Freshman Year friendships
Looking back at everything that happened in my freshman year, one thing stands out more than others – the friends I made. Every semester our school shuffles our classes the ones I bonded within that first semester are the ones that I count on when the going gets tough.
It turns out that a study done at Stanford published in 2017 concludes that there are two types of personalities identified, those who have high empathy and persons who score high in happiness. It turns out that those who have a more empathetic personality will be approached when someone is going through a tough time, this is probably why we are more particular when selecting who we will trust than who we will have fun based friendships with. Those fun-based friendships are sought when a distraction activity is needed. This study clearly shows that people instinctively know the difference between these two types of personalities. And during the freshmen year, each student takes on one of these roles.
An important conclusion drawn from this study is that in your freshman year you will form a group of friends, the more you trust this group, the less stress you will have during your study. And as we know, the less stress you have, the more successful you will be.
This means that the friendships you build during your first year of college can have a lasting impact on your success. Taking all this into consideration it’s no surprise that the friends I made in my freshmen year are still the ones I know I can rely on, or that they are the ones I always make an effort for.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blogpost are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of Phryme Magazine.