Making Friends Abroad

In my experience, making new friends this semester hasn’t been too different than my experience at Amherst - in fact, making friends with other Americans in my program has been pretty simple since everyone’s in a similar boat and looking to meet new people. On the other hand, I’ve found that making friends with locals is extremely difficult due to a number of reasons. I obviously don’t have any prior experience with this, but I think having some form of consistent contact with local folks, such as being in the same intramural sport or club of some sort, makes becoming friends with them even a realistic goal. Otherwise, it’s difficult enough with the language and cultural barrier that it’s pretty much impossible. I’m sure this could also vary depending on the city or country where you decide to study abroad, but this has just been my experience in the big city that is Paris.

As for my American friends, I’ve mainly been sticking with the people that I’ve been able to see on a regular basis, which generally just means people that I share classes with. I guess this is common sense, but unless you really click with someone, I think it’s pretty hard to develop a good relationship with them if you don’t share any classes at all since students in my program live all across Paris and a lot of people travel or do their own thing on the weekends as well. In short, I’ve found that it can be pretty hard to get ahold of people this semester abroad, so bringing your best self and energy to classes is a good place to start.

This obviously isn’t too different than socializing at Amherst or really any social setting, but I think that setting a good impression in class or at the campus center becomes even more important because when you’re abroad, you might not be living close to others, getting food at the same place, or going to the same parties and events as you would at Amherst. Additionally, I’ve attended as many events set up by my program as I can since they have lots of potential to be fun and/or interesting, and they’re also just a good opportunity to talk to and meet some peers outside of class.

On the topic of close friends, you might have heard that when you’re abroad, you can make lifelong friends since you’ve shared such a unique experience. I think that there’s some validity to this, and I know that I’ll continue to check in and keep up with some of the buddies I’ve met in Paris even after the semester ends. This semester has been super fun, and I’ve definitely been able to have some nice memories with the people I’ve met in Paris, so I wouldn’t want to just forget about all of that once I leave. 

However, in terms of developing really close, lifelong friends, I think this is pretty rare from just one semester abroad. I could see how this is possible since you might be living with, going to class with, and even traveling with the same couple of people for the entire semester, but without that much face-to-face contact, I think this scenario of BFFs is really hard to have. I guess what I’m trying to say is all power to anyone hoping to study abroad in the future and make lifelong friends - I definitely believe it’s possible, but I just think it’s rarer or more difficult than I was told or believed going into the semester.

On another note, what is certainly going to be true is that you will have wildly novel and interesting experiences when you’re abroad. Furthermore, being around all these new people and friends will only make these memories more unique and memorable. So, even if I haven’t made any new BFFs to write home about, I still enjoy chatting or hanging out with the people that I’ve met here and making new memories with them all semester long.