College graduation may seem exciting; you get to see all of your hard work pay off and get your degree. Unfortunately it also includes a lot of uncertainty, everyone figuring things out at different paces, and moving away from your friends. One of the number one questions post grad students ask is “how do I make friends after college?”
Let’s be honest, it will NEVER be as easy as it was during college. With a built- in community and everyone being more or less in the same boat, that was as easy as it gets. Whether you’re living at home or in a new city, you need more people to call and hang out with then your parents and your long distance best friend. Making friends after college is vital. Here are my best tips on how to make friends after college.
Don’t alienate your college friends
Your relationship with your college friends will irrevocably change after graduation. Remember how it was after high school graduation with your home friends. You’ll have to feel out the transition, and make sure it’s nothing from your side that makes the friendship hard to sustain. Make a plan of when you’ll see each other next, or a weekly time to catch up. I have a whole post here about maintaining your college friends after graduation.
Especially if you’re not living close to your school friends, still being active in their lives is important to your friendship! I went to Penn State and I’m from Connecticut. My friends all live hours away from me, so it takes more planning to see each other. Post grad is a difficult transition, so having people to talk to about it will be helpful, even if all of your friends are figuring it out at their own speed.
Small Talk
The number one tip I can give for how to make friends after college, is to get good at small talk again. I bet you don’t remember what it was like when you first met your BFF, just that at some point you clicked and developed the friendship you have now. Meeting new people means, without a doubt, that you have to put yourself out there and talk to people you don’t know.
Think of it like a job interview. You aren’t ready for the interview unless you do some kind of prep. But, if you’ve been interviewing for months, you generally know what questions are coming and how to best answer, because you’ve practiced! Small talk is the same.
The key to a great conversation is to actively listen and ask questions. When you are genuinely interested in what someone has to say, they’ll always be a follow up question you can ask to learn more. Of course, we’ve all had those conversations, or dates, where we asked all the questions and the other person never asked a single one. You’re not going to hit it off with every conversation. Sometimes people are generally boring and don’t have much to add. Getting good at small talk and starting to talk more and more to strangers will lead you to new friends in no time.
Find People Your Age
The next best tip I can give you on how to make friends after college, is to go hang out where people your age congregate.
If you are in a new city, these spots can be found through word of mouth or via TikTok. This is not the easiest tip if you live at home. Do you want to go socialize where everyone from high school hangs out? For me personally, not really!
In my area, in the suburbs of NYC, the places people my age frequent are usually certain bars. For me, that’s a little difficult, as I don’t want to drink that often, plus I have to get up pretty early for work. Hopefully you’re not like me and have the energy to go out and socialize more. To avoid running into people I know, I tend to go to bars in neighboring towns with people my age.
If you are a guy, or looking to find a man, sports bars can be a great spot to visit. Especially in a big city, you can find many people who also like the same sport as you.
Brainstorm where people your age generally hang out in your area, or in nearby towns/cities. If you bring your small talk game and are in the right location, you can find people to broaden your social circle.
Make Friends At Work
One of the biggest adjustments from college to post grad life, and one of the reasons that post grad kinda sucks, is the loss of free time. It feels like you go to work, go home and have dinner, go to bed, then repeat. If you’re still asking how to make friends after college, maybe you don’t need to look as hard.
Questions to ask yourself
Ask yourself, is there anyone your age at work? They don’t have to be your new BFF, but are they someone you could see yourself socializing with outside of work occasionally? Even if they’re just a work friend, who makes going to work more enjoyable, you deserve that added excitement to your life.
Another question to ask yourself, does your friend have work friends? One of my best friends is a bar manager at a restaurant. It seems like all the restaurant people know each other. She tells me she met the servers at this restaurant through a co-worker who used to work there, or a friend who started working at a new restaurant. While this is very job specific, who knows who you can befriend with your BFF doing the hard work of finding them.
Everyone’s workplace is different. One of my internships was with all middle aged moms, and two 30 year olds that I became friends with. At my current job, there are only 3-5 other people in the office at a time and it’s extremely quiet. If there’s an opportunity to find friends at work, why not try?
Join A Local Club Or League
A great way to get to know people, while also doing something that you enjoy, is by joining a local club or league. Run clubs have popped up in virtually every city and are a great group to join for anyone after college. You get exercise, people join for the purpose of meeting others, and to get outside. If running isn’t for you, there are tons of other options that would serve as great hobbies after college.
If you enjoy sports, maybe consider joining a sports league. Many sports have recreational townwide leagues that you could join to meet people. Sports like tennis, softball, basketball, or even golf could be fun to join, a great way to meet others, and you can get in some exercise too.
Another league that is not sports related, is joining a Junior League. Junior Leagues are volunteer groups that help out around the community and provide mentorship for younger members. If you are looking for a way to get involved in your community as well as find people to look up to, maybe a local Junior League is for you!
Sign Up For A Class
A slightly more expensive way to find new people to hang out with who have similar interests as you, is to sign up for a class. Depending on where you live, there are probably varying amounts of classes near you. Start with thinking of something you wish you knew more about. Then do a few google searches to see if a class to learn more exists near you!
I personally joined a pottery class at my local art studio. Now I’m in my 3rd session of 7 week classes, and I know how to use a pottery wheel pretty well to make what I want. I’m in Facebook groups to learn about what glazes to layer to create the most beautiful colors on my pieces. I personally think that hobbies make a person more interesting, so I love hearing about other people embracing and learning more about what they are interested in.
I would also recommend looking into the classes your local library offers to see if there is anything for free or low cost that might interest you. There are so many classes out there to inspire you! Whether you want to learn how to code, sew, do archery, garden, rock wall climb, ride horses, or whatever interests you, somewhere out there is the perfect class for you!
Volunteer
Another way you could answer the question of how to make friends after college, is to get involved in your community and volunteer. We touched on this a bit with the Junior League idea, but some people don’t have the time to commit to regularly volunteering every week or month. If there is a cause that you are passionate about, volunteering could be a great way to meet similarly minded people.
Join An App
Sadly, joining an app is currently the last resort to me, and many others. Meeting people online, whether for friends or dating, has been notoriously difficult in this day and age. The level of respect for others has decreased. People often ghost, never answer, or never want to meet in person. I’m currently in the process of searching for or creating a solution to this. With the amount of time we are online, it should not be this difficult to meet up with someone.
You can try the friends feature on Bumble or Hinge, but know you’ve been warned! Meeting people in general is hard, but at least you’ll get a response when talking to someone face to face.
Conclusion
How to make friends after college is becoming a harder and harder question to answer. You would think the internet would help, but it really doesn’t. People are used to the internet, where they can talk over text, so many people don’t have the small talk skills or confidence to go up to others in person.
Leave a Reply