Sorry for the wall of text! tl;dr: You’re doing fine, and you have plenty of options to flesh out the remainder of your college experience. Relax, take a breath and open your eyes to the world around you on campus.

So I wouldn’t say I’m quite on the opposite end of the spectrum from you in how my college experience went, but mine was pretty different.

I started in one major, completely switched and went to tech, got an internship, ended up dropping out and somehow managed to make a decent career. I’m not much of a party person and never was, so I didn’t make a ton of friends, but the few I did make I still have.

By many metrics, some would call my experience a failure as I didn’t get a degree and didn’t get “the college experience.” I would say that while my coursework was mostly a waste of time, the overall experience was good.

So let’s start with the positives of where you’re at now. You’re studying, you’re close to getting your degree, you sound like you will have minimal to no student loan debt…this is great! You are getting those doors opened up for you without extra shackles. Keep this in mind, and even if all else doesn’t pan out, this is proof that your college experience wasn’t a complete waste.

Now if we look at the other two main parts of the college experience, the social and career building aspects - let’s break these down and what you can do about them. Let’s start with career, as this will directly impact your future outside of school.

Have you done any internships in a field related to your studies? If not, apply now. Get that under your belt. Internships will be your golden ticket to actually breaking into your career, because they show you have experience. If you’re not working already, it will require balancing your internship with your classwork in a way that would be new, but that will set you apart from your competition when it comes to applying for jobs. For me, the internship made the difference because I had already done the thing. The internship can also help with the social part. Speaking of which…

Full disclosure, I am very much an introvert, so social interaction is NOT my strong suit. lol my best friend from college and I joke that he adopted me as his pet introvert. That being said…

As for social experience - fortunately, there are numerous things you can do to make connections with fellow students on campus. You just have to place yourself in the right place at the right time. Here’s the icing on the cake - you already have people you are regularly interacting with on a daily basis in your classes, and given they are in your classes there is also a good chance there are common interests there. Say hello! See if you can set up a study group with your classmates. Doing so gives you an opportunity to get to know your classmates outside of your classes, and can lead to building up friendships with some of them.

Wander through the buildings on campus and watch out for bulletin boards. Often campus organizations or clubs will post flyers for upcoming events, and these can be a good place to network with peers that you may not otherwise run into. Additionally, you may be able to reach out to your student government or academic advisor to request pointers on groups you can potentially join to help with this too.

Or maybe you are walking around and you stumble onto some kind of event going on. If it’s open to the campus, join on in. Stand next to someone and tell them what you think of the event, or ask them what they think of it. It gives you a way to start a conversation.

If you’re an introvert like myself, those suggestions above will be uncomfortable, but that is okay. It’s the tradeoff for making those connections, and it will pass.