Making friends with English (or other U.K.) students?

Question

I was wondering is it easy to make friends with English students or other British students (i.e. Northern Irish, Scottish, Welsh) if you are a foreigner?

Will my fellow English classmates be interested in making friends with a foreigner or do they view foreign students as oddballs from a distant land?

What I mean is, are English students more interested in hanging out amongst themselves?

I'm primarily interested in the reponses of people who are in university or who have finished university just a few years ago. (If you could let me know how old you are or what your source is that would be great). No offense but I'm not interested in the response of someone who is 60 as it would not be relevant to this situation (unless maybe you are a uni professor).

background info. : I'm 25, going to start a masters in the city of Bristol, I'm a female overseas student and language will not be barrier as I'm fluent in English.

Answer 1

i'm currently at univeristy, i'm 20 years old, and overseas students are a common site in UK universities, on my course out of 150 people there are about 30 who are from overseas. So it really won't be a shock to the system to anyone to have another overseas student here.

i can't answer for everyone, but i have no problems in making friends with foreign students

in fact my girlfriend is a student from the United States

Answer 2

I'm english a i think most of my friends are welsh! I'm not bothered who i hang out with generally, as long as they're nice! :) Infact i don't even notice, theres so many people with such a variety of accents you kind of learn to ignore the accent and pay more attention to the person. Theres generally people from all over the world that i get along fine with, so do all the other students.

BTW I'm a 20 year old University Student!

Answer 3

I love making friends with foreign people! Learning about other people's cultures and languages is fascinating! If I were you I wouldn't worry about not being able to make friends, people should find you really interesting!

Answer 4

There have been a lot of overseas students on my course for the past three years and I've made friends/got on well with every one of them that I've met and I've definately never viewed them as 'oddballs!' Personally, I think it's very refreshing in seminars to have a different cultural opinion and hear the differences on certain subjects, in my case literature, that people have. I'm sure you'll have no problem whatsoever, as long as you make an effort to become friends with people just as much as they make the effort in return, regardless of where anyone comes from. Everyone, even people from this country, will be in the same position of not knowing anyone and everyone will be hoping that someone will talk to them! You do find that the situation of being in a seminar does mean you have to talk to people, and you'll do it without even realising and make friends in no time. If you go with a positive attitude, I'm sure you'll be absolutely fine! Good luck! :)

Answer 5

i know u said uni but i wanted to answer anyway :P

im 18 and i was in my first year at A-Levels when 3 girls came over as foreign student, 2 were from geramny and the other was from Finland.

as it was the beggining of a levels when they joined i didnt really talk to anyone in my classes as all of my friends had chosen differant subjects, to begin with i shunned them as i am not a confident person when making new friends but the teachers at the time kept grouping us together, and i soon grew to know them, not many others became friends with them apart from myself and a few of my friends, we pretty much stuck together for the entire year they were here.

honestly i dont think students will be interested in hanging out with foreigners, though once they got to know them all would be well. i have to say that i grew to be best friends with the girls and i am still in weekly contact with one of them even thought its been 2 years and i havent seen them for 14 months.

im not sure at the minute but i dont think there are many students at uni who are 25 most leave at the age of 23, but there will be a few, i suppose at that age as well that people become more open to others, i think under the circumstances there is no harm in trying, and you can only benfit from your experience over here