Incoming freshmen at ASU's Tempe campus start their year off surrounded by 57,000 strangers and meet an overwhelming amount of new people within the first few weeks of school. Not all of these new connections become lifelong friends.
Some students get stuck in bad roommate situations or don't hit it off right away with people on their floor. Immediately making a perfect friend group is usually not realistic, so where should students go to meet people?
"I would 100% say find out things that you might be interested in or even if there's a club or a small activity being hosted, just go to it, because you never know what you're going to like," Leah Holland, a sophomore studying nursing, said.
Clubs and organizations
ASU has more than 1,000 clubs and student organizations covering a variety of interests and topics. A student could go to the Swim Club at ASU on Monday and The Young Granny Arts Club the day after.
READ MORE: Crafting and knitting the way to young granny status
"I live on the Downtown Phoenix campus and I found that there's a run club they have at the Sun Devil Fitness (Complex)," Holland said. "I decided to go to that every single day or every single week, twice a week, and I was able to go on with a bunch of people and be a crazy runner with other crazy people."
Sports clubs like the ASUPD Running Club on the Downtown Phoenix campus can be a great way for students to continue their high school interests in college or pick up a new skill. While the running club does not compete, other sports clubs like Men's and Women's Water Polo at ASU do, and they even travel across the country for matches.
"You're able to share and relate to other people that you may have otherwise thought you would not have been able to have anything in common with," Holland said. "(When) running you could talk about your high school experience, what kind of races you're going to be doing that year or any progress you want to make towards your training or what your goals are."
Academic programs and networks
Another way for students to connect is through their academic programs, either within their major or college. Ava Perezalonso and Alexandra Amooi are both freshmen studying microbiology.
"We both did camp Barrett for Barrett students and that's where we met each other and then a couple of other people we know," Perezalonso said.
While Barrett, The Honors College hosts events for incoming students, other colleges on campus and Barrett also organize events throughout the year enabling students to connect with others who share similar educational goals.
"Maybe I'd put myself in a couple more clubs at the beginning to test it out, but otherwise I think what I did (to make friends) worked pretty well," Perezalonso said.
Fraternities, sororities, oh my!
Greek Life is also popular at ASU, with over 5,500 students involved with one of the 35 fraternities or 30 sororities on campus. These organizations have weekly chapter meetings and engage in group philanthropy weeks during the school year.
Amooi said she joined the sorority Delta Gamma at the start of her freshman year and ended up meeting a lot of people through her Panhellenic experience.
Outside of organizations, classes and lectures often have group projects which require students to work together in and after class.
"I feel like you also meet a lot of people in your lectures or labs based on who you're grouped with and sit next to," Amooi said. "I feel like I met a lot of people through that as well."
A resource provided by the University, which allows students to connect with new organizations is Sun Devil Sync. It hosts a list of upcoming social events and club meetings across all four campuses, as well as contact information for those organizations.
Between clubs, Greek Life, study groups, student government and academic programs there are many ways to connect with people at ASU.
"Put yourself out there, for sure," Amooi said.
Edited by Senna James, Sophia Braccio and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at allipper@asu.edu and follow @lippert_audrey on X.
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Audrey is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication with a minor in Spanish. This is her first semester with The State Press. She has also worked at Blaze Radio.
