain and fear away. Here’s some simple rules:
It’s about taking turns: Notice that in the introduction scripts above, questions were directed towards the other party. No one wants to simply hear about another, people feel heard when they are given the chance to talk about themselves and
Conversation Analysis (CA) is the study of talk-within-interaction that attempts to describe the orderliness, structure and sequential patterns of interaction in conversation. It is a method of qualitative analysis developed by Harvey Sacks with the aid of Emmanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson in the late 1960s to early 1970s. Using the CA frame of mind to view stories shows us that what we may think to be simplistic relaying of information or entertaining our friends is in fact a highly organised social phenomena that is finely tuned in a way that expresses the teller’s motivation behind the talk. (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2011). It is suggested that CA relies on three main assumptions; talk is a form of social action, action is structurally organised, talk creates and maintains inter-subjectivity (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984).
The film, The Breakfast Club, is an impressive work of art, addressing almost every aspect of interpersonal communication. This is easily seen here, as I’ve gone through and shown how all these principles of interpersonal communication apply to real-life, using only two short interpersonal interactions from the movie. I’ve explained aspects of interpersonal communication, nonverbal communication, verbal misunderstandings, communication styles, gender issues, and self-disclosures. With that said, I believe I have demonstrated my ability to apply principles of interpersonal communication with simulated real-life examples.
College students who have the opportunity to attend a university rather than a community college will find that the process of making friends is an easier one. Making friends while being in college has many factors strung a lot with it. Universities present a bigger opportunity of creating lasting friendships by providing more of a social life with dorm room living, greater social events and lounges for students to hangout at all through the day. The process of making a friend is a very unique one, and it does not come easy to everyone. In all reality, attending a university over a community college is the better approach when wanting to be socially active and meeting a variety of friends.
When I began college I had a small group of friends, but when I was trying to introduce myself to new people it came as a surprise to them that my parents did not attend college. After the conversations ended, I felt uncomfortable with how to act or think because I had a feeling of misplacement when talking with my fellow peers. As a byproduct of the change in college culture, it will create a “friendlier” environment for the first generation. Students need to feel safe, rather than out of place.
This communication made me aware of the few things I need to improve when I’m having a conversation with anyone. I realised that my weakness is talking to strangers and I’m often nervous which makes me so unclear when I’m clear and I speak quite fast and get it over with, Therefore one those things that I need to improve is that I should speak clearly and learn to structure my sentence well, because I cannot have eye contact with someone I should always look at their forehead as it makes it look like I’m having eye contact with them. I should also be able not speak to fast especially when speaking to an Elderly person; I should also be able to be more specific.
After high school majority of parents want their children to go to college, graduate, have a promising career and start a family and this is the American dream. Of course going to college will earn you a career and make you financial stable with certain jobs. To earn all those things you need to work even harder to achieve them. Going through four to eight years of college is exhausting and time consuming. There are a lot of stages you go through during college starting from high school. For me I can say that it has been a long journey but it is a well worth journey because of the reward I will receive in the end. In college financial aid, teachers, assignments, and classrooms are different from high school in a major way.
Beebe, Steven, Susan Beebe, and Mark Redmond. Interpersonal Communication. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc. , 2014. Print.
From the words of the famous educational thinker and rights activist Malcolm X, “education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” (Search Quotes) . In our quick evolving flat world, jobs are given to those who have more education and the skills to work more efficiently and faster; we all have to adapt and educate ourselves to compete with the rest of the globalized world. What can our country do to adapt? The plan for free college tuition for two years in Washington State allows our county to evolve with the rest of flat world. By giving many people the tools to learn how to learn it creates an actual opportunity for low income graduates to have a college education, which
I have a great comfort in engaging others and find it easy to communicate with people. When in a group or engaging with someone one-on-one, I do not find it uncomfortable to engage in a conversation or start one. The strengths I possess in my engagement skills are that I am an extrovert, compassionate, and communicate effectively. However, I do need to work on not always starting a conversation and allowing others to talk first. I also need to improve on my listening skills instead of always feeling that I need to make a contribution to the conversation. Even though I am able to communicate effectively, I sometimes need to remember that others deserve a chance to start an
I like communicating with other people, and much of my life consists of me with my friends. Communicating with people is a good way to become social and comfortable around people. Public speaking is my least favorite part of communicating but I feel if I go into business, it will be one of the most important things to learn. If I have to give a big speech, it could be the first time several upper management bosses really hear what I have to say, and if I give a poor speech and look frightened, it could make them think I am incompetent and cannot communicate.
