Most international students feel socially isolated in their first months abroad. Here are five practical approaches that actually build friendships: student clubs, volunteering, language exchange, roommate relationships, and online communities.
.png)
The first few months abroad can feel surprisingly lonely. You are in a new city, surrounded by people and yet building genuine friendships takes far longer than you expected. This is common. Research consistently shows that international students experience higher rates of social isolation than domestic students, and the gap has widened since 2020.
Loneliness affects more than your mood. A 2024 study of over 600 international students in Canada found that 55% were at risk of depression and around 50% were at risk of an anxiety disorder. Two thirds of international students in Australian research reported experiencing loneliness or isolation, particularly in the early months.
Friendships do not form on their own. They form through repeated, low-pressure contact over time. The approaches below are designed to create exactly that.
Source: International Journal of Translational Medical Research and Public Health — Social Isolation and International Students | Taylor and Francis — Mental Health and Wellbeing of International Students in Australia
Joining a club is the most reliable route to meeting people you have something in common with. Shared activity removes the pressure of having to generate conversation from scratch. You just show up, do the thing, and talk to the people around you.
Research published in the Journal of Studies in International Education found that participation in extracurricular activities led to measurable increases in host-national friendships over the course of a single semester. Students who joined clubs reported stronger social networks and higher satisfaction with their overall university experience.
Choose clubs that meet regularly, not just once or twice a semester. Frequency matters. Friendships form through repetition, and a club that meets weekly gives you seven or eight contact points per semester with the same group of people.
Look beyond clubs that reflect your existing identity. A Chinese student joining only the Chinese student association will meet people from home. That has value. Joining a photography club, a debate team, a hiking group, or a cooking society puts you in the same room as domestic students and other internationals who share a specific interest. Those friendships tend to run deeper than ones built on shared nationality.
Most universities publish a full list of clubs at orientation. If the club you want does not exist, many universities allow students to start one with a small number of interested members.
Source: ScienceDirect — Intercultural Connectors: Extra-Curricular Activities and International Student Friendship Networks | Fredonia University — Why You Should Join a Club on Campus
.png)
Volunteering gets you off campus and into the local community. It builds a different type of social connection than clubs, because you are working alongside people who are not students.
Research on international student volunteerism found that students who volunteered reported higher levels of cultural adjustment and more meaningful social interaction than those who did not. Volunteering created a sense of belonging and inclusion that was harder to replicate in purely academic settings.
Practical benefits stack on top of the social ones. Volunteer work builds Canadian, Australian, or UK experience on your resume. It improves your understanding of local workplace culture. It gives you references from the community, not just from academic supervisors.
Start with your university's volunteer office or student union. Most campuses maintain a list of community partners looking for student volunteers. Local food banks, animal shelters, libraries, community gardens, and arts organisations are consistently open to new volunteers and easy to access without a car.
One commitment per week is enough to start. Consistency matters more than hours.
Source: Frontiers in Psychology — Volunteering, Resilience, and Social Integration in International Students | SAGE — Fostering International Students’ Sense of Belonging through Experiential Activity
.webp)
A language exchange pairs you with someone who speaks the language you are learning, in exchange for you teaching them yours. If you are a Cantonese speaker learning English in Canada, you pair with an English speaker learning Cantonese or Mandarin. You meet regularly, split the session, and each person practises.
The social dynamic works because both people are in a learning position. You are helping each other, which builds the kind of trust that regular casual conversation rarely creates.
Most universities run formal language exchange programmes through the international office or the language faculty. Tandem, HelloTalk, and Meetup also host language exchange events, both online and in person.
Language exchange is also a practical tool. Stronger English fluency directly improves your experience in seminars, group projects, and professional contexts. Students who improve their spoken English through regular practise report feeling more confident in academic settings within two to three months.
The friendship often outlasts the language goal. Because you meet regularly, share stories, and rely on each other for help, many exchange partners form genuine cross-cultural friendships that last well beyond graduation.
Source: Tandem — Research-Backed Benefits of Language Exchange | Go Overseas — How to Make Friends While Studying Abroad
If you live in university residence, your roommate is the person with the most contact hours with you by default. That contact alone creates the conditions for friendship, but it needs a small amount of active effort to develop.
Introduce yourself properly in the first week. Ask about their background, their programme and what they like to do outside of study. Most people respond warmly to genuine interest. A short conversation in the first few days sets a tone for the rest of the year.
Set clear expectations early on practical matters: sleep schedules, guests, shared spaces, and noise. When expectations are clear, small frictions stay small. When they are unspoken, small differences grow into ongoing tension.
Spend some time together outside the room. A shared meal, a short walk, or watching something together builds a different kind of familiarity than coexisting in the same space. It does not need to be much. One shared activity per week is enough to move from polite strangers to actual friends.
For students with international roommates: cultural differences around directness, privacy, and social norms are real and worth discussing openly. The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire's guide on international roommate relationships recommends avoiding yes/no questions and using open-ended questions instead, as many cultures communicate differently in direct answer situations. Curiosity is more useful than assumptions.
Source: University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire — Guide for Students with International Roommates | University of Cincinnati — Tips for Communicating with Your Roommate
.webp)
Online communities serve two distinct purposes for international students: building a social foundation before you land and maintaining connection once you are there.
Before arrival, most universities have Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups, or Discord servers organised by intake year and programme. Join them early. Introduce yourself. Ask questions. By the time orientation week arrives, you will already recognise names and faces, which makes the first days significantly less intimidating.
After arrival, online communities work best as a supplement to in-person connection, not a replacement. Discord servers focused on international students, such as International Study Buddies with over 700,000 active members, give you access to a global peer network for advice, language practice, and community. Reddit communities for your specific city or university are useful for local tips and meetups.
Country-specific and city-specific groups on Facebook and Meetup organise regular in-person events for international residents. These are worth attending in the first semester, when social momentum is easiest to build and the activation energy required is at its lowest.
One practical note: time spent in online communities with people from your home country can slow your local social integration if it becomes the primary social outlet. Use online communities to build confidence and information, and keep showing up in person.
Source: Study International — Best Discord Servers for International Students | Prodigy Finance — Making Friends While Studying Abroad
Where you study shapes who you meet and how quickly you settle in. Campus size, city culture, student diversity, residence options, and the strength of international student support all affect your social experience as much as your academic one.
EduviXor’s AI Advisor, Stella, can give you an initial sense of which programmes and locations tend to suit your profile. It is a starting point to open the conversation and surface options worth exploring further.
For students who want a deeper look, our consultants consider the full picture: your target country, the social environment at specific institutions, the support structures available to international students and how all of that fits with your academic goals. That level of detail goes beyond what any initial assessment can surface.
If you are still deciding where to study and want to make sure social fit is part of the equation, a free discovery call with our team is a good place to start.
.webp)
.png)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
