You'll talk to a LOT of people in your first few weeks at uni. To make an impression, you need to perfect the art of small talk.
In case you're in any doubt as to where to start, here are my stock questions for small talk/introductions.
THE BASICS
What's your name?
Where do you come from?
What course do you do?
THE UNI-RELATED QUESTIONS
What halls are you in?
What have you been to/going to in freshers' week?
What societies have you joined/will you be joining?
How are you finding uni so far?
THE ABJECT DESPERATION QUESTIONS
Have you come straight from school or did you have a gap year?
What's your timetable like?
Obviously, some of these questions are weaker than others. Just relax, go with the flow and if you clearly don't click, make your excuses and leave. There are plenty more people to talk to, why waste your time on someone who will only depress/annoy/anger you? Some of the questions will inevitably lead to you discovering that it is a really small world out there. For instance, a guy on my course who has now become one of my best mates from uni, lives just up the road from me. I'm talking scarily close - but I'd never met him before uni. As well as this, when talk between my new flatmate and I turned to our home county of Kent, it transpired that he had attended the same foam party as I had just the previous week. (Stop judging me for going to a foam party, you cheeky so and so).
If you get to the stage of adding people on that social menace we all love to hate, Facebook, the "mutual friends" feature can also throw up some scary social connections. Who knew that an old friend of mine from school was good friends at university with one of my housemate's best friends from home until the Facebook feature told us so?
The seven degrees of separation really must exist...
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