Freshman friend groups are infamous for falling apart, but the truth is, that’s not a reason to hold back; you must dive in. Even if your initial bonds shift, the connections you make can open doors you wouldn’t have otherwise known existed.
I understand the hesitation to buy in. Friendships made early freshman year are often built around convenience, surface-level interests, and perhaps a shared fear of eating in the dining hall alone. They’re not always built to last. But that doesn’t mean it’s better to avoid investing in a friend group early on.
I had an abnormal start to college. I participated in the Tufts Civic Semester, so I spent my freshman fall in a small town in Peru with just eleven other Tufts students. We spent most of the semester living on a small compound, taking classes together, hiking mountains together, and partying at the discoteca together. We became close quickly. Nothing bonds a group like collectively getting food poisoning while sharing clogged toilets.
I didn’t exactly have a wealth of alternatives, but it’s fair to say I invested early and heavily in a core group.
When we arrived on the Tufts campus in the spring, it seemed like many groups had already solidified. Many of us were worried that there would not be room for us to branch out. Luckily, we were wrong. Making friends wasn’t hard at all. And coming into the second semester as a group was far easier than if we had gone into the semester alone.
Each of us made new friends on our own while enjoying the security of a group to lean on when things got hard. We made friends with each other’s friends, and soon had expanded our group into a beautiful web of connections.
This is no different than starting the fall semester with a strong core group. It will guarantee that everyone at Tufts is about two degrees of separation away from one another. Maximum. A freshman core group at Tufts is useful for more than giving you someone to walk with to the lacrosse house or sit next to at bingo night. You will find your people one way or another, but the most strategic way is through the social fabric that a group provides.
I met my best friend in the world, Cora, just like this–randomly and easily, facilitated by our web of freshman year connections. On the first day of sophomore year, a friend from Peru introduced us, and within an hour, it felt like we’d known each other forever. Investing early on in a core group didn’t prevent me from finding her at all; it was exactly how I found her.
Now as a junior, I can say with complete confidence that there is nothing to lose by going all in. I’ve stayed incredibly close with the vast majority of my friends from Peru. While we’re not a “friend group” anymore and have all branched out to make new connections, we stay in close contact. In fact, four of us live together off campus this year.
Even if your core group falls apart by November, you lose nothing from investing time into it early on. It may be the seed from which your new group is born. There’s nothing forcing you to stay in the same group forever, so if you really need a change, you don’t have to look too far to find it. I’ve found that half the student body is looking for someone new to sit with in Kindlevan, anyway.
Deep social investment pays off not just in the relationships that it fosters, but in the reach that it provides. So, freshmen: devote yourselves to loving deeply and with abandon. Lean in to the insanity and chaos it takes to go from a group of strangers to a family. Maybe the group you join during O-week won’t be the same group you host your grad party with, but that doesn’t make them less important. They’ll still be the people who got you through the hardest part of the Tufts experience, and they might be the ones that lead you to a Cora of your own.