New year, new semester, new opportunity to make friends.

As leaves turn golden, so does your chance to rediscover passions and values. However, an unconventional setting such as academics can also serve as a barrier if you find yourself in a widely unfamiliar environment while renavigating social relationships.

This post aims to share some tips and tricks that worked for me as someone who’s moved around. I hope it does you some good too.

Simple Beginnings (hint: making them slightly complicated)

First and foremost, connections are usually started with the exchange of pleasantries.

While these can be your standard “Hey!” or “Excuse me!”, I’ve found it helpful to ask an active question, that is, something that elicits an extended response such as, “Have I seen you around before?” or “Do you know what we’re supposed to know for the next quiz?”.

While these can also face lukewarm responses, if the other party has intentions to talk, these questions are a great way to jumpstart a relationship. They help let the other party know you’re interested in having a conversation.

A unique thing about the engineering discipline here is the ability to bring up relevant events; no matter what class year, Entry to a Major (ETAM) is a great topic of interest. Relating about how daunting the ETAM program is, the struggles and challenges of it, as well as individual opinions on opportunities presented in engineering (career fairs, internships, etc.), can be common ground for conversation.