The first term abroad has a shape. What happens across the first three months, why the first friends rarely last, the first winter, and what to do in reading week.
Nobody tells you that the first term has a shape, so when it goes flat in the fifth week it feels like something has gone wrong with you specifically. It has not. The curve is close to universal, and knowing where you are on it is more useful than any amount of advice about being outgoing.
01The first three months, roughly
Weeks one to three. Everything is loud, everybody is available, and nobody has a group yet. This is the only period in the year when you can talk to anyone without a reason. It is also the period when you are most jet lagged, most disoriented and least yourself, which is why so much of it gets wasted. The task here is not to find your people. It is to generate a large number of loose contacts and to say yes to things you would normally weigh up.
Weeks four to six. The noise stops. Timetables settle, the events calendar thins out, and everyone else appears to have sorted themselves into groups. This is the flat patch, and it is where most people conclude they have failed. In reality the groups you are looking at are three weeks old and much less solid than they look from outside.
Weeks seven to twelve. This is when the term actually decides things, because repetition starts doing its work. The person you have now sat next to in a seminar nine times is a different proposition from the person you met at a party once. Almost every friendship that lasts into second term is built in this stretch, not in the first fortnight.
02Why the first friends are rarely the lasting ones
The people you attach to in week one are chosen by proximity and panic: whoever was in the corridor, whoever spoke first, whoever was as lost as you. That is a completely reasonable way to survive a fortnight and a poor way to choose a friend, because none of it involves anything you have in common.
The useful way to think about the first group is as scaffolding. It holds the building up while the building is being made, and then it comes down, and that is not a failure of the scaffolding. Moving on from your first group in October or November is normal and it happens in both directions. Do not spend the term defending a group that formed before you knew anyone.
The practical implication is to keep your first contacts loose and to keep collecting after week three, which is exactly when most people stop.
03The first winter
If you have moved somewhere that gets dark at four in the afternoon, the second half of term is a different climate from the first, and it arrives at the same time as the first assessments. Three things make it materially easier.
Move your social life indoors before you have to. Anything that depends on being outside in the evening will quietly stop in November. Something with a room and a heater will not.
Get out in the light at the start of the day rather than the end. The available daylight in winter is in the morning, and a walk to campus counts.
Book the thing in advance. Winter plans made on the day do not survive contact with the weather. Plans fixed a week ahead mostly do.
04Reading week, and the point when halls empty
Halls empty at reading week and again at the end of term, because domestic students go home and you probably cannot, or cannot afford to. It is the sharpest week of the term for a specific structural reason: your entire social infrastructure was the building, and the building has emptied.
The move is to arrange it in advance, in the week before, while people are still around. Ask directly who else is staying, because there are always others and they are also assuming they are the only one. Then fix one thing per day: a meal, a walk, a museum, a library session with another person in it. A week with five small fixed points is an entirely different week from an unstructured one, and the difference is made by asking in advance rather than on the day.
It is also the best week of the year to see the city rather than the campus, since everything is quiet and cheap and you have no seminars.
05What carries into second term
Two things, in practice. Anything you attend weekly and have now attended eight or nine times, and any individual you have seen outside the context you met them in. Everything else tends to evaporate over the break. If you want a specific task for the last fortnight of term, it is to convert two acquaintances into people you have done something with elsewhere, and to fix one thing for the first week back.
Related Questions
Why does term go flat around week five?
Because the opening period is artificially social and then stops. Timetables settle, the events calendar thins, and the groups formed in the first fortnight become visible from outside. Those groups are only three weeks old and much less solid than they look. Most lasting friendships form in weeks seven to twelve, when repetition starts to accumulate.
Are the friends you make in the first week the ones you keep?
Usually not. The first group is chosen by proximity and panic rather than by anything in common, and it works as scaffolding while you build something else. Moving on from it in October or November is normal and it happens in both directions. Keep collecting contacts after week three, which is when most people stop.
What do I do during reading week when everyone goes home?
Arrange it the week before, while people are still around, and ask directly who else is staying, because there are always others assuming they are the only one. Then fix one small thing per day: a meal, a walk, a museum, a study session with another person in it. It is also the cheapest and quietest week to see the city rather than the campus.
How do I handle my first winter abroad?
Move your social life to formats that work indoors before the weather forces it, since anything depending on being outside in the evening will stop in November. Take your daylight at the start of the day rather than the end. And book plans a week ahead, because winter plans made on the day rarely survive.
KF.Social
