Student Perspective: Speed-Friending Helped Me Socialize During Stressful Semester

Senioritis turned me into a hermit - a very lonely hermit. My remaining DMACC coursework lives online, so I descend I-35 only three times a week, primarily for work.

"The lack of peer interaction is starting to get to me," I thought as I caught myself talking to my mirror-self one particularly quiet Sunday night. Since I recently emptied the last cardboard moving box, removing an "unpacking" timeslot from mydaily schedule, I figured I could spare an hour or two to form new platonic connections.

I signed up for "Speed-friending", unsure of what exactly it entailed but inferring from the context clues that it would surely be an efficient use of my limited time.

The idea - I quickly learned upon approaching the group seated in the high-top tables of DMACC Ankeny's Student Center - is to rotate through brief, timed conversations, and meet with several new people in less than an hour. To avoidpotentially awkward introductions, organizers provided slips of paper with suggested conversation starters.

I took a seat, my feet dangling from the tall bar chairs as I read the slips and waited for the chaos to commence.

The seats beside me slowly began to fill up, and with an iPhone buzzer sound, the Student Center erupted into conversation.

No surprise, the speed friending part went by fast.

I had about a dozen short, sweet conversations with various attendees. No two faces sitting across from me were alike: men, women, young, old, slightly shy, pleasantly chatty, freshmen, seniors. None of whom I'd seen around campus in theyear prior, when I lived much closer, attended in-person classes, every day and actually put effort into socializing.

Before I knew it, I'd made my way from one end of the long table to the other. The last timer buzzed, and a cart loaded with pizza boxes rolled up behind me.

That's when the real speed-friending began; the quick chats were just to break the ice. People started shuffling into impromptu groups.

I promptly joined a circle forming beside the pizza station and stuck around, chatting for another 45 minutes or so before heading home just ahead of rush hour.

I left Ankeny Campus smiling, with new contacts in my phone, and plans to hang out with a new friend next weekend.

For students juggling work, classes, and life off campus, making friends can feel surprisingly difficult. But sometimes all it takes is one conversation and a willingness to sit down at a table with someone new.

Turns out, the cure for senioritis-induced hermit-ism is surprisingly simple: leave the house, grab a slice of pizza, and talk to a stranger.