Starting at an International School When Everyone Else Already Knows Each Other

There is a particular kind of confidence required to walk into a school where everyone else seems to know exactly what they are doing.

Established friendship groups aren’t necessarily closed ones.

• Everyone looks more settled from the outside

  On your first day, a group that has been friends for two years can look almost impossible to enter.

  They have inside jokes you don’t understand, stories involving people you’ve never met and approximately seventeen references to something that apparently happened on a school trip last year.

  That doesn’t automatically mean they don’t want anyone new around.

  There is a big difference between a friendship group being established and being closed.

  People naturally sit beside people they already know and continue conversations they started yesterday. From the outside, that can look like a giant sign saying NO VACANCIES when, in reality, nobody has actually decided that.

  And friendships at school aren’t fixed. Research following adolescents has found that new friendships and changing friendship networks are a normal part of school social life.

  So don’t decide what everyone thinks of you before they’ve had enough time to actually know you.

• You don’t need to find your people by Friday

  When we’re new somewhere, it’s easy to treat friendship like a task.

  Day 1: meet people. Day 3: find group. Friday: acquire best friend. Congratulations. Integration complete.

  Unfortunately, humans did not design friendship with a progress bar.

  Research on school friendships points to something much less dramatic: spending time together, communicating and simply having repeated opportunities to interact all help friendships develop.

  So instead of desperately trying to make friends, create opportunities to know people.

  Sit beside someone different. Stay for the conversation after class. Accept an invitation when you reasonably can. Join a club, sport or activity.

  MUN, drama, sport, music and other activities have another advantage: you already have something to talk about besides the fact that you’re new.

  Small interactions don’t feel important while they’re happening.

  But friendship is often built out of a lot of them.

• Your old life doesn’t need to disappear

  This matters particularly for international students.

  You can be excited about a new city and still miss your old friends. You can enjoy your new school while comparing it to your previous one. You can build a new life without pretending the old one stopped mattering.

  Those feelings don’t cancel each other out.

  Research on internationally mobile students has identified friendship and belonging as important parts of adjusting to a new school and country.

  You don’t have to choose between your old life and your new one.

  You’re allowed to keep people from one while gradually making room for people in the other.

• Things that feel enormous in Week One but probably won’t by November

  Eating lunch somewhere awkward.

  Walking confidently in completely the wrong direction.

  Forgetting someone’s name.

  Having absolutely no idea what everyone is laughing about.

  Running out of things to say.

  Spending one break wondering whether you should be talking to someone.

  When you’re new, small moments can feel much more important than they actually are.

  If someone seems quiet around you, it’s easy to assume they don’t like you. If one lunch feels lonely, it’s easy to imagine that every lunch will feel that way. An awkward conversation can suddenly feel like proof that you don’t fit in.

  But one strange day doesn’t predict the rest of your year.

  Most people are still getting to know you, and you’re still getting to know them. Friendships, routines and a sense of belonging take time to build.

  Give people, and yourself, more time than that.

• One day, you stop being the new student

  There probably won’t be a ceremony.

  It happens much more quietly.

  Someone automatically saves you a seat.

  You understand an inside joke because you were actually there when it started.

  A new student arrives and asks you where something is.

  And the people who once seemed like an established group you’ve somehow arrived too late to join?

  Eventually, you have history with them too.

  That is perhaps the most useful thing to remember when starting somewhere new:

  Everyone else’s friendships had a beginning as well.

  You haven’t missed your chance.