Making friends at freshers' week
Where are you from? What course are you doing? What A-levels did you do? What grades did you get? Where are you staying? What clubs have you joined?
*YAWN*

With the same questions spewing out of everyone's mouths you'll be hard pressed to have an original conversation, or to stand out from the crowd. If you want people to remember your name you best come up with some more entertaining ways to make friends.


Ice breakers:
Wear a T-shirt with the answers to all the above questions and say, "fancy a pint?" instead.

Say: "I'm from Mars, I already have a PhD in Cybernetics and just came down to Earth for the party".

Dress obscurely; those lime green hot pants are sure to pass comment. Especially if you're a guy.

Get yourself a famous mate/lover and get them to drop you off at uni. Make sure they are credible; everyone will want to know you.

Organise the party to end all parties at your halls, for which the entrance password is your name, everyone will have a great time, and know you were responsible for it.

General tips to becoming popular:

Get out more. The TV is not your friend: the East End Mitchells are fictional, go meet some real people.

Talk to strangers. Your mum may well have told you to stay away from them as a kid, but parties are for meeting people. By making the first move you have taken the pressure off the other person and they will probably be relieved to have someone to talk to.

Join a club or two - whatever your interest, be it scuba or sewing there will be something for you and it is much easier to talk to people when you have common interests.

Smile.

Introduce yourself early on in the conversation, and take an interest in the other person's answers.

Ask open-ended questions that allow the chat to flow easily, rather than closed questions that are just going to be answered with a simple 'yes' or 'no' and an awkward silence as you try to think of something interesting to say.

If you hit it off, swap email addresses or phone numbers, if you contact them again a chain reaction will be set off where you will be out meeting more and more people. As always, consider your personal safety with anyone you don't know very well, and don't rush into giving them your home address or similar details straight away.

Friendships tend to just happen, it just takes the effort to get talking to people and to stay in touch. It won't happen overnight, so don't panic if you didn't make that lifelong best friend by day three of Freshers Week.

Avoid campus freak.



Dye your hair pink, adjust your dress sense, and pretend to be a completely different person who just moved in after 'Fred' dropped out.

Match them up with another clinger; they can cry on each other's shoulders, you can live again.

Spend your student loan on a hit man.

Claim to have a contagious disease.

Take them to new members night at a cult, then they can worship something other than you.