Personal Experience
I started classes at UW Madison fall of 2020 as a transfer student from a technical college. As you can imagine, starting a new college during a pandemic can be TERRIFYING. I didn’t know anyone on campus to begin with, and on top of that, we now had a whole YEAR of online classes. This made my year of online learning very lonely and honestly, quite difficult. Oh, and I also do not live on campus…so there’s that.
Follow along with my post to read about how I was able to find friends during these tough times.
Discussions
While it may seem a little nerdy, attending online discussion sessions is where I met probably 90% of my friends at UW this year. Typically, you stay with one group of about 20 or so students the whole semester. This allows you to form a close knit group of people who are also taking the same class as you. This made it super easy to start Snapchat groups, form study sessions, and just communicate about class or chat off topic.
Get Involved
This may seem a little obvious, but being involved on campus will allow you to form friend groups with common interests. There are countless clubs and organizations you can join for all sorts of hobbies, beliefs, and career prep. Here you can find a list of just some of the ways to get involved at UW Madison.