How to fit in better at a new sixthform college

[stranded247]

I moved to a new sixthform college in the fall, its a huge place, the biggest I've ever been to, there is roughly about 250 people in my year. Before this I went to a small private girls school with about 60 girls in my year. Basically whilst I fit in, I have a group of girls to hang around with at lunch (+friendly aquaintances who I'll smile at and say hi to) and but I have little in common with these girls, I can tell as nice as they are that they arn't my type of people and nor am I theirs. I am not saying this out of insecurity, I just simply can tell this sort of thing. Anyway I decided not to make fast friendships because they usually fade just as quickly as they started so I've just been sort of friendly and such but I have no actual friends, just people who I am friendly with, I'm not a loner by any means. However its my second term here and although I'm only here for about a year and 8 months I'd like to make some decent friends I just don't know how to go about it. Especially as its quite a cliquey place, I mean there are about 80 new kids and the rest of the students all went to middle school together and such and have been friends since the age of 11. I would really like to find my little niche in this place and have some friends who I could hang out with socially. I mean this is partially my fault as when I first started at this college I was invited to about 3 parties in a row and each time I was sadly genuinely busy which made me look stand-offish and so I havn't been invited again. I also am involved in extra-curriculars such as debating, I really like the people in my debate society so I guess I should try to work on that. There is a nice guy who sometimes messages me on facebook chat from there and he's often quite nice to me but we're not really friends but I'd like it if we were and when I'm ill he always messages me to ask me where I was. So I guess I could build on that, I'm just wondering how I could fit in more because I don't feel very settled if I'm honest. At my old school it took me about two years before I found real friends, maybe I'm just slow with friendship but I'd like to up my pace and fit in a bit more. School starts tomorrow too so any advice given today would be greatly appreciated.

[mr_iwi]

One thing you could try is talking to people you are in classes with and working together on homework. You could start the conversation by asking them what they think of whichever essay, and if they say it's a pain in the * * * * then say you are having the same problem. Studying together doesn't initially seem like the best way to socialise, but that leads to sitting together in class, then at lunch, then being introduced to new people and so on.

 

Extra curriculars are the way forward. Perhaps trying a sport as well as debating could be a possibility. I'm sure very few people do both, so you'll give yourself the opportunity to break into two cliques.

 

Good luck.