How to make friends at uni in London

At a campus university, halls, the library and the students' union are all in one place, so you bump into the same people constantly. In London your lectures might be in Bloomsbury, your flat in Stratford and your part-time job in the West End. You can meet lots of people and still not see any of them twice.

So the aim in your first year is simple: find two or three places where you see the same faces every week. Everything else builds from there.

It also helps to remember that almost everyone feels unsure at the start, including the people who look confident in the first week. Most of them would be glad if you said hello first.

The first few weeks are when everyone is open to meeting new people, so it's worth saying yes to almost everything, even if you're tired or it isn't quite your thing.

Lots of students find their friends end up being whoever they were put in a flat with, and nobody else. Join one society that has nothing to do with your subject, ideally one that meets weekly: a sports team, a choir, a drama group or a volunteering project. Regular sessions do the hard work for you, because by the fourth week the same people already feel familiar.

Use the city too. London's free museums, parks and markets make easy plans to suggest to someone you've just met. Our guide to things to do alone in London doubles as a list of good first meet-ups.

When you get on with someone from a seminar or a society, suggest something small and specific straight away: a coffee after the lecture, revising together in the library, a walk to the market at the weekend. 'Shall we get lunch after this?' is one of the easiest invitations there is, and it's how a lot of uni friendships start.

A part-time job can help as well. Working shifts alongside the same people every week is repeat contact, and colleagues from a café or shop are often students from other universities, which widens your circle further.

If you live at home and travel in, it's easy to arrive for lectures and leave straight after. Try to give yourself one long day a week on campus where you stay for whatever is on in the evening. Look for societies that meet at lunchtime or straight after classes, and find out whether your students' union runs a group for commuter students.

Making friends closer to home helps too. If you live in Croydon, Ealing or Redbridge, say, the people you see on a Saturday morning might live five minutes away rather than an hour across town.

If you're older than most of your course, freshers' events can feel aimed at someone else. Look for the mature students' or postgraduate society, which usually has a calmer social side, and for course-based groups like reading groups, research seminars and departmental talks, where conversation comes naturally.

Many mature students build their social life partly outside uni, through running clubs, evening classes or volunteering in their own neighbourhood. That's a perfectly good way to do it.

Postgraduates often have the advantage of smaller cohorts. Suggest a regular coffee or a monthly drink for your course group early on: once it's a habit, it tends to keep going for the whole year.

If you'd like to meet people beyond your uni, or you're living somewhere new and don't know anyone locally, an app can make the first step easier. On PingMee you post a status saying what you're up for ('Study break walk round Russell Square?'), see people nearby within the distance you choose, and send a ping. If they ping back, a private chat opens.

Nobody sees your exact location, only an approximate distance, and nothing private opens until you both accept. You choose what you're open to, such as new friends or networking, and it's free on iPhone and Android. See how meeting people nearby works, and keep first meet-ups public: our safety checklist has the basics.

Plenty of students don't find their people in the first term, and many meet their closest uni friends in second year or later. Feeling lonely early on is common, not a sign you've chosen badly. If it's weighing on you, your university's student support or wellbeing service is there for exactly this, and talking to them is a normal thing to do.

Second year is a good moment for a fresh start. Many people move out of halls into shared houses, new societies recruit again and course groups get smaller and closer. If first year didn't go the way you hoped, treat the start of the next one like a second freshers' week: say yes to things, join one new weekly group and suggest plans with the people you'd like to know better.