I used to be very shy, and not talk to a lot of people. It was a big part of my personality, and I would only talk to someone when spoken to. Wong explains how I acted very well, “My friends and family probably wouldn 't describe me as shy. But for me, being shy has always been about struggling to connect with people I don 't know. I fear the unfamiliarity of a stranger—how they might judge or reject me. Maybe there 's nothing inherently wrong with being timid, but when I started noticing how it affected my everyday life, I wanted to get it under control.” (para. 3). I started getting more and more talkative as I grew older, but one day I decided to change. I began to come out of my comfort zone. For example, I made myself talk more to people even though I was afraid of what I would say, but I made myself do it anyways. This helped me communicate a lot with people, because they began to respect me more, because I would also watch what I would say to them. I still watch what I say most of the time to people because one of my biggest fears is to offend someone on accident because of something that I said. Making myself talk to people more made me a much more outgoing person, which is a big part of who I
As I have a tendency to be quite shy, I often have difficulty with meeting and communicating with new people. I found this was especially evident during my clinical placement as a student paramedic at another university. When dealing with patients, there were often long, slightly awkward silences as continuing a conversation away from clinical questioning was quite difficult for me. Upon looking back at the interview, I’m pleased to see that I displayed quite a number of rapport building techniques throughout my conversation, and this has given me hope that my skills are perhaps improving as I mature.
Being a teenager isn’t easy. You have a lot of things on your mind, a lot of things to worry about, a lot of things to carry and when I mean carry, I mean both physically and mentally. During the 17 years of my life that I have lived so far, I believe that I have never carried this much before. Part of it I think is because it’s senior year. Actually I think that 's the biggest reason why I feel so much pressure on my shoulders. I’m pretty sure that everyone can agree on this, especially if you’ve been through it before. I’m not talking to the adults of course because I know your lives are difficult and what not, but I’m mostly talking to the teens who are currently going through the same stage of life that I’m in right now. Now I’m not saying my life is difficult in any means because I know that I
Going into college everyone expects us to know what we want to do with the rest of our life. That is a huge decision to make after living only 18 years. As teenagers we can’t decide what we want to where the next day, how are we supposed to choose what we will do for the rest of our lives? With the average cost of college ranging between $8,500 for a four-year public college and $29,000 for a four-year private college per year. (College Board) Can college students afford to make the wrong decision? Shocking facts reveal that around 75 percent students will switch majors from the time they start college till their graduation day.( Freedman) This just adds more money on to the two words no one wants to hear, “Student loans.” When we finally get to graduation the excitement is short-lived with the way the economy is going now. A college degree may not be enough to land a job that will pay the bills and 6 months later we start to get the bills for that degree.
Interaction is a significant part of our daily lives. Oral communication with others is inevitable, and therefore it is crucial for us to acquire the skills to do so correctly. Aside from simply stating words or expressing ideas, oral communication serves various purposes. Oral communication allows an individual to express emotions, ideas, and feelings; it gives people the ability to empower, inspire, and motivate those who listen; and it allows people to share knowledge and traditions, as well as build their self-esteem. Oral communication is also useful in leading us to new discoveries, ideas, cultures, and perspectives (O’Neill). Thus, oral communication serves several different purposes in daily life; yet each of these purposes are connected to an even larger purpose. According to the textbook Communication: Making Connections, “Effective communication is critical to living successfully in today’s soc...