Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

Regardless of whether you’re naturally intro- or extroverted, there are a lot of advantages to building friendships and relationships while completing your studies. Generally speaking, university is a social place, and classes and seminars are great places to network. 

Everyone has heard some variation of the saying, “sometimes it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” This also holds true while completing studies because communication amongst other students in one’s classes and seminars can make studying and completing course work easier. Since the Pandemic, every student has been studying either completely online or in a hybrid setting the last two years and change but as of the 2022 fall term, Brock University is preparing a full return to campus. Building great relationships with fellow students, professors and teaching assistants isn’t just self-serving

The “how to” aspect of relationship building is very simple and straightforward. It is advisable, either before a lecture or seminar session starts, during a break, or after the class, to introduce oneself to the next person. Questions such as their name, where they are from and what their major is is a great “textbook” way of meeting people. Questions such as these are likely to be reciprocated. After this you might find yourself with a course buddy that you can bounce questions and notes off of or to be study partners with.

Not to mention, relationship building can help build study groups outside of seminars and classes, which can be efficient and more interesting than studying and completing course work alone. Communication with peers is also important because, oftentimes, there are course group chats on various social medias that are not affiliated with the university. Lots of information regarding the course gets passed around on these group chats, for example, a student may recommend a youtube video that helps with an assignment problem, etc. This is also a great way for one to share their ideas regarding coursework to their fellow coursemates. Just make sure you’re not breaking any rules when it comes to things like academic integrity and other course policies. Sharing ideas and thoughts is usually fine, but cheating definitely isn’t.

Strong communication and great relationships isn’t only important with fellow peers, it is also useful with professors, teaching assistants and academic advisors. Although the goal isn’t to be annoying or irritating to course instructors, it is advisable for any student to use their professor’s office hours wisely to engage with lecture topics and other course-related things. Emailing a teaching assistant in regards to difficult assignments and communicating with one’s academic advisor about long term academic goals are also excellent ways to ensure academic success. Each and every one of these things show the student’s passion for their courses. They also ensure a student the best understanding they can get in each of their courses. 

All in all, building relationships with others and having great communication between peers, professors and TA’s are the best ways to stay ahead and stay focused on yourcourses. Although university classes, labs and seminars are mainly for learning and discussing new topics, they are also places for sharing ideas and brightening one-another’s minds even further. 

Building relationships and always communicating are the best way of ensuring success as a new student. The person who meets and engages people in lectures, seminars and the rest will always achieve academic success.